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45 Years Fighting for the World's Most Forgotten People With Steven Muncy · find your cause

• Joseph Smalzer: She came back about a week later and the same question. She said, Can I can I have some money? And my heart was a little bit hard. And I I found myself wanting to say, you know, I just gave you money last week. Why are you asking more money? I didn't say I just gave you last week. I just said, you know, I've given you money. Why do you need money today? And her response was, I have to bury my son. Yeah. Alrighty, so thanks everyone for tuning to this episode of Find Your Cause. Today we have Steve Muncy, who's the Executive Director of Community and Family Services International. Steve, thank you so much for coming today. Thank you, Joseph. It's great to be with you. All right. So I'm excited to get into this one because we don't typically interview organizations that have been operating as long as you have, or as long as you have. So before we do, what is the mission of Community and Family Services International? Okay, our our mission is to vigorously protect and promote human security and specifically that means the lives, the well being, and the dignity of people who are uprooted by armed conflict, persecution and disasters. So we're focused on refugees, internally displaced persons and stateless persons. I have a lot of questions on that, but before we do, Steve, ⁓ why you? Why is this something that you've dedicated a long a long period of your life and in current time towards? Well, I grew up in the US and at the ⁓ the time of the US when there was the Vietnam the war in Vietnam, the American war in Vietnam, as they said here in Asia, and ⁓ also the civil rights situation in the US. And so I developed at an early age a sense of social justice and an interest in that topic. And in nineteen seventy nine I started reading about the Vietnamese who had fled. I read about the Cambodians across the border who had survived the genocide. One point eight million out of five million people killed or died in that country situation. And I had never been outside the US. I ⁓ didn't speak a foreign language, I didn't know much about the world, but something about that situation drew me. And I applied for a volunteer program to come for two years to work with refugees from those countries. And I chose to come to the Philippines because at that time it was offering. asylum for refugees from these countries, but it was also persecuting its own people. It was creating refugees. So I found that an interesting place to work and a place to figure out how can you as a country protect and assist people from another country, yet at the same time persecute and push your own people out. So me like probably many of the listeners, when we think of the fallout of the American war in Vietnam, we don't think about the neighboring countries and the impact that it's had and the support that they may be provided. So ⁓ could you educate us a little bit on on post Vietnam war what that was like for the Philippines specifically? Sure. Well the the countries in the region experience people leaving Vietnam by boat and landing on their shores. And those countries at that point in time were rather poor and challenged with their own country situation. So it was a bit of a risk and a burden for them. For the Cambodians, hundreds of thousands were able to cross the border into Thailand. And ⁓ what what happened, particularly with the Vietnamese, was that other countries in the region started saying, No, we can't take any more and they were towing boats back to sea and the boats would collapse and people would drown. So it would it became necessary for the international community to talk about how can we as an international community help the region save lives. And it led to an agreement where countries of first asylum or the countries to which the Vietnamese fled would allow them to arrive and stay on the condition that they were moved to the Philippines and from the Philippines to resettlement countries. So it's an a great example of international cooperation, saved lots of lives, ⁓ restored human dignity, and has led to cooperation in those countries over many, many years. And then also if you could educate a little bit on on what happened in Cambodia and and also reiterate the stats of of the impact of that. You said one point eight million? Yeah, one point eight million out of about five million who who died ⁓ either from starvation or were killed. by the regime at that time. ⁓ in nineteen ninety two there was a peace agreement and an effort to rebuild Cambodia. Obviously this these kind of situations take many, many years, but I'm very pleased to tell you that Cambodia right now is a country that's on the move. ⁓ it's producing young people who are leading the nation and who are in fact the hope of the nation. So things change over time. And what when Yao initially started forty five or so years ago, as you mentioned, did you initially just work with refugees in the Philippines or like what was the the core of the folks that you were serving? And also what programming did you focus on initially? Well, you know, I ⁓ it was in the Philippines and it was in this refugee camp and those of us who worked in that camp lived in the camp. So every single day we got to see what was the situation of the refugees. And in nineteen eighty one some people in the camp ⁓ agreed with me that we needed to set up a program that would help particularly the survivors of the genocide, but also the survivors of sexual violence in the case of Vietnamese women who were attacked by pirates on the seas. And we didn't have any money. I was twenty three years old, I didn't know much of anything. ⁓ but we came together and we said, Let us work and make a situation make the situation better for those who have suffered so much. And what that meant was training Vietnamese people to help Vietnamese people, training Cambodians to help Cambodians. And that effort, that collective effort to enhance the capacities and build the capacities and empower the refugees to help their own communities is what became the foundation of this organization now forty five years old. In the early days we focused specifically on victims of trauma and those who had survived these horrific events. Over the years we've worked with refugees throughout Southeast Asia, in fact East Asia, and our work with refugees has involved protection, ⁓ prevention and addressing sexual and gender based violence, ⁓ livelihood assistance, and the protection of rights in countries in which they live. So this is this is amazing. ⁓ maybe I would love some examples of of education that you provided and especially for folks that gone through these traumatic experiences, women that have gone through those traumatic experiences, were you just educating them on like how to how to mentally continue in life or what resources they have access to or how to how to cope with what happened? Like what I'd I'd love to to talk through that. Yeah. Thank let me talk then about the Vietnamese women who were attacked by pirates at the sea on on the sea. For many of them living in the refugee camp at that time, there would I would walk the camp. The camp was quite large, three hundred and sixty hectares, and I would walk it in the morning and walk it back in the at the end of the day. And I guess because, you know, tall white guy walking through a refugee camp, ⁓ people would come out, they'd want to practice English. And in being available to them, ⁓ they started revealing things that were actually kept, you know, private. And one of the things that was emerging is that women who had been attacked by pirates were pregnant and ⁓ didn't want to have that child, or the h husband or the father ⁓ felt they were spoiled, they were no longer pure, they were no longer worthy of being their daughter or being their wife or their sister. So they would beat them and and and treat them very poorly. So a lot of the situations that came to our attention straight away and Sorry to be so graphic, but it would be women who were desperately trying to end the pregnancy, or women who were severely beaten up by a member of their family, or who were banished, so to speak, from the family. So what we try to do is first of all help them understand that they had a right to human dignity and to be treated ⁓ in a humane way. Second, that you can in fact ⁓ recover. from such horrific experiences. It's not easy, but you can recover. Third, to train people within their community who understood the language and the culture to be a support as they work through these horrific situations. And then number four, because they were being resettled in other countries, for example the US or Norway or other parts of the world, to link them with service providers in those countries because they would obviously need follow up. work. So so those were kind of the things we've done we were doing. If I can move forward a little bit, from many of the lessons we learned for working with refugees, we found were applicable for people we call internally displaced. These are people who may experience many of the same situations I just described to you, but they've not left their country. They are in their own country. So in the Philippines we've done a lot of work with and are doing a lot of work with people who've been displaced by armed conflict. The same in another country in the region that I probably won't name, ⁓ but a country that's suffering big time at the moment from armed conflict with different groups throughout the country. I want to like flash back forty five years, you're twenty three years old. ⁓ what do you feel led up to the point where you just made a decision that you're gonna to volunteer initially for two years in the Philippines and and make that decision to buy that ticket to go out there? what do you what ⁓ events do you think culminated and and I wanna relate it to what some twenty-three year olds today could potentially be experienced in and people that are seeing what's going on in the world want to have some sort of impact. ⁓ relate your experience to maybe what other people are currently experiencing and and why you made that decision and and committed to to to making a difference and and and flying out there. Thank thank you, Joseph. For me it it was and remains need. I believe I belong to the human the family we call humanity. So if my brother or my sister in that family humanity is suffering, it's part of my responsibility to kind of lessen that. I also believe that it's possible to make a difference in the lives of others. I don't you know, I'm not God, I'm not some magician who can make everything better for everybody, but I can do a little bit. I can do something. And I've committed my life to doing what I can, when I can, where I can. ⁓ lastly I I I think it's important maybe to note that it's so inspiring. To see how people recover from difficult situations. It's so inspiring to see how even in their most difficult moment they reach out and help others. And Joseph, let me just give you an example. I was in an evacuation center about a month ago, and I went to what passes for a home in that evacuation center, and I was to meet with a woman and her family. I didn't really know exactly. what her situation was, but I was interested in meeting her. When I got to this home, so called home, ⁓ it was very evident that she was severely disabled ⁓ by cerebral palsy and she was taking care of four small children, including one that, you know, a b a a baby that she ⁓ had to hold her ⁓ you know, in in her lap, so to speak. And she was glowing. She was absolutely glowing. She had this elegance about her, a joy about her, not a burden. And none of the children were her own. They were the children of relatives, and she had taken on this responsibility. And to drive the point even further, she was not able to walk ⁓ at all. She's not able to use her legs. So she really would move from one place to another by you know pushing. on her arms and lifting her body and sliding along where she was living. So for an individual in that situation where they could say, ⁓ you know, pity me or I cannot do or I'm unable or, you know, I'm disabled, none of that was there. What was there was I can care, I can make a difference, I love these children, I will give what I can give for them. Not as a martyr, not as someone who felt like They had no choice in life. She had agency, she had a commitment, and she was demonstrating that one human can in fact make a difference in the lives of others. And I'm that that's amazing. That's such an inspiring story. I I I'm I've always been reflecting on on this younger generation and trying to think of how to unlock the most potential out of these younger generations that are coming out. Because I I do truly believe that ⁓ that the the young folks in the world today are being so big and and and have that that that confidence that they can have a huge impact on the world. But I'm trying to figure out where the the disconnect is of those that feel that way and want to get engaged but then don't. And I'm I'm and I'm coming up with a hypothesis that they think big but there's a disconnect from thinking big and starting small. And the impact of starting small and how important starting small is and how much of an impact starting small can be. Mm-hmm. I don't know if you've experienced that with a lot of volunteers you worked with, but how can somebody that is younger or even older, like that that that wants to ⁓ to have a huge impact on the world and and feel like there's a lot of social pressure to have a massive impact and sometimes that stall actual like commitment to execution. That yeah, it's it's a good point. You know, I I was in a meeting this morning and somebody was saying the youth don't care. ⁓ the youth are thinking only about themselves. I don't buy that and I don't see that. So we we have about a hundred social work interns every year ⁓ from Asia. So that means most of them are eighteen, nineteen, twenty years of age and they spend six months with us for their internship. ⁓ they want to change the world. ⁓ some of them need to be reminded that you start small. You can't, you know, do everything ⁓ today. ⁓ it takes some time. But I'll give you an example. So we have ⁓ in the conflict affected area, we have young children who have disabilities or have special needs. And there is no occupational therapy in the areas where they live. So what we've been able to do is work with occupational therapists in the capital of the Philippines, Manila, to do teletherapy with these families and the children in various parts of the conflict affected area, Mindanao, and very poor areas, areas that are geographically isolated, disadvantaged. So the interns will go to a house, to a home, take a laptop or a tablet, and enable there to enable the family to participate in teletherapy. And they do this week after week, month after month during their internship. So for them, what we're hearing from them is that You know, I work with one child or I worked with two child and that children and their family over the six months and it was absolutely transformative for me because I was able this is a young person talking, I was able to see how technology enables us to do so much more for people who otherwise would have had no access whatsoever to occupational therapy. So how over the past forty five years now have your programming evolved? ⁓ maybe what do you start with and and what areas of focus did you realize are important to to prioritize? Yeah, I think ⁓ most of our work at the moment is in areas affected by armed conflict or fragility. ⁓ so one of the lessons is that it's over the long haul, nothing short. ⁓ relationships matter, trust is an essential element, and stick intuitiveness if I may say that. You don't give up. You're you s you stay with it. In the conflict affected areas where we work, ⁓ there's such basic things as food security. ⁓ there's things like teaching people to build to to make small gardens. You know, this seems very simple, but it's actually saving lives because you have some food. If you have some excess you can sell that livelihood. We've helped build school buildings and start schools in these geographically isolated areas, a lot of livelihood training so that people can put food on the table. It's not get rich, but put food on the table. And a lot in the area of what we call social protection. In many of these communities, births have not been registered. So we work with the local authorities to help children, adults get their birth certificates And once they have their birth certificates, they can access some of the social protection services of the Philippines and they can go to school. In the past you didn't need that to go to school. Now you need that to go to school. We work with hundreds of thousands of people each year. We have a staff of a little over five hundred at the moment. ⁓ we ⁓ we hire locally, we invest in them. We have only two expatriates, I'm one of them. And it's really identifying people in the community, investing in them, training them, supporting them, encouraging them. One of the things we do that's also quite unique perhaps is we push our people to do a master's degree or do a doctorate and we provide some s assistance for them to do that. And the reason we do that is we think that training is useful, training is important, but changing their credentials is also important because if they get higher credentials If they're recognized as people of skills and knowledge, then they can get higher in the system and actually affect long term change. So being around for forty-five years on the topic that you just mentioned, ha have you been able to people that have gone to your programming and you've supported, is there like a a solid alumni network or people that come back and and also try to help out? Or how has that been be you know, have it been around for four and a half decades? Yeah, it's it's absolutely wonderful. In fact, ⁓ on this on the second of June we're gonna be meeting current and former staff members So many of them will go into they'll work with us a long time. We have people worked with us twenty five years, thirty years, twenty years. ⁓ we have ⁓ people who have moved into UN agencies or to development agencies or large organizations. I'm happy to say we have CFSI alumni working in various parts of the world with people displaced by armed conflict or severe poverty and we're quite proud and It's it's a privilege for us when people come back or send a note and say, I'm still part of the CFSI family. You in your organization have supported refugees for a very long time. I feel like at least in the US, the topic of refugees is unfortunately become a very divisive one. Yes. How have you seen that evolve and how do you work with people that maybe have different opinions about how to support or not support refugees that are legal, that are not legal? How how like what has it been your mental model? Mm-hmm. And and in your kind of self talk when you see a lot of these arguments happening in in the political sphere and and just around the world. Yeah. And and it's a very good point you made. It is around the world. It's not just in certain countries. It's around the world. I have to admit there are some days that I, you know, kinda want to throw up my hands and say, What has happened to the world? It's it's not the world we thought we were building. ⁓ but on the on the subject of refugees, I think the narrative has been very negative, very divisive. not factual. If you look around the world, refugees have built countries and and enriched countries and and made things possible that would not have been possible were they not refugees and resettled or arrived in these countries as asylum seekers. I I think the stories that we need to share are those about refugees who made a difference in the lives of others. And there are many. There are many, many. What we hear in the news are those who are perceived to be a burden, those who are perceived to be different from us, those who are perceived to be wish ⁓ trying to take advantage. I don't believe that's the common ⁓ reality of refugees, but that is the narrative. We need to get over that. And the only way we can do that is tell stories, ⁓ lift them up, give them an opportunity to speak. What you're doing, I Joseph, I'm so amazed and I wish to commend you. Because creating the opportunities, for example, for me to speak ⁓ is is wonderful for me and the organization I represent, but the more refugees you get to speak, you allow to speak, ⁓ the world will change, the narrative will change. Yeah. I I had hoped that the in the advent of technology one of the reasons that I love traveling internationally and and bringing my kids internationally as much as possible is because it just opens your mind to beyond the Chicago bubble, the US bubble, the North American bubble. And I'd hoped that that technology and the internet w would have the same effect and not require people to actually, you know, spend a lot of money sometimes on on these these tricks to get that same exposure. But I feel like the the narratives that have been told on the internet are are really not doing our the global nature of our assured humanity justice as much as as I've thought and it's it's it's doing more damage than positive. ⁓ because you know the a lot of these happy positive stories don't get as much clicks because they're not I don't know, they're they're not people fighting ⁓ or arguing back and forth. ⁓ it has been very unfortunate and frustrating ⁓ I tend to see that as well. ⁓ it so so yeah, we'll we'll we'll do our best to share as many of those positive stories as possible. Yeah. I think that that is very important. Well, what else? So w what would you say has led to ⁓ the just this topic being so divisive? W was there a certain instance did you see in the past, you know, since Vietnam ⁓ there's there's always been media, ⁓ but I'm wondering if there is a kind of like a turning point that you could point to or maybe multiple turning points ⁓ that you noticed. Yeah, ⁓ let me give you a positive before a negative. ⁓ the f the Philippines is not a rich country. ⁓ but the Philippines has one of the most humane and hospitable approaches to refugees in the world. An asylum seeker can come to the Philippines owing to persecution in their own country. That asylum seeker can apply for refugee status, they can work here, they can go to school here, they can sit for the licensure exam, they can be employed here. And they can live here for the rest of their lives. They can be naturalized. This in a country of a hundred and ten million people, with a lot of people who are still, you know, disadvantaged. So to be able to think beyond yourself as a nation and to help others is ⁓ inspiring beyond the words that I would have for it. On the negative side, I think what has happened is there's a lot of us versus them ⁓ dialogue that goes on these days. There's a lot of they're taking our jobs, they're taking our benefits, they're taking our social protection programs, ⁓ exploiting us. And I that kind of narrative ⁓ is useful for certain people, but not for the country as a whole. And someday the I think the country or the countries as a whole will recognize that those who have spewed such horrific ideas We're not in fact speaking for all of the community or all of the country and that we have to go back to basic human dignity and respect for one another. It's not gonna happen overnight, not the present climate. I I feel like it starts with self. What what have reflecting on you, what do you think what has been your personal responsibility that you think you have as a human to the broader world and how maybe led to all of the asking for five years. Yeah, it's I've made a lot of mistakes. I love people, I care for people, I work very hard, but I made a lot of mistakes and from the mistakes I've learned something. ⁓ so let me give you an example. When I lived in the refugee camp in the early eighties, we didn't have washing machines and dryers, right? And so ⁓ and and we those of us who were you know working, we were kind of busy. So ⁓ there were ⁓ people, generally women, who would do your laundry and you would pay them to to wash the clothes and it was by the river or or a pump and they would wash your clothes and they dry it and then bring it back to you. And I had never experienced that in the States, but I needed it in that refugee camp. And ⁓ the woman that was ⁓ taking care of my laundry was a woman named Dolores. And Dolores ⁓ was suffering from ⁓ leprosy. ⁓ people didn't want to hire Dolores, they were afraid of Hansen's disease we call it now. Excuse me. And I I you know, my heart went out to her. I knew she had kids, I knew she needed to earn, so I got her to do my laundry. And from time to time she would ask for t you know, ⁓ more than what I was paying her. She'd ask, you know, can you give me this and you give me that? And generally you know, I didn't have much in the way of money, but I would do that. So I would give her what I could give her. And ⁓ one day I was with a close friend of mine. And she asked for some money and I gave her some money and when she left, you know, my friend kind of gave me H E L L L, you know, you're such a softy and ⁓ you're too gullible, you know, she's gonna ask again and again and again. And, you know, part of me said, ⁓ yeah, you know he's right. I I I shouldn't just give every time she asks. So the next time she came and she asked for a little bit of money, I said, you know, Dolores, what what is it for this time? Kind of short. kind of heartless and she said, My son is sick. So I gave a little bit of money and she went on her merry way. Then she came back about a week later and the same question. She said, Can I can I have some money? And my heart was a little bit hard. And I I found myself wanting to say, you know, I just gave you money last week. Why are you asking more money? I didn't say I just gave you last week. I just said, you know, I've given you money. Why do you need money today? And her response was, I have to bury my son. And it just hit me that when she had told me previously that my son is sick, I need to borrow some money. I didn't even say, sick with what? You know, is he in I didn't ask, you know. So That's an example of how, you know, I made a big mistake big time. But I learned from that. And what I learned from that is that you have to listen and you have to really listen. It's not just think you heard what they said, but you really have to listen to what they've said. One of the most important lessons of my life. Is that a lesson that could be learned without going through that experience? Yes, yes, I I I think you can. I think ⁓ every day we encounter people, wherever we live or whatever we do, we encounter people and we're all, you know, kind of focused on what we have to do that day and you know, get on the train or the subway or whatever it is. And it's easy to be in our own world. ⁓ but if we can listen, even if it's just a one person, you know, sitting beside you or person you walk by on the sidewalk that has a can and asking for cash or ⁓ the the chief executive that has you know the nice car and the nice suit to listen just to listen ⁓ you don't have to listen long, you don't have to get a whole story, but to listen to what they're saying, what they're not saying, but saying by their eyes, by their action. Thank you for sharing those stories. Yeah, just the and and I'm sure this is just a drop in the bucket of what you've experienced and and you've been able to be a part of for the past forty five years. And bless, yeah. So ⁓ looking forward forty five years. Yeah. What what do you hope the organization grows to? Yeah, I I you know, as I said earlier, we're helping a couple hundred thousand people a year. ⁓ I'm proud of what we do and it it's a great team. What I want to see us do more of is anticipate ⁓ situations so that we can respond before you need to respond, if I can you know, be so blunt. ⁓ but second I'd like to see us doing more to prevent these kind of situations from developing. And that requires helping people learn that we are in fact part of the same family, helping people learn that we can resolve conflict in a way that does not damage people. helping people to understand that we do need to speak to power, ⁓ and helping people understand that quite frankly, it's usually the men who are the problem, it's not the women. It's the men who are making the decisions to ⁓ bring war ⁓ to damaged countries, ⁓ to damaged communities. It's not to say men are always the problem and it's only men, it's not the the the case, but it's often the ⁓ men who are who are powerful men who are making decisions to damage the world. We need to stand up to that. I hope that made sense what I was trying to say. Yeah, that yeah, that did that did make sense. How how do you com combat the opinion that refugees are bad for business as a country? 'Cause I feel like we see that narrative as well. Yeah, there's a there's a tremendous amount of evidence that that in fact is not the case, that that they contribute in major ways to the economy. The World Bank has done a lot of good work in that arena, but there's all sorts of evidence that refugees in fact contribute to the economy and create jobs and create the conditions that allow countries to grow. Yeah. Yeah. Are there any a couple of funny questions there? Are there any main policies that you think have been more successful than not that countries have taken up, even Western countries or European countries, of of having more openness towards refugees. Yes, I yeah. I I I think ⁓ many countries, including the US, for many years had a positive approach to the situation of refugees. They allowed ⁓ people to come to the country, claim asylum, and ultimately become citizens. ⁓ there was resettlement from countries that actually saved lives because people could flee their own country and come to the US or to the UK or to Norway and live in peace and ha and have a future. So those policies were lifesavers, life changers, transformative. It's sad that there's been dramatic cutting back on on those policies. ⁓ more recently the announcement, at least in the case of the US, ⁓ that they want to send green card holders home for the processing, that will be life threatening for for many people. So there are policies in place now or developing in some countries that are extremely harmful. I could go on and on about that. But the policies that were helpful were those for which the Statue of Liberty sits in the harbor outside New York City to welcome those who need a place, a place of safety, a place where they can have a life that they could not have owing to their nationality or their religion or their ⁓ ethnicity in the countries from which they fled. Well this is this is okay amazing. ⁓ Steve, thank you so much for your time. People that are listening and want to to get engaged with you in your organization, what type of engagement do you look for and and when where can they go to to get engaged with you? Thank you for asking that, Joseph. First of all, we'd like people to share the word that you know the ⁓ you don't have to talk about C FSI if you don't want to talk about CFSI, but we'd like you to talk about humanity and dignity and respect for human rights and the family we call humanity. If you want to help CFSI, there are various ways. First of all, of course, financial contributions make a world of difference for us, particularly for core funding in this day and age. Second, if you want to volunteer, you don't have to leave your country, your home. You can help us in many ways. Send us a note and we'll give you some ideas how you can do that. And a third, for those who wish to do internships, particularly those in graduate school or doctoral programs. We do have interns come from different countries. They've made remarkable contributions. And lastly, academics or or people with a significant life experience that have retired or who have decided they want to step aside and contribute, we'd love to have you come join us. There are things you can do for a week, there are things you can do for six months, there are things you can do for a year. It will absolutely ⁓ transform your life and it will transform CFSI. Well Steve, was there anything you wanna leave us with or maybe that we didn't cover that you wanna make some final remarks on? Just gratitude. I I'm ⁓ grateful that I've been able to s you know, spend the last forty it's forty six years of my life in this work. ⁓ I'm grateful for all the many people that have contributed to the work and who I call my my brothers and sisters in this work. And Joseph, I'm really grateful to you and your crew for making this possible for us. ⁓ it's I'll send you a note, but I we're very, very grateful. Well you're right back at you, Steve. The y you guys are on the ground doing all the good work and have been for forty tick years. So we're honored to share the work that you're doing and and we're turning on here. And people that are listening and inspired, please get engaged. ⁓ we'll share details as well in the show notes of how you can get engaged and everything that Steve mentioned. But Steve, thanks again for your time and ⁓ we hope to see you soon. Thank you, Joseph. Come visit. Thank you. All right. Yeah.