What Can 100 Years Do?
They perform 66% of the world’s work, earn only 10% of its income, and own only 1% of the world’s property. The girl child has been unofficially dubbed as being endangered due to infanticide, sexual exploitation and statelessness. And yet, the world not only needs women for obvious reasons, the world needs women because of the diversity, the hope and the compassion they bring.
Today, March 8th, is the one hundred year anniversary of International Women’s Day. The cause started much before that date so many years ago, and we live today in the freedom of what others fought and stood their ground for. In honour of today, I would like to introduce you to some of the incredible women we have worked with around the world: young and old, rich and poor.
I wonder how you could ever even count how many single mothers there are out there? Their courage is daunting and their resolve is inspiring. Women like Sandra, a single mother of 5 children in a tiny, impoverished community along the shipping docks of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. Sandra decided that poverty would not define her, her children and her community. Together with other women and men, they have rallied their community to believe in something more: a school, a medical clinic, a community cooperative, a girls’ club to educate and keep girls off the streets, and even giving their community an official new name to help re-define what they are becoming: New Birth. Happy International Women’s Day, Sandra.
Kru Nam’s courage and fierce passion for justice has resulted in hundreds and hundreds of children and women being freed from sexual exploitation and blinding poverty. This compassionate and courageous woman has rallied people from around the world, including LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute), to join her in a small, non-descript community in Northern Thailand that is a powerful tool against the evils of trafficking. Happy International Women’s Day, Kru Nam.
Mikaela has inspired many of our Hero Holiday staff and participants in Mexico when we consider the heavy load she carries and the strength it takes to put one foot in front of the other each day. Her young daughter, Jessica, is wrestling with cancer, and each day Mikaela goes to her shop and does her best to sell enough to make sure her daughter gets proper food, education, and a childhood. As I stood in the yard in front of her house that we helped to build for them, I realized how much respect her community had for her, and how much I had learned from her. Happy International Women’s Day, Mikaela.
There are so many girls in our high schools across Canada that we have met, we have listened to, and at times we have cried with. Sometimes all they have needed 
was someone to believe in them. There are so many amazing young women in our nation that it makes us in LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) hopeful that we are building something worth fighting for. Our LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) staff and our Hero Holiday program is full of young women who choose each day to be a light, a voice and tangible hope – despite what the personal costs may amount to. I have the privilege of working beside young women who have experienced everything from sexual abuse, terminal illness, violence and abuse, and innumerable personal challenges and yet they choose, each day, to continue to focus on what they can do to be a part of the solution to what they see around them. To all of you, Happy International Women’s Day.
We have met many incredible women throughout Haiti in LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute)’s work there. Many of them have loved much and lost much – some even have lost their own lives. Today, in honour of the memory of the women we have said good bye to there since January 12, 2010, Happy International Women’s Day.
“As a woman, I have no country. As a woman, my country is the whole world.” ~ Virginia WoolfJoin us this year in one of the countries we work in through our Hero Holiday program: www.livedifferent.com
His earliest memory was coming through the front door of his house at the age of five, and watching his mother try to crawl across the floor to reach him, her body battered and bleeding from another unprovoked act of violence from a man who only hurt them. That same man grabbed Shane’s hand and took him out the door and down the street, promising him ice cream. As he ate his ice cream, Shane listened to the man explain to him that, “Sometimes, women just need to be taught a lesson.” But Shane never knew what that “sometimes” really meant, because it seemed to be all the time.
When Shane was 9, Ray’s 14 year old nephew began to hang around their house and even offered to baby sit Shane. At first, it seemed pretty cool to have an older kid want to play basketball with him and to hang out with. But underneath it was a dark sickness that lurked: Ray’s nephew was a pedophile, even though he was still a ‘child’ himself. However, like many abused children, Shane had blocked out the trauma and tried to focus on keeping his life straightened out.
There aren’t many guys who are willing to ever consider talking about their personal lives on a stage in front of thousands of high school students – there are even less who are willing to talk about surviving sexual abuse. Shane is pretty much a one in a million kind of guy: he sees the possibilities, not the limitations of what life hands you. As he steps out on that stage and begins to share his story, it is more than a story of survival – it is a story of hope. And hope never lets go.
I first met him in the summer of 2007, in Dominican Republic. He was taking in some shade under the only tree that was close to where he worked: in the garbage dump. We would often sit there and chatter, me in my terrible Spanish and him rattling off in Creole and Spanish and smiling away as if I understood everything he said. It was the beginning of a friendship that has come to mean so much to me and many others.I always liked his eyes. Though they were now clouded with a deteriorating disease, they are sharp and kind. Eyes that you want to seek out in a crowd of people. He has a small, wiry frame, and his hands are deeply weathered from years and years of hard labour in the hot sun. I remembered him for many reasons. He was one of the ‘bosses’ at the dump and he was always the first to step forward and help us learn how to help them. And one day, as we were using the pump on the water jug, his hand reached out to help add leverage to the pump, and I noticed what was on his wrist. It was a Make Poverty History 
bracelet. It was a jarring moment for me, as I tried to soak it all in. This man, whom I had come to love and respect, was wearing this symbol of something I had given my life to. The only difference was, for him it was from the depths of poverty that he was working out of. Along with the 60-80 people that work there at that garbage dump, Beto lives day by day. Living on sometimes less than a dollar a day, they work to try to survive and to give their family a future. Many of them, like Beto, have even taken in orphaned children from their village, working to try to give them a future as well.Beto has taught me so much about serving others from where you are at. He has shown us and those around him how to be a leader without any title or pay grade to go with it. He has modeled compassion to many of us by taking in orphans and giving them a place to call home and a place to belong. He has opened up his world to us because he realizes that we don’t come to their place of work and into their village to observe or ogle. We come because they are our friends and friends enjoy spending time together.One of those days that summer, he and I had a conversation that has never left me. He told me why their community enjoyed spending time with our Hero Holiday groups. It was easiest for him to express it in Creole, through our translator.
“Everyone here knows that you are working to help us and we appreciate that. You don’t come here and make us sing or do anything for you and you don’t come here and stare at us with pity. You come here and join us as friends. You make us feel valuable.”Isn’t that what friends do? Friendship is about recognizing when someone could use your help and reaching out with what you have. It is built on respect and trust and it isn’t dependent on social, cultural or economic boundaries. Friendship is what moves us from being an observer of someone’s life to becoming a part of the picture of who they are. And I am glad to call Beto my friend.
“In the end, everything will be better. And if it’s not better, it’s not the end.”She was faced with a decision: to choose who she would become. Would she be a victim, or would she chart the course of her future? She decided then and there, that she was going to pursue a higher purpose in her life, and she was going to work towards being a part of the solution, not the problem.Believe it or not, that is exactly what she did. Jenna finished school with great grades. She has traveled and she is planning on continuing her education. But most importantly, she had the courage to recognize her own worth, despite what circumstances tried to tell her.Today, Jenna has talked to thousands and thousands of high school students, sharing her story and inviting them to the same hope: the hope that purpose brings. Jenna is a part of our staff that works to get us into high schools across the continent and we are proud of who she is.At the end of her story, Jenna has one final thought she shares with the students:
I was a bit of a victim of a lack of cable tv when I was a kid. I didn’t get to see all the shows that other kids talked about growing up: the ones that you needed to not live on a farm in the middle of nowhere for. But I remembered the puppet, Lamb Chop. I think she was everyone’s soft spot.The cards kind of seemed stacked against Shane right from the beginning. For reasons beyond anyone’s understanding, his father gave him the impression, from the time he was a tiny child that he wasn’t wanted. And it wasn’t something he dreamed up: he recalls incidents that his family have confirmed of outright abuse and neglect and he was left to bear the brunt of a lot of pain his father had internalized. When he was 3 his mother decided that enough was enough, and she divorced him and tried to move on with her life. And that is when she met Kevin, the man that would forever leave an impact on Shane about how to treat women, how to be a father, and how to take care of his family. Shane bonded with him almost instantly, but it was short lived.It was a few weeks before Christmas, and as a 5 year old boy, he was asked an important question by Kevin: “What do you want for Christmas?”. He already knew the answer because he had been focused on it for quite some time. He wanted a Criss-Cross Crash and a Lamp Chop puppet. So simple, yet something that would follow him for years to come, because that was one of his last conversations with Kevin. Kevin died shortly after from a heart attack; Shane found him on their bathroom floor. That Christmas was the loneliest of Shane’s young life.Christmas morning, as he got up with his mother and sister and they tried to make the most of their time together, he began to open his gifts. There, under the tree, just like he had been promised, was the Criss-Cross Crash and the Lamb Chop puppet. They now meant more to him than ever because they were his only tangible link to the man who had been the father to him that he had always wanted. He would treasure that puppet for the rest of his life, a reminder of someone who had loved him unconditionally when he needed it the most. When all the gifts were gone under the tree, they noticed one last, tiny box, wrapped with a bow. It had been put there by Kevin only days earlier, and it was an engagement ring for Shane’s mom. There were no words to describe the loss, only pain and tears.
As time passed, Shane began to move on with his life, never hearing from his biological father and feeling deep down that it was probably for the best. Shane didn’t want anything to do with him, as he only represented a source of pain and loss in his life. Until one day the phone rang and it was him.He asked to see Shane, and somehow, despite how he felt, Shane conceded and allowed him the honour of seeing him again. But that day his father left Shane with an almost impossible request: to please forgive him for all that he had done to him and for how much he had failed him. And somewhere from deep within, Shane felt it was time to just let it all go and recognize that this man can no longer define and influence how he would live his life. Shane didn’t want to be a victim anymore – he wanted to be free.Shortly after that conversation, Shane received shocking news he wasn’t expecting: his father had died, and Shane had no idea that he had been sick. Life came full circle for him, yet again. Only now, he had closure, because he was able to let it all go. He wasn’t the abused and scared little boy anymore; he was a young man who understood the power of forgiveness and the gift of hope.Today, along with his wife, Katie, Shane leads one of our high school road teams across the nation. Each day he stands on a stage and shares his story, opens up his life, and holds out the gift of hope to thousands upon thousands of youth. And each day, there are always those in the crowd who need to hear it most.
It evokes different images for each person that hears it: It warms, protects, fuels, provides, and sometimes it devours. It’s the four letter “f” word, fire. It can only start if many different chemical elements and states are in place, if the air movement is right and there is the perfect reaction of elements. Of its own accord, it often starts in the most unlikely of places, but once it is properly ignited, it can become a powerful, destructive force to be reckoned with.Jessica’s family didn’t dream that when they all left for school and work that morning that their lives would never be the same. But it happened without their permission, and it was insatiable. By the time they were notified, it was too late – they could only stand there in shock as they watched their family’s home be consumed by the flames. Each room, each member’s personal belongings, and all of their family’s material memories were lost in the heat and smoke. It seemed like too much to comprehend, and yet they were left with no choice but to move on. That night, as she was getting into bed at a family member’s house, Jessica took an inventory of all of her worldly possessions on the floor beside her: donated clothes, shoes, and toiletries.
For the next while she was plagued with guilt, as she found out the fire was believed to have started in the electrical wiring in her bedroom. Oddly enough, numerous reassurances from family and friends didn’t seem to change how she felt: responsible that she hadn’t realized it before it was too late. A few weeks later, LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) came to Jessica’s school. As she sat in the audience and listened to team members’ stories, she was inspired to think outside of herself, and she signed up for Hero Holiday. Her family and friends got behind her and helped her with her fundraising and that summer Jessica joined hundreds of other participants in the Dominican Republic. She was never the same.When Jessica returned home, she was not only changed, she was empowered. She knew that her family had experienced a horrible trauma that few would understand, and she knew that she could take that experience and decide one of two things: to dwell on it and turtle from life, or to recognize the opportunity that lies in the loss. She chose the opportunity. Jessica began to get involved in her community, continued to stay connected with her Hero Holiday network of friends, and continued to challenge and inspire people in her hometown to make a difference where they were at. And this past September, Jessica joined our LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) School of Leadership and headed off to Mexico for the first half of her year.It was this past November that everything came full circle in her life. As she joined the other students in building a house for a family, she realized that she wasn’t so different from them. The family that they built for had been living in a cardboard and tin shack, with only basic cooking utensils, blankets, a worn out mattress and minimal clothes. As they were presented with the keys to their new house that they worked alongside of Jessica and the other students to build, they were in awe of what they were now in possession of. They had a real home, and 
their family was safe, warm and together. They had all that they could have ever dreamed of, and Jessica, the girl who had known what it was to go without for a long time, was one of the team members to hand over the keys. As she looked in their eyes, she understood, perhaps better than anyone else there, the power of knowing that people around you believe in you and in your future as a family, because she had stood in their shoes.This semester, Jessica is touring with our road teams, and she is sharing her story with tens of thousands of high school students across the nation. Life is about choosing who you become, despite what becomes of your life. She gets it and she is living it out every day.To find out more about LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) and our high school presentations, our Hero Holiday programs, or our School of Leadership, check out 
She likes to play with her friends, take care of her younger siblings, meet new people, and is always eager to learn new English words. Maria goes to the school in the community that LiveDifferent (formerly Absolute) helps to teach English at, and everywhere Rose turned this past year, little Maria seemed to be there, hauling her younger brother around behind her, eager to play and connect with any Hero Holiday team members that she could. She had found something she wanted, and she wasn’t going to give up that easily.Just before our staff and students left Mexico to come back to Canada for the end of the past semester, Maria’s mom showed up at the school on their last day teaching there. She came all that way to say thanks for being role models for their children in that community. It was so simple, so authentic and so encouraging that since the day I found out about it, I find myself smiling at the mere thought of it because she got it – she really got it.
Our Hero Holiday staff work hard to find inroads into the community there. Life is quiet and people keep to themselves a lot, trying to focus on making sure they make it through the month, the week, or even the day. Maria seems to be oblivious to all of the hardships that she faces on a daily basis. Her family is just as poor as the next one, and yet that never seems to stop her from imagining far away places or from reaching out to learn about new people.Our goal in their community, and everywhere we work, is not to tell them what to do. We don’t see them as a project in need of rescue and we don’t want them to feel like they are the object of our charity. We want to work as partners for their success, just like we do in Canadian high schools. We can do this by recognizing the fact that the only thing that separates us is opportunity.The world doesn’t need any more untouchable ‘heroes’. We have too many people already who are idolized for their fame and never seem to have the character to match up. 
The world doesn’t need someone to come in and rescue them, either; nothing is ever gained in the long term by a short term rescue operation. The world around us needs role models: people who recognize that their lives can bring hope and spark purpose in others’ lives. A role model helps you to believe that anything is possible, and they leave behind an indelible footprint on your life that can help to become a path to follow.Before our group left to come to Canada last month, Maria dropped off a note for them. It was a long note of thanks from a little girl with a heart full of dreams. It was a love note between friends.Four hours south of Tijuana, Baja California, lies a string of towns that make up the San Quentin valley. Technically, it is a desert, and rain is a luxury they seldom see. Like many places all over the earth, life is difficult and survival is not a given. The wind seems to be the one constant thing in that place, always blowing up the sand and dust. But behind each doorway into a home lies families and individuals who long for more than just survival: like Maria, they want to live out their own dreams, too.You can join us this year in Mexico! We would love to have you come and experience the power of making a difference through one of our many Hero Holiday trips. Check out 
