Changing the world for the better requires tiring plane rides, thousands of dollars in donations and unrelenting fortitude.
Just ask Eric Rajah, who helped found A Better World 20 years ago.
In 1990, he and Brian Leavitt, then vice-president of Lacombe’s Canadian University College, wanted to reduce poverty in Third World countries. Using the College Heights Seventh-day Adventist Church as a base to receive funding for A Better World, and with members of the church board serving as the administrative body, Rajah and Leavitt began their modest operation by donating $5,000 to fund a rehabilitation program for victims of polio in Kendu Bay, Kenya.
“I can’t believe we’ve come this far, considering we started with two of us and $5,000,” said Rajah, a Red Deer business owner.
Since that first project, A Better World has developed into a reputable organization that has worked in 14 countries, doing about a dozen projects annually. A Better World is actively involved in nine countries at the moment.
Rajah sits as executive director while Leavitt serves on the steering committee.
“We’ve been in most communities from five to 10 years,” Rajah said. “The reason we have this relationship in Kenya is we’ve been there 15 years. We’ve established friendship and loyalties — the only contract I sign with them are the words, ‘I’ll be back.’ ”
Along with more than 40 volunteers from across Western Canada, Rajah will participate in this fall’s 20th anniversary trip to Kenya. A number of Central Albertans will leave on Sunday for 14 days in Kenya, checking on various schools and projects, conducting eyeglass and medical clinics, and taking in safaris.
Including the latest group, a total of 1,800 people will have volunteered with A Better World. Within the last 10 years, Central Albertans have donated an estimated $11.5 million. Many have donated handmade items, including blankets and medical supplies.
“I have discovered that money alone isn’t the solution to the world’s problems,” Rajah said. “It’s the people, it’s the skills. And I’m glad that the community here sees the value in engagement. That’s my real passion.”
Desmond and Trudy Cooper of Lacombe have financially supported A Better World for 20 years and for the first time are travelling to Kenya. Desmond offered a simple reason for backing A Better World all these years — to help people in need.
The Coopers will see a project financed by Red Deer’s Group 2 Architecture Engineering — six classrooms at Male Primary School in a village near the base of Mount Kenya, the second highest mountain in Africa. Red Deer’s Notre Dame High School also contributed to the project.
“I thought it was time for me to look outside my community and work somewhere else in the world,” said Group 2 principal Pat Romerman, an engineer and Rotary service club member.
He and his family will donate enough money to sponsor three more classrooms at Male Primary this year. Romerman will review the school project, as well as survey the construction of medical clinics, houses and other infrastructure.
“I want to ensure A Better World gets good value so that whatever we get built will last a long time,” Romerman said.
Ron Sydenham, pastor of College Heights Seventh-day Adventist Church and chairman of A Better World, has been on multiple trips in the past 12 years and during that time, he’s watched A Better World grow into a first-rate Central Alberta humanitarian outreach organization that’s 100 per cent volunteer-driven.
“All these people are going to give up their time and energy to do humanitarian work overseas,” said Sydenham. “I’m just overwhelmed by the big heart that Central Albertans have . . . humanitarian work is contagious.”
Red Deer’s Cindy Wright has wanted to do to philanthropic work since she was about 10 years old. Her mother worked at an orphanage in northern Manitoba, so Cindy would tag along to help.
“My mom used to say ‘Cindy, you can’t save the whole world’ and I said ‘We can try one child at a time.’ ”
Years later after moving to Red Deer, Wright and her husband Richard saw a newspaper ad about an upcoming trip through A Better World.
“I thought it would be more of an adventure and see the animals and do the Africa thing,” said Richard. “It starts out as something fun and then it becomes something good and fun.”
They have visited Kenyan projects for the last seven years and during that time, they’ve made lifelong friends.
“You come back changed,” added Cindy.
Paulette Comeau and her husband Wayne Church, both doctors, served in New Guinea and Honduras for a couple of years at a time. Although their first stint to Africa isn’t long-lasting, Comeau said she hopes to convey to the African people that they’re not forgotten.
“Even the example of you being there to do something positive for these people may motivate their own people, their own governments.”
Even though A Better World was founded through the church, its primary mission is humanitarian. It does not choose communities or people based on denominational affiliation. It aims to give a hand up, not a handout. It works with communities on education, infrastructure, health, income generating and food security projects — everything from constructing wells to developing education programs focused on crop and livestock management.
“You have to get them to take ownership and we can provide the tools for that,” said Rajah.
Empowering Africans is what Deryl Comeau believes in.
Before travelling into Kenya, the registered nurse and her physician husband Dr. Ray Comeau will head into Rwanda, with the plan to begin taking medical teams to that Central African country as early as January. They’ll provide medical supplies, plus health promotion like simple handwashing techniques.
“In these parts of the world, they don’t have the knowledge or they just need that bit of help to improve their health — and it saves lives.”
Deryl Comeau expects A Better World will continue to increase its positive influence over the next 20 years.
“That’s what the 20th anniversary is all about — they’ve kept going and they are doing more and greater things.”
Contact Laura Tester at ltester@www.reddeeradvocate.com