IPP Stories Project

On this page you can find stories about individual experiences and memories, IPP participants gathered at their IPP. If you would also have a story to share, please don't hesitate to write it up and send it to Jess (jess.wanless@gb.cisv.org).

"Diversity includes..." IPP - 2011, Canada

 My name is Dina Al Fadel, and this summer I participated in the IPP that took place in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. The theme was "Diversity includes..." and during the project we organised a weekend full of activities for families who had children with intellectual disabilities. The partner organization was New Brunswick Association for Community Living (NBACL), an organization that is helping people with intellectual disabilities. 

In the begining, we were all very nervous about this IPP. Most of us had never been in touch with people with intellectual disabilities. So, the whole project seemed quite a challenge; especially the fact thet we had to organise activities that the children would actually enjoy. Luckily, everything went great! Both the children and the parents really enjoyed our mini camp. I will never forget the time when the parents thanked us for everything that we had done; as they said, this weekend was their chance to relax, because they trusted us in taking care of their children. And, after all, this was not as difficult as we thought at first. After all, their smile was the only thing that could take our tiredness away. 

The reason why I had chosen to participate in the specific IPP was the fact that it was related to my field of studying. I' m studying nursing at the University of Athens, and I thought that getting involved with children with intellectual disabilities would be very helpful to me. Through this IPP, I learnt how to behave towards these children, what they like, what they don't like, how I can help them and their families... In spite of the fact that these children may have special needs, they also have the need to play, laugh and have fun. I' m sure that I will use this knowledge soon, as I' m attending a lesson for pediatric nursing this semester and I' m practising at the children's hospital next month. 

There are no words to describe the satisfaction I got while being with these children. 
Every minute was precious... or should I say priceless?!

Dina Al Fadel, Greece

"Community Intergration and Environmental Concern" IPP - 2010, Brazil

How IPP Vitoria changed my life: 

Like with many other things in my life, I didn’t plan very well for IPP Vitoria. I think I was the last participant to sign up – it was the 19^th of December when I got an email and two phone calls asking if I would still be interested in going. The project was due to start on the 29^th. So a mere 10 days before the project, I found myself getting ready to leave. There was the paperwork, there was the insurance, and there was the painful last-minute plane ticket. There were the pre-camp packs to read, the mosquito repellent to buy, the white dress to select for New Year’s. All in all, let’s just say my preparation could have been a lot better:

I think I was the only delegation without a flag and I was certainly the only delegate without staff gifts (sorry IPP staff!).

They must have been surprised when the delegate from Portugal arrived (late of course - granted that was the airline’s fault) speaking with a Brazilian accent. With a big backpack where everything fits, not even really knowing what the acronym CISV stood for.  

But you know what? It didn’t matter. In the end, it didn’t matter at all. True, I had to learn CISV mannerisms, I had to be introduced to CISV ideas and projects and I had to enquire about too many acronyms. But although I wasn’t a CISV aficionado, I shared the same enthusiasm and wish to make a difference. When you put a lot of like-minded people together in a CISV environment, you bring out the inner force of each and everyone present. You create a communal power, a bond so strong which in turn elicits our own individual strengths. In such an environment, we are capable of doing things we never imagined, of finding qualities in ourselves we didn’t before envision. We bond in extremely meaningful ways, we contribute to an incredible project, and we learn; we learn infinitively about ourselves and others.  Also, we find happiness. Among a group strangers we somehow feel like we have met before, we are the happiest we have ever been. And this happiness remains beyond the end of the project, strung together by the bonds created. It’s this memory of happiness that inspires us to keep striving for change and to keep believing. Believing in the transformative power in ourselves and believing that change is possible.

There are many ways in which IPP Vitoria changed my life:

- IPP Eletrobombas is my most active Facebook group.

- I am overly careful about recycling – I make sure even the broken showercap is properly allocated with the lixo seco.

- I lecture supermarket cashiers on their plastic bag vices: don’t double bag it! You know plastic bags kill dolphins by trapping their beaks?

- I shake my hands in a conversation when I agree with someone speaking.

- I am tempted to teach others in my lectures to lift one finger if you are first in line to speak, two if you are second, and so on successfully.

- I know the sound a cockroach makes when it is smashed by my sneakers.

- Perequete, R7, PDPDF, Kiitos, monito are now part of my vocabulary.

- I crave mangos.

- I crave the mango song.

- I met some of the most wonderful and inspiring people I have ever met in my life.

- I know what true happiness is like, without any constraints.

- I want to educate.

- I once again believe that I can speak in front of a crowd.

- I know that sharing is caring.

- I met the love of my life.

IPP Vitoria was a life changing experience and it was a turning point in my life. I was inspired to believe again and reminded that it’s okay to be an idealist. After all, only fools don’t have ideas.

Joana Hissa, Portugal

 "The Non- Wastable Waste" IPP - 2010, Mozambique

My learning experience as staff of IPP Mozambique

It is known that from all the CISV programs, IPP is the one that attracts more participants from outside our NGO. This is also an expected fact for many reasons, among them because it evolves adults, because it works with a different local organization, because it implies “doing” as a way of learning.

But there is something about the IPP Program that also attracts experienced CISVers. If you truly believe and identify with our Peace Education goals, if they were able to change who you are, and who you like to be, through the village, summer camp, interchange or seminar, you can’t help but want to “pop out the bubble”, even if for just brief moments, and practice, with your acquired tools, to learn even more.

I usually say as a joke that “once you go IPP you never go back”. But you know how jokes sometimes tell truths… at least for me this happened. I enjoyed so much being a participant in the IPP in Wattenmeer that I wanted to do it again. So when IPP Moçambique 2008 was being planned I wanted to be a participant but right away I realized that only my marriage was more important.. In 2009 the national board told me “So I know you where disappointed for not going to the IPP in Moçambique last year. I think some of its Portuguese participants are willing to help you staff a similar project, continuing from last year’s. Don’t you want to try out and see if we can do this?” I didn’t say “yes” automatically because what I really wanted was to be a participant. In my mind, to be a participant was the simplest way (i.e. no responsibilities way) to take full advantage of the program and simultaneously to have the best of times.  But I simply couldn’t refuse the challenge, and I’m very glad I didn’t.

I could now describe IPP Moçambique 2010 explaining how professional all the staff was, how fantastic were the participants or how or the Partner Organization turned out to be far more interesting than I imagined. I could even explore how passionate I became with the country and its people, but I prefer to share something not so evident. I prefer expose what I intimately registered back then to be the achieved personal experience.

It turns out that (obviously) I was wrong and staff do learn a lot from the most unpredictable stuff. It was the last week of the camp when I finally obliged myself to have some “alone time” for introspection and was able to put into words some of the amazing facts I discovered throughout the whole experience. My sentences were short and simple, there were no meanders, and they were also very demagogic. It seemed as I wanted to force myself not to forget a single felling.

It felt very good. I immediately wished that everyone could do the same. Then I remembered that CISV activity were you write a letter for yourself and then the staff mail it after some agreed years. And so we did. By now everyone got their letter and I hope they enjoyed to receive it as much as I did.

As promised, here is part of my letter (you know I can’t reveal everything..!):

“….

Be patient; accept that things don’t always go as you planned.

Do not stress with a problem when you can’t do anything to help.

Learn anything from anyone that knows what love is.

Take advantage of the comfort of your life.

Acknowledge anyone that tries to help you (even if it doesn’t).

…

Love and care for your family, they are your core.

Appearances “are” deceiving and not “can be”.

Religion is a f&%$ mess but spirituality is part of a fulfilled life.

RETURN!”

The first question that now arises is obvious. Am I being able to be all the things I wished to be in that lucid moment in Africa? No. But at least I got to the point of aiming my direction. And I sure got to the point that we never stop to be “works in progress”, and anyone, anywhere, can help me build who I am as long as I let them to.

Being camp director of IPP Moçambique 2010 was, without any doubt, my most meaningful CISV learning experience ever. So again I thank all the ones responsible for this to happen, back from the IPP founders to the generous sponsorship from “Marques da Silva” CISV Portuguese family.

Estamos juntos!

Maria Matos Silva, Portugal

"Wattenmeer" IPP - 2005, Germany

(My memoirs as a Geisha)

Actually, Hooge is not an island but a hallig so it would be more appropriate to call it “the mystery hallig Hooge”. Apparently, there is big difference between an island and a hallig. What that difference actually is would take us some time to grasp, if at all we would reach that enlightened point. The English translation of “hallig” in the Webster’s German-English dictionary is “a thingy, west of North Friesland in Germany”. Anyhow, it was all very exciting.

When we lost sight of the mainland it more or less just felt like floating on water so we went ünter deck to the restaurant area. There we met a tiny German girl, who was quite impressed that I was from Iceland, and she said she would name her horse after me and she also asked for my autograph ( most likely to know how to spell the name of her horse) . She waved to us relentlessly when we left the ferry at Hooge and then continued her trip with her grandparents to some other mystery hallig.

Halligs don’t have trees or mountains; they do on the other hand have small hills (Warfts) with houses on top of them. This hilltop-house-clustering is due to the fact that several times each winter the high tide of the Waddensea swallows the flatlands of the hallig. All that can be seen are just these houses on the very top of each hill, like they are swimming in the ocean, this aggressive act of nature this is called Stormflood. Not many know that the song by Iron Maiden “Run to The Hills” (the original name of that song was “Laufen Sie zu den Warften”) was in fact written about a particularly fast Stormflood in 1981 when several cows and a guy working at the Bike rent were lost to the engulfing high tide, never to be seen again.

However, in the summer halligs are quite safe.  Most of the time they are sunny, windy and strangely enough, packed with tourists. Now, Germany is densely populated industrial country, there is always a manmade structure to be seen unless there are trees in the way. So this interest in halligs is well justified, it's only an hour ferry ride from the mainland and the scenery is very different. Basically, they look just like small, very flat islands, with only saltwater flora, hills and the occasional cow. They also offer a variety of recreational activities, such as eating the local seafood, biking, extended beach walks (tide is so low that it is possible to walk kilometres from the shore) and writing postcards home. On Hooge, in particular, you also visit a nature centre named “Schutzstation Wattenmeer” (The Waddensea Preservation Centre). This nature centre was to be our partner organisation. It had an interesting exhibition about the nature on and around Hooge, educational programs for visitors, and much more.

Upon arrival at Hooge and the sad departure with the girl who one day will have horse named Hjörvar, we were greeted by Michael and Martin from the Schutzstation and we started our taxing walk to our new home, 10-14 minutes later we were there.

Our home, Hanswarft, was one of Hooge’s 5 Warfts. It contained some old brick houses, a cinema (only showing a film about the Stormfloods), some seafood restaurants, bars, kiosk, a SPAR, and thingy shops. In fact it was almost magical, like it was an in a 50s Disney film about a forgotten small village, on a hallig.

The participants would arrive later that day so we needed to work fast. However, when we finished stacking away our provisions there was not much more to be done. The other staff members had a meeting with the people from the Schutzstation and out of the kindness of my heart I took a nap since didn’t want to slow down the meeting with constant translation and I had been working hard the night before doing important PR work for CISV Germany.

The participants arrived, smiling, excited and exhausted after the enormous hike from the pier to Hanswarft. The IPP could finally begin. During the day we helped the Schutzstation with all our might. We repaired the bikes they used, we re-arranged their special garden with salt water flora, we made Arts and Crafts giveaways for fundraising, we went on life threatening missions to the Waddensea to collect seashells and almost getting caught by a the high tide and we did some wildlife monitoring (an ongoing project of counting worms and other creatures of nature at specific locations). Some day’s people had to get up at the crack of dawn to be able to catch the low tide for the monitoring project. We re-arranged the partner organisation’s front entrance by a lot of cleaning, brick lying and installation of a great welcoming sign.

Our main theme was Tourism and the role and importance of it in our modern society.

At night we’d have activities and lengthy discussions about theme related stuff and each delegation presented something on tourism in their own country. Then we had lengthy parties in the kitchen until the first batch of people had to catch the low tide.

Two weeks was a bit too short, we needed that extra week to really sink our teeth in the theme. Everything was perfect; we had great co-operations with the partner organisation across the nation. The people at the Schutzstation, some of the islanders, and the participants were all extremely enthusiastic about the project, the theme and everything just worked out.   In the words of the master “there is no such thing as perfection” but this came as close to it as is possible."

"People with disabilities & society" IPP - 2004 Canada

Global Village IPP - 2003 USA

"I went on the It takes a Global Village IPP in Detroit in 2003, the project was about homelessness, and was run in conjunction with the Howell nature centre. Our task was to build a Thai house in the style of disadvantaged people who lived in Thailand, but before we got down to the building of the house, weeding of the gardens, mudding a hut and building a goat pen (boy were we busy!) We had to camp out in different size groups with differing amounts of food, and in different shelters found all over the world, the nepalese hut, the Native American house, and I can't remember what the last one was (sorry guys!) we had to cook our own dinners using the resources provided as well look after our 'babies' which were water balloons if they 'died' we had to go and sit in mourning for them for at least 15 minutes (I think)
So we happilly split up into 3 seperate groups of 4, 6, and 9 the biggest group had the least food and they also had 'twins' we managed to share our food between us with the larger group doing tasks (such as washing up) for the smaller groups to trade for food, although I remember a panic when Mitizis corn rice hit the floor, who knew dirt and rice could taste so good!
All of a sudden one of the twins sprang a leak - it was dying! everything was tried on this poor baby toothpaste, vaseline, sticking plasters and just when it looked like it was safe - the other one exploded in sympathy, so we had to sit in mourning in total silence, it was quite sad really. The rest of the night passed without incident (apart from kathys snoring :-) ).
We managed to finish the house, and the garden, and the goat pen and the mudding of the hut and we all had an amazing experience which I'm sure none of us will forget in a hurry :-) "

Heather 

"AIPPIN - Roots in Development" IPP - 2002 Brazil 

Novice Patch Adams in South Bahia

"We were all excited that day. We had to go to the hospital with the teens of the theatre group of Itubera (the town where we were doing the IPP) to do the clowns and make the patients in the hospital smile. For the teens it was not the first time they’d done it, but we inexpert CISVers did not know anything about how to make people who are really sick smile and laugh – the only thing we knew was the movie Patch Adams and so we thought that maybe it was not so difficult – for Robin Williams it was so easy!!
We needed one hour to dress up: large pants; coloured T- shirts; strange hats; big shoes; red noses; big red smile and white faces with big black eyebrows and then we were ready to go. We were all trying strange, funny faces – cross eyes, tongue out, bottom up – something like Singing in the Rain! We were sure that everybody would have smiled!
We arrived at the hospital and started to follow our young expert teachers. They were really good, they were saying funny things in Portuguese (well – I think they were funny, but I really don’t know Portuguese very well) and the patients were laughing and smiling.
At the beginning I was just following them and trying to imitate them, but at one point I saw a kid in a bed, he was alone and he was really sad, so I thought “This is my moment! I will make this kid laugh and smile and he will be very happy and I will feel so useful and proud!” So I went close to him, I put my hand close to my ears, I crossed my eyes, I put my tongue out and I start to make a strange noise with my mouth. The kid looked at me very surprised and I thought “now he will start laughing”, but after a moment he started crying and there was no way to make him stop. I looked around: nobody was there. . . I needed somebody to help me, but nobody was there – I tried two other stupid faces, but the result was even worse. I didn’t know what to do – and I decided to run away! I spent the rest of the day in the hospital hiding behind the others: I didn’t feel proud, I didn’t feel useful and I would have liked to take the first plane to Italy and hide myself in my bed for a month.
One of the teens saw me with that depressed expression and he came to me saying in Portuguese something like “It’s not easy to be a clown for the first time” and he was smiling. I smiled too, thinking that I was learning something really important. I came there with the thought that I could give them something, that I could teach them something, and now they were teaching me humility and patience, very simply, without thinking they were better than I was.
We went into the hospital again, the next week – I didn’t try to do a miracle, I was just smiling and following my teachers. I don’t know if I was good, but at least nobody started crying.
It’s not easy making people smile when they are sick, it’s something that you learn little by little, with patience and humility."