We are nearing the organization´s first anniversary here at Recontar in Florianopolis.  Like a small child, the change from birth to year 1 is awe-inducing.   

It has been a whirlwind of activities, laced with small frustrations and big lessons professional and personal.

One of the lessons that has crystallized over the last month, is that the direct work at Recontar is the meeting of two very distinct cultures. 

On the one hand, we have a group of volunteers (psychologists, educators, dentist, nutritionist, arquitect, engineer, craft-makers) and small, modestly-paid committed staff (social worker, arquitect, artesan).

On the other hand, we have the families we are supporting.

Each Tuesday morning, the small team of staff and large group of volunteers set up their nutrition, oral health, social assistance stations in Friendship House, across the road from the Children´s Hospital.   

This group of 10 is made up mostly of women, with the occasional male volunteer.  They are all between 20 and 40 years of age. Only those over 30 have children and although one of their children has a rare heart problem, the overall health of all of their children is good.

And then there are the families we support.  Again, this group of 10 is made up of mostly women, with the occasional father participating.  They are between 18 and 35 years of age.  All of the mothers of course have children, from the 18 year old who left a children´s home at 17 to the 35 year old who has a young baby at home and two small children in care. All of them have children with health difficulties.

The volunteers are all educated to high-school or university level and from middle-class backgrounds.   The mothers´ education levels on the other hand are very low, with many either illiterate or functionally illiterate.  

The volunteers are punctual, participate in monthly team meetings and prepare for the families - cut and prepare crafts materials, prepare donations of toothbrushes and hygiene kits, prepare healthy, organic food, research housing projects etc.

The mothers are less homogenous in their behavior.  Some who have been in the programme for a few months reliably come to each meeting, but many need to be cajoled into participating:  cajoled into getting the bus, which Recontar pays for, and reminded constantly of dates. They often miss the meetings because of a variety of excuses, some plausible and par for the course such as the illness of the child but many excuses are questionable and evasive.      

During the last eight months, it has happened one time that the volunteers and full team of 10 people were all ready for the mothers and children and only one mother turned up.   A mass of well-intentioned energy  - all dressed up with nowhere to go.

There are many factors at work to make these two groups, though similar in number, gender and age, so different in terms of commitment, health and wellbeing.   I hint at some of them here – different upbringings and education levels but there are a plethora more, including drug abuse,  income levels, levels of self-esteem and possibly service-related factors that we are investigating too.  

There is a sense of abandonment of these young mothers that is day-by-day being transmitted to their children.  Abandonment by themselves, by their families, public support and seemingly by the Gods.  

One of our challenges at Recontar is to manage this difference in cultures.   Keeping the volunteers engaged, when family participation is unpredictable is a challenge that I had not expected.  Motivating volunteers, without the tools of remuneration or extensive training opportunities is a crash-course in psychology. 

Why do these volunteers give of themselves, when they receive nothing materially?   And why are some of the mothers so hesitant to give of their time and effort, when they receive services, food, medicines, clothes, furniture?

It turns on its head the assumed wisdom that receiving is more appealing than giving.

Perhaps part of the puzzle can be answered by Vera, the Rio doctor who set up the first pioneering service of this kind in Rio de Janeiro in 1991. She says that in a world of strong divisions such as Brazil, we work for social inclusion  - Social Inclusion of the Rich (as well as the poor).  

This first year of Recontar shows me this clearly.   When we volunteer, we are more integrated into society; we are taking some responsibility for its more unjust situations like the illnesses of children.  For this engagement, we receive a sense of peace, a sense that we are doing our bit.  Rather than looking for gratitude from the families we support, perhaps we should instead offer them gratitude.   

The dynamic from another day´s activity comes to mind.  We all stand hand in hand, right hands downwards, giving energy to the person next to us and left hand upwards, receiving energy from the person next to us.   The coordinator says the words:  we hold hands and give and receive energy in this way to remember that we are never so rich or self-sufficient that we cannot receive, nor so poor or vulnerable that we cannot give.   

It is this conjured image of these two groups hand in hand that is at the heart of Recontar´s potential for transformation of (little pieces of) this world we live in.