Why CUSO Was Not a Missionary Organization

When I went with CUSO, some of my friends and relatives were puzzled about why I would want to become a missionary to Africa. After all, I had not seemed overly religious to them. The answer is that CUSO is not a religious missionary society. It is a secular organization (Another word that is often confused. It means NOT religious). It does not mean that religious people are not admitted, just that CUSO's philosophy is not connected to any one single religious view.

CUSO was built on some liberal values that were more widespread in the sixties. Just a note that I am no longer with CUSO, this is just my understanding of CUSO's philosophies forty years ago. I can't find a current or even an old official declaration, but anyway here were some things we assumed as the truth.

First that all races of man were equal, and women too, even though this was pre-womens' lib.

Second that it was possible to eliminate such things as poverty, starvation, war, overpopulation. We didn't know exactly how, but some basic approaches might include education, diplomacy, empathy, fair trade practices, modern science.

Third was respect for local culture. Languages, religions, and customs.

Fourth would be the attempt of CUSO volunteers to live at the standards of their African counterparts. We did not approve of CUSO volunteers putting on ostentatious displays of wealth, such as driving around in limos, or living in air conditioned mansions surrounded by barbed wire. Although we earned the same salary as local teachers, it turned out we were still richer, because they generally had to support a large extended family, while our families back in Canada could manage without our support. So that's how I could afford a cook, and a smallish motorcycle, which African teachers could not. The rest of our living standard was not too far above the African teachers, although we always had a refrigerator.

CUSO did not believe that the evil in the world was the work of satan, or witchcraft or voodoo magic. No CUSO volunteer I ever heard of ever did any religious proselytising of any sort while in Africa. Although some of my friends in Africa became religious when they returned home. (Actually now that I think of it, those were mostly Peace Corps volunteers, i.e. Americans.)

One of the first projects by CUSO was to send Canadians overseas to newly independent developing countries to help fill in where they were short of trained people, starting with teachers and medical staff. When I first arrived at my high school in Sierra Leone, they were short staffed. Many classes had to teach themselves, and I had the pick of which classes I wanted to teach. When I left three years later, there were no more teacherless classes, and I had already turned over my senior classes to new graduates of Sierra Leone's college, and moved down to some of the Junior classes. At the time, Sierra Leone had been independent of the British Empire only 6 years.

Now to contrast with the religious missionaries in Africa, of which there is a much broader spectrum of beliefs and practices. They generally saw their primary job as bringing their religion to the natives. So right from the start, their philosophy was opposite of CUSO. CUSO did not promote our culture or religions as being superior. Also, I don't know that any church groups believed in the possibility of eliminating poverty world wide.

The next thing I noticed about missionary work is that it was generally some sort of charity. CUSO was far more likely to send someone to work at a local government run institution, rather than set up their own school. As far as I know, CUSO never set up any schools or hospitals, while missionary groups had plenty, plus orphanages and clinics that they ran themselves.

And of course another major difference was that CUSO did not believe in the Devil or magic or superstition. Not officially anyway, but as I said, I never met a CUSO volunteer who claimed to believe in those things while I was in Africa.

Was the liberal, secular philosophy of CUSO proved right in the end? Whatever CUSO did, Africa did decline in the forty years after I went there. Now I believe there are even more missionaries than ever before. Children are being killed for witchcraft. Even the Catholic Church has said they are going to start fighting witchcraft and devil possessions with prayer and exorcisms of their own. What I mean is they recently have officially acknowledged that these things exist.

I don't think it means CUSO was wrong, just that the problem is more difficult than imagined. We have found, for example, that the damage done by racial abuse lasts for generations after the abuse stops. And on the other hand, amoral profit-driven corporations have increased their power in the last 40 years. Just look at the huge personal bonuses the banks took from the bail-out money in the USA. If the United States of America can have it's economy destroyed by multinational corporations, imagine how much easier the corporations can leave a small country destitute such as Sierra Leone.

The religious end-of-the-world people have not been proven right either. Not yet anyway.