VALUES IN PRACTICE LUCY FAUVEAU 1992 - 1996
Conservation work in the
Democratic Republic of Congo during a time of war
From Left: Lucy at the edge of the Nyiragongo Volcano, DRC; Lucy on lake patrol with rangers, Virunga National Park; Lucy and Lisha Leow ‘96 visiting UWCSEA; Young Mountain Gorilla in Virunga National Park.
L
ucy Fauveau has led an extremely interesting and well travelled life. She has attended school in the UK, Europe and South East Asia and has done volunteer work and project work for various organisations in Asia and Africa including her most recent conservation work in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Lucy was born in France to French parents, but lived there for only two years as her parents, who are both doctors involved in public health, sociology and migration, moved often with their work. The family were living in London in 1991 when her father was offered a position in Laos and as there were no appropriate English-speaking schools there at the time and in Cambodia where the family subsequently moved, it was decided that Lucy would board at UWCSEA. She arrived as a Year 4 (Grade 9) boarder in 1992 and remained for the next four years until graduating from the IB programme in 1996 and moving on to pursue further studies.
10 OneºNorth June 2009
What were your main influences for choosing the work that you have done and do now? I’ve grown up in the non-profit world. My parents have always been an enormous inspiration. The UWC spirit also encouraged me toward charity work. There was always a fund-raising activity, an awarenessbuilding game, a cultural-sharing show, a concert, a play, a social service commitment to helping others, a gobal concerns organisation or event that somehow tied in core values such as understanding others, social justice, global awareness, caring for the environment, helping those less fortunate, adapting to different situations, being generous etc. Being in that kind of environment, with such an incredible mix of people definitely contributed to my general direction in life. How long have you lived in DRC and what did your work there involve? I have lived there for almost two years, based in Goma most of the time with regular trips into the Virunga National Park. I was responsible for the ZSL project and a team of four excellent Congolese colleagues. The general goal of the project was capacity-building for the Congolese wildlife authority and the park. I was involved in and supervised all aspects of the project - admin, logistics, finance, HR, fundraising, organising workshops, training, field visits, procurement of equipment and materials for the rangers. I covered media interviews and represented the organisa-
tion at the DRC level. ZSL also covered bonuses for 650 park staff to supplement their government salaries. Were you involved with protection of the Mountain Gorillas in Virunga National Park? In training the rangers to do their job more efficiently, we are contributing to the protection of the gorillas and their habitat but my project did not focus particularly on the gorillas and that sector. There were four other conservation NGOs doing that. Can you describe the impact of the war on the National Park and the Mountain Gorilla? In the first year and a half I was there, the war had already started in the province. The conflicts between the different warring parties resulted in people fleeing from their homes to Goma and the surroundings seeking safety, shelter and food, which the government and the humanitarian NGOs tried their best to secure. This huge movement of population also meant that natural resources such as firewood and charcoal were over-stretched and people had to go into the park to meet their basic needs. Rebel groups and armed men poached animals in the park for survival. The last 200 of the 720 Mountain Gorilla population in the world live in the southern sector of the park on the border of Rwanda and Uganda. The rebel movement used that sector as their base, making it impossible for us to access. For over a year and a half, no one knew what the status of the gorillas was and there was nothing they could do. Fortunately, the rebels did not kill the gorillas, but it
was more the illegal traffic of charcoal that threatened their habitat - charcoal made of wood from the park meant increased deforestation, reducing the gorilla’s habitat.
the inflated prices! All the basics were there and even some luxury goods. To my great joy I even found soy, chilli sauce and sambal! I missed Asian food!
How have you been able to look after your personal safety? Most of the time Goma was relatively safe, but the roads out were more dangerous. The National Park was out of bounds for most humanitarian NGOs as it was occupied by different rebel groups, but we had to support the rangers and their families and get our activities on the ground done, so we entered the park regularly. I took my safety and that of my team very seriously. We tried to stay well informed of the situation by asking colleagues, locals, other NGO staff, and contacts in the military before making trips to certain sectors of the park for example. The local radio stations and the internet, to some extent were also a source of information. I convinced my headquarters to rent an evacuation house on the Rwandan side, 10 minutes from Goma, and it became my base for a while as events escalated. I had escaped to cross the border in my Land Rover minutes before panic hit town thanks to a call I made to check up on a BBC journalist who was on the front line. I had three mobile phones (one for each network as they are quite unreliable), and a satellite phone to stay in touch.
Why did you leave DRC and do you plan to return? I left at the end of November 2008 when the project’s funding ended. I travelled to France to see family and friends and then felt the urge to reconnect with South East Asia so I went to Bali and also made a nostalgic trip to Singapore to see UWCSEA and some old school friends. I hadn’t been back since I was 18, and I am now 30! I have just been recruited by the Frankfurt Zoological Society (where my boyfriend Rob works) as the Project leader for Virunga, so I’ll be back there by the end of May!
How easy was it to get the necessities that you and others required to live there? There are one or two great shops in Goma where you can get almost everything you need, if you are willing to pay
You are currently volunteering in Bali - could you expand on the work you are doing there? I am volunteering for a month with the Environmental Bamboo Foundation in Ubud. I had actually been to the Bamboo Foundation as part of Project week at UWCSEA to learn about the different uses of bamboo! Now I am helping to complete a training manual for the sustainable management of sympodial bamboo (clumps) for construction. In exchange I get to live in an adorable bamboo house on the beautiful estate, eat organic food grown on site, meet and work with a succession of experts, artists and passionate people. Looking back on your career to date, how satisfying and rewarding has it been and do
Please send your ViP profile suggestions for the next edition of OneºNorth, to alumnimagazine@uwcsea.edu.sg.
OneºNorth June 2009 11
Thirteen years later, in April 2009, Lucy returned to visit UWCSEA with fellow alumna Alisha Leow. After hearing a little of what she had done since leaving Singapore in ‘96, we asked her if she would be willing to share her story with us and she graciously agreed. Brenda Whately
Where did you go and what did you do after moving on from UWCSEA in 1996? I took a year out to “discover my French roots”! I went to the Sorbonne in Paris and did a French Civilisation course and then attended lectures in Social Anthropology at Nanterre University. I went on to complete a BA in Social Anthropology and Development Studies at SOAS in London, after which I volunteered for a year in Mozambique for two different NGOs; one in community health and the other in HIV prevention for adolescents and I managed to learn Portuguese in the process. I returned to the UK to do an MSc in Forced Migration (Refugee Studies) at Oxford University as I wanted to do humanitarian work, and then I interned and worked for two years for Marie Stopes International as an assistant Programme Manager for Madagascar, Angola, and Yemen. I had been advised to get management experience before heading abroad. It led me into the domain of Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) and I was hired as the SGBV manager in a refugee camp in Eastern Chad, near the border with Darfur, for the International Rescue Committee (IRC). We were eventually evacuated out of Chad due to the intensified conflict and I stayed about a year in France looking for new work. After following my then boyfriend to the DRC, I started working for the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) as the Project Manager in Virunga National Park. I happened to be at the right place at the right time and my management
experience again allowed me to enter into a new and fascinating domain which has turned out to be the most exciting work I’ve done so far!