Who hasn’t dreamt of changing the world? Most of us have, with our aspirations ending unfulfilled. But several international aid agencies based in Canada are helping educated, motivated and accomplished people make meaningful contributions wherever they’re needed. by Jane Schoettle
Jane Schoettle is director of the Sprockets Toronto International Film Festival for Children.
MICHELE PERTERSON of Toronto was working as a vice-president at Investors Group, and writing the occasional article for a community magazine. After interviewing a neighbour who had worked in Azerbaijan with CESO (Canadian Executive Services Organization), Peterson registered with CESO herself. In 2003, she was sent to Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to help create a strategic plan for a 16,000-member women’s co-operative. “Honduras had been extensively damaged by Hurricane Mitch,” she says. “I spent a month visiting women members in very remote areas. Temperatures reached 46 degrees Celsius during the day, armed thugs patrolled certain streets, and there were biting insects.” The Honduran women, who needed help to start small businesses, were struggling. “One group had been making coffins to bury the dead after the hurricane and had developed enough carpentry skills to diversify into making furniture,” Peterson recalls. “Another needed $100 to purchase cloth and lace to make one wedding dress that they would rent out to other women to get wedding photos taken.” Peterson’s business know-how helped lead to three years of stable funding for the co-operative.
Changing the lives of others led her to make alterations in her own life. She now works for the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, Canada’s largest environmental justice organization, and has developed a third career as a travel writer. “The rest of my time,” she says, “I help organizations get the money to make a difference.”
Janet Farrell is another former executive who found her skills in demand half a world away. A former vice-president of patient services at an Ontario hospital, she had just resigned to become a consultant when CESO called. She also faced some hurdles. “Being recognized as a successful and credible consultant in Canada is one thing. Applying these skills in another language and cultural setting is a different challenge altogether.”
For former hospital executive Jane Farrell, the desire to help was a primary motivation for volunteering. “The surprise for me is that I have received far more than I have given.”
Her volunteer experiences have taken her to Estonia, Costa Rica and Thailand, but most often to Ukraine. Arriving shortly after the country had achieved independence in 1991, she helped a group of parents create a school and physical rehabilitation program for their disabled children. Built over the next five years, the centre now attracts national and international acclaim and has become a model for other communities in Ukraine.
While Farrell’s efforts in the new Ukraine centred on contemporary practices, a few of the circumstances she encountered were distinctly Old World. Speaking no Ukrainian and with no grasp of the Cyrillic alphabet, she resolutely copied the characters on the sign outside her hotel on a piece of paper. “If I got lost, I could always show it to a cab driver,” she recalls. It wasn’t until a year later that she learned the sign read “Restaurant and Bar.”
She also applied some creativity toward, of all things, transporting currency. On her first trip, neither Visa nor traveller’s cheques were used in Ukraine, and she needed to bring a significant amount of U.S. currency. Fearful of robbery, she stashed it in a money belt, a purse, and “even pinned it into my bra.” Leaving the country later with almost the same amount of cash proved a challenge. “I spent a whole night train trip from Kiev sewing U.S. dollars into my socks. Farrell says, “I’ve gained lifelong friends, never to be forgotten.” She recently wrote a book about her international experiences. While her desire to help was a primary motivation for volunteering, “I was also looking for adventure, and I certainly found that—at times more than I bargained for. The surprise for me is that I have received far more than I have given.”
 High levels of personal satisfaction and engagement aren’t always found at the farthest points from home. While he has done four assignments in Peru and St. Kitts through CESO, here in Canada Gary Norton has completed 20 postings with First Nations people, mostly in Ontario, and two with the Inuit on Baffin Island. Norton was a vice-president in financial services when he took early retirement in May 1997. He enjoyed the travel and golf his freer time afforded, but “then came the winter months. I needed to replace my active business life and use my work skills. I wanted to interact with people and be presented with challenges that required solutions.” Solutions seem to be exactly what he has delivered. “Domestic assignments generally fall into two categories: developing business plans for new entrepreneurs, and analyzing business that are having difficulties and recommending corrective action.” Besides assisting individuals, he has even influenced the structures of countries: “My international assignments have been in improving countries’ payment systems, introducing new methods and helping to automate manual processes.” He’s clear about the rewards: “Volunteering has expanded my knowledge and admiration of other countries and cultures, which I never would have been aware of otherwise. It has made me want to see more.”
Gary Norton, a retired V-P in financial services and CESO volunteer, has applied his talents on 20 assignments in Canada and abroad. “I wanted to interact with people and be presented with challenges that required solutions.” A chance encounter led Maureen Peterson (left), a V-P at Investors Group, to sign up with CESO and travel to Honduras to help create a strategic plan for a 16,000-member women’s cooperative.
Utilizing the skills acquired over a lifetime isn’t always the primary benefit of volunteering; it can sometimes lead to a new career altogether. In the case of Oliver Madison, a friendship from Harvard and a chance business trip to India led to a radical career change. Madison became good friends with Marc Kielburger at college. Kielburger went on to become executive director of Free the Children, founded in 1995 by his 12-year-old brother, Craig, to combat child poverty and exploitation. Madison worked in corporate finance in Toronto. A trip to a textile factory in India on his firm’s business opened his eyes to the role of child labour in that industry. He then discussed it over lunch with Kielburger. He recalls, “We dreamt of creating a line of socially responsible clothing. We recognized our passion for positive social change,and that we could develop alternate sources of income for Free the Children.” Not long after, Madison volunteered at one of the organization’s school building sites, in China’s impoverished Gangzu region. “Standing in a new school that had risen from the ground thanks to fundraising by young people around the world for their underprivileged peers in China was such a wonderful feeling,” he says.
Travel and volunteering significantly altered his view of the world: “First, making a difference is possible. Second, if products were manufactured in a socially responsible way, then they would not incur the social costs I witnessed.” Together with Marc and Craig Kielburger, Madison co-founded Me to We: Responsible Style, a line of sweatshop-free apparel sold to schools, individuals, charities and corporations. Half of the profits support Free the Children projects around the world. The impact made by these volunteers and thousands like them is inspiring to those who still dream of making a difference. For Canadians in particular, Janet Farrell has a personal message: “Volunteering to developing nations brings about a humbling awareness and recognition of how fortunate I am—fortunate to have been born where I was and when I was, in a free country in times of plenty.”
Oliver Madison worked in corporate finance before volunteering with Free The Children to help build a school in China’s Gangzu region.
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