Travellers For Change

Building a Place to Learn
Allan Wigood, 76, Retired – Kitchener, ON

The proud owner of a new motor home, Allan Wigood was all set for retirement in 1989 when he took a trip to Central America as a volunteer with the NGO World Accord. “After witnessing the living conditions in Honduras and Guatemala,” has says, “I came home and changed all my plans.”

For the past 10 years, Wigood has been leading groups of volunteers from Canada on regular construction expeditions to the region, building schools, homes and training centres in impoverished communities. Wigood has personally raised the funds so that students from certain villages that graduate from high school with an average of 85 percent or better can continue their education.

Inspiration
I have fallen in love with the people in the mountain villages and I will be going back as long as my heart will allow. And I must be honest with you—I don’t like Canadian winters any more.

Frustration
Learning the Spanish language at sixty years of age. At this age I think your brain shrinks like a prune. Also I was hijacked in Guatemala two years ago. They tied my hands and feet and left me laying on an ant hill. That wasn’t a very nice experience.

Rewards
A little girl that started school in the first one we built, in a village that has no road in, will be starting her first year of university next year. I only hope I live long enough to go to her graduation.

What’s Next
After building another school in Sigautepeque, Honduras, in November, we plan on building 15 new homes in the area of Guatemala that was destroyed by hurricane Stan.

Do-It-Yourself Growth
Jean-Guy Godbout, 63, Financial Specialist – Laval, QC

With 45 years of experience in commercial banking and finance consulting, Jean-Guy Godbout didn’t take early retirement from the Bank of Montreal just to slow down. Rather, he saw an opportunity to share the lessons of his experience.

After a few years working as a hired consultant to enterprises in developing countries, Godbout decided to volunteer his time as an advisor to Canadian Executive Service Organization (CESO), and has fulfilled a staggering 47 assignments since 1998 in Asia, Europe and Africa. He takes great pleasure in identifying potential growth entities and showing they them can develop themselves, often without relying on outside assistance.

Motivation
The opportunity to transfer technology to deserving enterprises who don’t have the financial means to hire an international consultant when appropriate local expertise is not available.

Frustrations
Convincing small and medium size companies in developing countries that they can develop themselves and attain sustainable and profitable expansion. Also, the lack of follow-up on our efforts.

Rewards
There’s a regional bank in the Philippines that’s one of the few in the world which provides financial support to the poor (mostly micro-finance) and they wanted to learn how to do it efficiently and profitably. They are now profitable and have tripled their business volume in three years.

What’s Next
Continuing our current program in Senegal, which works with SMEs to provide worker training, technical support and financing through local banks. I was also approached recently to assist an enterprise in Serbia.

Beating “Unlucky 13″
Dr. Ronald R. Lett, 54, Medical Surgeon – Vancouver, BC

It was an Alberta student loan that subsidized Dr. Ronald Lett’s first excursion to Africa in 1974, leading the young medical student to spend three years in Sudan. It was the beginning of a lifelong affair. He would return again and again as a practising GP, to Nigeria, then Cameroon, motivated, he says, by “the opportunity to do something in the real world.”

After further studies and practising back home, Dr. Lett founded the Canadian Network for International Surgery (CNIS) in 1995, an organization dedicated to the teaching of essential surgical skills—from anaesthesia and life support to orthopaedics and traumatology. Operating predominantly in Africa, CNIS has also established educational centres in the effort to bolster medical infrastructure and spearheded injury prevention awareness campaigns.

About the “Stop Unlucky 13” campaign
Thirteen percent of Africans die due to personal injury. One in every thirteen women die during child birth. These facts are the basis for my motivation.

Inspiration
An Ethiopian girl named Tazita, which means “love song-slow dance”, was only 17 years old when her mother died. She was left to raise and support her 8-year-old brother, 14-year-old sister, and run the family business.

Frustrations
The Canadian government’s low contribution to foreign aid. Agricultural subsidies to farmers in Europe and the U.S. that undermine Africa’s ability to trade. That health isn’t recognized as a human right. The conventional wisdom that life is cheap in Africa.

Rewards
Realizing that things often work out when good will is involved.

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