Hero Holiday is getting a New Name!

We have an exciting announcement to make…Hero Holiday is getting a new name!

As some of you will know, a few years ago, LiveDifferent transitioned from what we were formerly known as – Absolute Leadership Development. This was largely because we wanted a name that truly described the call to action we were sending out to both young and old across Canada; to live a life that really was different, that was about people, not stuff. At the time, we chose not to change the name of our international humanitarian program – Hero Holiday – due to how well-known it was, and because the original intent of that title, to encourage people to selflessly ‘be a hero’ to someone else, fell exactly in line with LiveDifferent’s values.

However, as LiveDifferent has grown over the years, the world around us has changed, with more and more people becoming aware of global issues. To our staff, nothing could be better than having more people invested in social justice causes, and we’ve welcomed questions about our programs, never shying away from the difficult ones, and even admitting with humility that we do not always have all the answers. One question that has come up frequently was whether the title ‘Hero Holiday’ accurately reflected the way we aim to partner with families and communities as equals, building with them, and not just for them.

This got us thinking…while we knew what a Hero Holiday was supposed to mean, it was a problem if it wasn’t representing our values clearly. We wanted to be sure that when people came on a trip with us, that they were left with the understanding that the true heroes were the families they were building with – those who struggled daily to provide for their children, to get an education, to change their communities for the better – those were the ones who inspired us! Finally, we realized that we would never want the people we partnered with in the local community to feel like they were any lesser than our staff or our teams simply because of a program title.

Maybe it was time for a change. Our team started brainstorming, trying to think of names that best described what our trips were about. What was our goal when we built in a community? What was it that we were building when we built a home for a family? What was built among a group of people as they came together for one week to build a home or a school?

In all of this, one word stood out…build. That is the one thing that is central to what LiveDifferent does in all of our host countries, we do building projects. But what we build is so much more than bricks and cement or a wooden frame. With each home or school we build, we’re building a community. We’re building health for the families and students who will have proper shelter and be able to get an education. We’re building dignity for the people who will have a place they will be proud to live in and to go to school. We’re building hope for a group of people who may not have believed that they had any value, or that anyone else cared about their community. We’re building a future for that community filled with people who are each just as valuable as I am, and as you are – who each have the potential to make a difference, whether we were born in Canada, or Dominican Republic, or Mexico, or Haiti, or Thailand.

So, you’ve probably worked it out by now…Hero Holiday’s new name is LiveDifferent Builds!

We’re really excited to embrace this new name, and to have you all come along with us as we continue to build a lifestyle that is about people, not stuff.

We’d love to hear from you too! What do you think of the new name? Send us an email and let us know!

 – LiveDifferent Team