Changing the world one community at a time
Kirsten Murphy
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Mar 14/01) - Colinda Latour raised $1,500 toward a trip to Guatemala this weekend. The community support was overwhelming, organizers said.
But after years of watching people come and go, do such trips make a difference in Yellowknife? Absolutely, says Kevin Taylor, a biomedical engineer who worked on ORBIS' flying eye hospital from 1995-1997.
Although a paid employee overseeing the equipment on the converted DC-10 with a state of the art operating room, the experience was priceless. Taylor, now employed by Stanton Regional Hospital, still draws upon his international trials and tribulations.
"You have to think outside ivory tower solutions," Taylor says.
"You see hardship on a scale you're not used to. And when you get into an extreme situation here, you have the skills to adapt."
He credits his overseas work with fostering a flexible, culturally aware outlook when dealing with different languages, climates, and sleep schedules.
"We in the Western world have a tendency to consume the good and spit out the bad. You have to be accepting and adaptable," he said.
City councillor Kevin O'Reilly and his wife Suzette Montreuil volunteered in Ethiopia for six months with Canadian Crossroads International (CCI) in 1988.
The couple are two of at least 30 people in, or formerly of Yellowknife, who worked with clinics, schools, and development groups with CCI.
O'Reilly volunteered with a water project. Montreuil worked on a health team.
"Seeing people walk four hours to get water with huge clay pots on their back made me realize how precious water is," he said.
"We have a duty to make the world a better place in whatever ways we can. We have the time, the resources, the education, a lot of things folks in other parts of the world don't have."
Thirteen years after leaving the East African country, O'Reilly's contribution here is bringing environmental agenda to city politics.
"It was there before I went to Ethiopia but certainly the experience helped influence the work I continue to do in the community, " he said.
