OVF's founder Joy Tang breaks the silence: "OVF is just me"!

Ever since this blog was launched in March 2011, revealing the reality that lies behind OVF rhetoric, the only person to respond has been Jeffrey Buderer of OVF in California. Despite the seriousness of the allegations brought forth - information based on the analysis of information made publicly available by the organization itself, or on testimonies of the many victims of the organization who wish to remain anonymous - OVF founder and director Joy Tang especially has remained strangely silent.

Now it would seem this silence is broken. Recently, a blog post was brought to our attention that was published earlier this month by Edward Cherlin, volunteer worker of the OLPC (One Laptop per Child) project. The post is a transcription of a conversation where he seeks to enrol OVF's assistance in producing education resources that can provide some contect for the OLPC program. The revealing conversation sheds light on how OVF's founder Joy Tang views and defines her own organization as of July 2011, which is why we have decided to refer to it here.

As the readers of our blog will remember from previous blog posts, despite its chameleonic nature, the OneVillage Foundation remains consistent in terms of its expressed high ambitions and its holistic approach, which is also called the OneVillage Initiative. As can be seen in the figure below, this is supposedly a multi-faceted approach that deals with everything from education, governance, economics and ecology, to wellness / healthcare, as well as culture and traditions. Further, OVF claims to be working with such diverse issues as AIDS relief, farming cooperatives, healthcare and the wellness industry, university activities, ecotourism and open source development. If this professed diversity is in any way to be taken seriously, it would be backed up by a solid, substantial organization including more than a handful full-time committed agricultural, medical, economic (to mention a few) specialists and volunteers, all the more so as OVF is claiming to be actively operating in four countries (the U.S., Taiwan, Ghana and Nigeria), and seeking to expand to at least one more (Kenya). Not to mention the facilities that would be required for any serious AIDS Relief or development healthcare to take place. No such expert organization does indeed exist, nor are any such facilities to be found at the locations where OVF claims to be active.

The OneVillage Holistic Approach of the oneVillage Foundation, presented at the ICOS Community Day in Taiwan on Sept. 27th, 2009 by Jeffrey Buderer of OVF

And yet, as Joy Tang states in July 2011 in response to Ed Cherlin's request, "OVF is just me". Bringing up her ability to make others do the work, Ms. Tang subsequently explains how OVF should be perceived:

Joy Tang 唐瑋: you do not have think of OVF as an organization – rather – it is a force that moves the concept

 From "Chat with a friend"

In other words, OVF as a global organization with any substance is merely a construction, a product of the mind of its originator in order to pose as a global development expert with specific knowledge about and passion for the plight of the African people. Though interestingly enough, the people's plight remains as always strangely absent from any OVF conversation.

As OVF's founder Joy Tang prepares for a visit to Africa starting with Kenya August 12-14th, another batch of students of the NTHU (National Tsing Hua University) in Hsinchu, Taiwan, will be leaving for Ghana to serve as volunteers for an organization which license to operate as a charitable trust is being revoked due to reported delinquencies. The volunteer service program run in partnership with OVF will take place for a third year in a row, amidst the information brought forth about OVF "projects" being at best non-existent and at worst fabrications designed to cover up the fact that any benefits are going straight into the pockets of people who serve OVF's interests. We can only hope that the top level of the university will this time be sending along a representative of their own to accompany the students.

oneVillage Initiative: a chameleonic method for mindless imitation

Ever since the publishing of this blog that seeks to make sense of what the oneVillage really is underneath the layers covering its core, the oneVillage people, though choosing not to respond directly, have been busy honing their web-based message as more inconvenient facts are uncovered and more questions about the true nature of their intentions are raised. 

These past months have seen several key people either leave the OVF for greener pastures (such is the case of Kafui Prebbie, former chief representatitive of Ghana) or keeping very low profiles (such as OVF key people in the U.S. Jeffrey Buderer and Mark Roest), possibly waiting for the storm to pass before resurfacing in a different shape. Yet however skilled a chameleon the OVF may be, its ability to blend in with the environment does not alter the fact that it is preying on the fly to devour it - not to make friends with it. 

Though oneVillage as a foundation is still being used, notably as an entity interacting  with the community university setting in Hsinchu in Northwestern Taiwan, its founder Joy Tang is redirecting focus from a legal form that it has never complied with (see delinquencies) to a methodology called the oneVillage Initiative. So far, according to the OVF website, the oneVillage Initiative is defined as:

"...a comprehensive, community-based approach still in the development stages. It aims to promote the rapid replication of ecologically and socially sustainable systems around the world. The goal is to maximize the potential of physical and virtual communities to do good for themselves and the larger world." (own emphasis)

This methodology, with its emphasis on the rapid replication of existent systems is in itself quite interesting, when put together with the professed aims of OVF to "guide unity and transformation". The OVF people do not create anything, but use ideas and techniques created by others for other settings to make a name for themselves as community-builders. 

From a presentation by Joy Tang in Taipei on Sept. 27th, 2009

As any person with experience of strategic change will know, real transformation is not consistent with the rapid replication of anything and does not occur as the result of "borrowing" quick fixes - as if nothing were context-specific and the motivation of the people behind the implementation did not matter. Though there may be shortcuts to a few minutes of glory, nothing great in sustainable terms has ever been built based on such a logic to "pick the plums out of (someone else's) pudding". The oneVillage methodology is certainly not based what is referred to as "altruism", namely reaching out to others for their sake even when there are no benefits in sight for oneself, despite such claims being made by OVF founder Joy Tang:

"Through the practices and transformation, we believe, over time, we will create a just society collectively through the intention of altruism as the ultimate sustainability for humanity to evolve positively." (Own emphasis; quoted from the OVF website).

Transformational initiatives that build prosperous communities are generational projects, laying the foundations for resource-renewal and sustainable livelihoods for generations to come, rather than seeking ways to gain control over resources that are rapidly depleting. Real transformation - be it labelled community development or social enterprising - requires the dedication of people who are willing to consistently walk the talk and invest themselves in a vision for a very long period of time, motivated not by what they hope to gain for themselves but by what they hope to create for others.  

We - the editors of this blog along with victims of OVF left scattered by the wayside in different parts of the world - are strong believers in new beginnings, conditioned only by the liberating power of truth. Yet so far, despite the altering façade, we hear no words of truth being spoken. Instead, we see the same ambitions take on different clothing, as the OVF people look to incorporate new causes under the oneVillage umbrella in their efforts to maintain the illusion of a core that is genuinely concerned with the welfare of others. OVF foot-soldier in Ghana, young Nii Tete Saashi Quaye, is thus seeking to establish himself on the political arena in Ghana through the Convention People's Party, endorsing prof. Edmund Delle for party chairman. Considering their fraudulent practices in Ghana (see the Jukwa farm scandal), the fact that OVF people are trying to use their so-called accomplishments within the aid community to establish themselves on the political arena without a change of heart is most worrisome. Are these the kind of people and morals that should be "guiding and transforming" how we think about our world, let alone influence the future of a country?