Latest / The You Project / #1606 Service Above Self - Annabelle Chauncy OAM

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#1606 Service Above Self - Annabelle Chauncy OAM · The You Project

0:00
Speaker 1: I'll get a tat taps. Who else would bloody be?
0:02
Speaker 1: It's the you project. It's Annabelle, it's me, it's us,
0:04
Speaker 1: it's you. I hope you're good. It's three oh five
0:08
Speaker 1: on a Tuesday as I sit down to chat with
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Speaker 1: my new bestie of a rock solid three minutes we've
0:14
Speaker 1: been connecting, so, I mean, if we don't know each
0:17
Speaker 1: other by now, we never will. Hi Annabelle, Hi, Greg?
0:21
Speaker 2: How are you?
0:21
Speaker 1: I'm very good. You and I were just talking off there.
0:25
Speaker 1: I'm going to throw you under the bus straight away. Yeah,
0:27
Speaker 1: I'm not at all. I'm not at all. You were
0:29
Speaker 1: saying that when you when you were doing some corporate
0:32
Speaker 1: stuff like standing in front of corporate groups, that you'd
0:36
Speaker 1: have a bit of performance anxiety. Like just meeting you momentarily,
0:40
Speaker 1: that seems like you seem like a very relaxed, kind
0:44
Speaker 1: of spontaneous, organic in the moment person. What was it that?
0:50
Speaker 1: What was it that freaked you out about standing in
0:52
Speaker 1: front of corporate audiences?
0:55
Speaker 2: Ah, you know what, I think it's the story you
0:59
Speaker 2: tell yourself when you're well. For me, the story I
1:02
Speaker 2: was telling myself was that if I was being paid
1:05
Speaker 2: to do a job right, that I was I worth
1:10
Speaker 2: as much as I was being paid and so therefore,
1:13
Speaker 2: and you lose sight of the fact that you're talking
1:16
Speaker 2: to humans, you know. And I think what was scaring
1:19
Speaker 2: me was, Oh, you know, I'm talking to these people
1:22
Speaker 2: from Optors, and they're so much better than me because
1:25
Speaker 2: they work at a corporate and I found it a charity,
1:28
Speaker 2: And what's my story even going to evoke in them? Anyway?
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Speaker 2: They're just going to think, oh, who's this girl and
1:34
Speaker 2: what does she have anything to do with me and
1:36
Speaker 2: my job? You know, And then it would like that
1:38
Speaker 2: would be the start of the narrative, and then for
1:42
Speaker 2: me it would just get louder and louder, and then
1:45
Speaker 2: it would almost cause me to trip myself over because
1:50
Speaker 2: of the imposter syndrome and the negative voice inside my
1:53
Speaker 2: head telling me then my story or you know, I
1:57
Speaker 2: guess what my experiences were weren't worth sharing. Yeah, it's
2:02
Speaker 2: totally place to start.
2:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, well no, but it's I mean, everyone's everyone's scared
2:06
Speaker 1: of stuff, right, It's like that, your challenge is not
2:08
Speaker 1: to be fearless. Your challenge is to be courageous despite
2:11
Speaker 1: your fear. And of course courage can't exist without fear
2:16
Speaker 1: and exactly like, I'm scared of a hundred things. But
2:20
Speaker 1: you know, if I wait until I've got no fear
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Speaker 1: or no performance anxiety or no bloody imposter syndrome or
2:26
Speaker 1: no self doubt or no insecurity, will fucking good luck,
2:29
Speaker 1: I'll be sitting in a bean bag till I die,
2:32
Speaker 1: you know. So, I mean, this is the ever present
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Speaker 1: challenge of you know, of becoming a better version of
2:39
Speaker 1: you and building something that the world needs or wants
2:42
Speaker 1: or will be on value like you've done serving people.
2:47
Speaker 1: Is It's like whatever you start at, you're always a
2:50
Speaker 1: white belt, you know. So, whether or not it's literally
2:53
Speaker 1: martial arts, you're a white belt, or building a charity,
2:56
Speaker 1: you probably look back, do we call it a charity
2:59
Speaker 1: or not profit?
3:00
Speaker 2: What do we call not for profit? It is? I mean,
3:02
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, it's a charity. I
3:04
Speaker 2: just feel that the word charity has some negative connotations. Okay,
3:08
Speaker 2: so you know, I guess the word not for profit
3:11
Speaker 2: seems to be or even for purpose. I think it's
3:14
Speaker 2: an interesting one because it feels a little bit less
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Speaker 2: of helping the poor people and more about empowerment.
3:22
Speaker 1: They're so good, such a nice distinction. But I bet
3:25
Speaker 1: when you started that you look now and go, fucking hell,
3:27
Speaker 1: how much didn't I know? How many? How many dumb
3:32
Speaker 1: things did I do with great intentions?
3:35
Speaker 2: But how much better is it when you're twenty years
3:37
Speaker 2: old and you don't know as being and you've got
3:39
Speaker 2: beginner's mind and you are, you know, just full of
3:42
Speaker 2: passion and naivity. And that was literally it. It was like,
3:45
Speaker 2: I could build a school for a few kids, and
3:47
Speaker 2: I can make their lives a bit better. And you know,
3:51
Speaker 2: little did I know I was going to need you know, licenses,
3:54
Speaker 2: registration team, you know, money, all of that, everything that
3:58
Speaker 2: comes behind sort of wanting to just start a school
4:01
Speaker 2: in Africa and you learn on the fly. And I
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Speaker 2: think in some ways naivity was one of the most
4:10
Speaker 2: powerful tools that I had that stop stopped me from
4:13
Speaker 2: being scared.
4:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you don't know what you don't know, and
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Speaker 1: sometimes what you don't know that you'll find out eventually,
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Speaker 1: But in the moment of not knowing it, it is
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Speaker 1: it's kind of a psychological advantage because you don't even
4:24
Speaker 1: know that you should be scared of that because you
4:26
Speaker 1: don't know it exists yet. Exactly when I set up
4:30
Speaker 1: the first personal training center, which is not comparable to
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Speaker 1: what you've set up because yours is much more philanthropic
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Speaker 1: and noble. Mine was a commercial business. But I set
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Speaker 1: up the first personal training center in Australia in nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety when you were just a twinkle in your mum's eye.
4:45
Speaker 1: Oh no, four, Okay, you're four? Okay, Yeah, I was nine.
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Speaker 1: I was an early starter. But if I had have
4:55
Speaker 1: known how much shit I didn't know about about leasing premises,
5:01
Speaker 1: about legal, shit about hiring and firing, about administration, about insurance,
5:05
Speaker 1: about all the potential complications around training thousands of humans,
5:10
Speaker 1: and all of the myriad of psychological, emotional, practical, physiological
5:16
Speaker 1: issues that come with that, and like I spent like you,
5:20
Speaker 1: I'm sure I spent the five first five years of
5:23
Speaker 1: my business just solving problems on a daily basis, and
5:28
Speaker 1: problems that I was dealing with for the first time, yeah.
5:32
Speaker 2: And not knowing how to deal with those problems because
5:36
Speaker 2: you've a never dealt with them before and be kind
5:39
Speaker 2: of are literally kind of in the cold face of
5:42
Speaker 2: things that you've just never even expected now And to
5:46
Speaker 2: be honest, look, it's probably not dissimilar right now, it
5:50
Speaker 2: never sort of seems to change. When you're running a business,
5:54
Speaker 2: you're continually thrown curve balls and challenges that you haven't
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Speaker 2: you know, foresee are going to be around a corner. Yeah, so,
6:02
Speaker 2: I mean, but that's for me, that's what it keeps
6:04
Speaker 2: it exciting. That's why I'm still here because no two
6:07
Speaker 2: days are the same, and I love that.
6:11
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are a myriad of answers to this question,
6:14
Speaker 1: But what were what were some of the things that
6:19
Speaker 1: you just never expected in terms of setting up you know,
6:24
Speaker 1: they're not at School for Life, right, in terms of
6:27
Speaker 1: setting that up? Be they sociological, financial, cultural, legal, Like
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Speaker 1: what what was one or two of the things that
6:36
Speaker 1: you went, fuck, I never even thought of that, and
6:38
Speaker 1: that has been a really big challenge or I didn't
6:42
Speaker 1: anticipate it.
6:46
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, there's been a lot.
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Speaker 1: I think maybe a better question is what don't people
6:56
Speaker 1: get about setting up something like School for Life.
7:00
Speaker 2: It's probably just genuinely that it is a business, right,
7:04
Speaker 2: you know, And I think when people think of charity,
7:08
Speaker 2: they don't you know, I still get asked everywhere I
7:10
Speaker 2: go do you get paid a salary? Or if not,
7:12
Speaker 2: how do you survive every room I speaking really, and
7:17
Speaker 2: I believe in my heart that it's because when you run,
7:22
Speaker 2: you know, a charity and not for profit however you
7:24
Speaker 2: want to name it, people believe that all that's for
7:28
Speaker 2: volunteers and they don't think of it like a business.
7:31
Speaker 2: And so I think that's that kind of has continually
7:34
Speaker 2: shocked me. And then, you know, people say quite kind
7:39
Speaker 2: of negative and weird things to you at times about you,
7:43
Speaker 2: for example, wasting your skills and talents on you know,
7:47
Speaker 2: starting something. You know, you would have been a great lawyer,
7:50
Speaker 2: Annabelle if you had have just pursued that, And it's
7:53
Speaker 2: kind of a weird, it's a very it's a very
7:57
Speaker 2: strange thing to say to somebody. I wondered, you know,
7:59
Speaker 2: if I was in a commercial space where people say
8:02
Speaker 2: something similar, you would have been great at starting a charity, Anabell.
8:05
Speaker 2: Why did you go and do that?
8:06
Speaker 1: You know?
8:07
Speaker 2: So I guess there's that which I find interesting, And
8:10
Speaker 2: I suppose, yeah, the whole concept that people don't really
8:12
Speaker 2: see it like it's a business that I'm running is
8:15
Speaker 2: essentially what it is.
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Speaker 1: How dare you spend your life as supporting and helping
8:20
Speaker 1: disadvantage people? Do you stop wasting your life doing all
8:23
Speaker 1: that selfless bullshit. Get selfish women, make it all about you.
8:28
Speaker 1: Fuck them? What are you doing? Stop being so generous
8:32
Speaker 1: and philanthropic and compassionate. People are funny. Humans are funny,
8:37
Speaker 1: aren't they? You know they are?
8:39
Speaker 2: They are?
8:39
Speaker 1: God bless them. Yeah.
8:41
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean that's also part of it. I guess,
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Speaker 2: bringing people along for a journey and getting them on
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Speaker 2: board and selling a vision of something that they couldn't
8:54
Speaker 2: see because of course it didn't exist yet. It was
8:56
Speaker 2: a really interesting process, I think, you know, at the
8:59
Speaker 2: end to kind of Ripe Age of twenty trying to
9:02
Speaker 2: sort of stell a vision of schools in Uganda that
9:06
Speaker 2: myself and my core founder we're going to deliver on
9:08
Speaker 2: was quite you know, the amount of naysays and critics
9:13
Speaker 2: was huge because people were just like, you're insane, how
9:18
Speaker 2: would you possibly think that you're going to be able
9:19
Speaker 2: to do this? But I think and then you know,
9:22
Speaker 2: to that point to then try to build a community
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Speaker 2: around it of like minded people who wanted to be
9:28
Speaker 2: able to support it, you know, in an ongoing way
9:33
Speaker 2: has been really interesting. And yeah, humans are interesting and
9:37
Speaker 2: they're different, so it's amazing.
9:41
Speaker 1: So I had this question because you've probably been asked
9:44
Speaker 1: for a thousand times, but I don't know, and my
9:46
Speaker 1: listeners don't know the guesser. So what was the genesis? Like?
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Speaker 1: Did you go over there thinking I'm going to go
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Speaker 1: and do some research, a bit of a wreckie, I'm
9:54
Speaker 1: going to see what the needs are and I'm going
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Speaker 1: to meet those needs. Or were you just over there
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Speaker 1: doing stuff and you went, oh, fuck, there's a real
10:03
Speaker 1: hole here that needs to be filled and maybe maybe
10:06
Speaker 1: I could be part of the solution. Is how did
10:09
Speaker 1: it go? Yeah?
10:10
Speaker 2: So I wanted to work with the UN that was
10:12
Speaker 2: my goal. I was studying arts law at Sydney UNI,
10:16
Speaker 2: and I was learning French because I wanted, you know,
10:19
Speaker 2: I was I'd already was speaking it fluently and I
10:22
Speaker 2: wanted to remain bilingual. And so I was like, but
10:25
Speaker 2: I want to use my skills to make a difference
10:27
Speaker 2: and I want to work with the United Nations. And
10:30
Speaker 2: so I decided to volunteer in Kenya to get some
10:33
Speaker 2: kind of field experience. And when I got to Kenya,
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Speaker 2: Kenya had a civil coup in two thousand and eight
10:40
Speaker 2: when there was extreme election violence and I was evacuated
10:44
Speaker 2: across the border into Uganda, and if I'm really honest
10:47
Speaker 2: with you, it was kind of this strange moment because
10:51
Speaker 2: the organization that I was volunteering with didn't have an
10:54
Speaker 2: operation over in Uganda, so they kind of wiped their
10:57
Speaker 2: hands clean of us, and we were left kind of
10:59
Speaker 2: just figure out what to do. And so I looked
11:02
Speaker 2: at a whole bunch of different projects, and I was
11:05
Speaker 2: quite dated by what I saw in the bigger international
11:10
Speaker 2: NDO space because I felt, you know, they felt like
11:14
Speaker 2: quite a lot of resources were being wasted. And hence
11:18
Speaker 2: the reason I guess I wanted to start something grassroots,
11:21
Speaker 2: where I went, well, actually people need education. Education is
11:25
Speaker 2: something that you can't take away from people, and so
11:28
Speaker 2: if I could just build some schools and get some
11:31
Speaker 2: kids educated, then that would make a difference. And so
11:34
Speaker 2: it sort of went from kind of, I guess, a
11:37
Speaker 2: view of kind of where I wanted to work career
11:40
Speaker 2: a career wise, to changing into kind of a whole,
11:46
Speaker 2: a whole different life. Really, it is a life that
11:52
Speaker 2: I've completely built and love.
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Speaker 1: So what you know, I'm just listening because I'm you know,
12:02
Speaker 1: thirty percent female. I can multitask, do you know how
12:06
Speaker 1: many people live in Uganda off the top of your head.
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Speaker 2: Yes, forty eight million.
12:12
Speaker 1: Wow, that's yeah. I just you're right, you're right. And
12:16
Speaker 1: in Kenya is fifty four million. And I'm I had
12:19
Speaker 1: you could have told me seven million, I wouldn't have known.
12:23
Speaker 1: I mean, I really, I really didn't know. And that
12:25
Speaker 1: is that's massive. Well, that's double our population nearly, isn't.
12:29
Speaker 2: It in a landspace the size of Australia state of Victoria. Yes, yes,
12:36
Speaker 2: So it is densely populated. Women are having you know,
12:40
Speaker 2: six to ten children, wow, and fifty six percent of
12:46
Speaker 2: children complete primary school. So you're talking about a very
12:51
Speaker 2: uneducated place. And sadly that's just because of lack of
12:56
Speaker 2: access and lack of opportunity, and you know, by nature
13:01
Speaker 2: of birth, they've been born into really vicious cycles of
13:05
Speaker 2: poverty that are very difficult to break free from.
13:08
Speaker 1: So you get kicked out of Kenya kinda and you
13:11
Speaker 1: end up in Uganda with your did you say your sister?
13:15
Speaker 2: So I had a friend there from school, right, and
13:19
Speaker 2: we were there together, and then there were some other
13:21
Speaker 2: volunteers that were also Yeah.
13:24
Speaker 1: So all right, so give us a little bit of
13:28
Speaker 1: the events between that and you know, school for life, Like,
13:32
Speaker 1: what where did you start? What light bulb happened? What
13:37
Speaker 1: was the first decision or awareness?
13:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think pretty much just not having anything organized
13:44
Speaker 2: to do, so therefore just needing to roll our sleeves
13:47
Speaker 2: up and figure out how we could actually be helpful.
13:50
Speaker 2: And I mean we're talking. I'm a twenty year old.
13:52
Speaker 2: I'm not really helpful at all, let alone and my
13:55
Speaker 2: helpful you know, trying to teach English to children. But
13:58
Speaker 2: it was there in the kind of government schools that
14:02
Speaker 2: I realized there's massive issues. You know, you turn up
14:06
Speaker 2: to a classroom that was full of broken down furniture,
14:10
Speaker 2: no blackboards. The children were walking five to ten kilometers
14:14
Speaker 2: every day with no shoes on their feet, on empty
14:17
Speaker 2: stomachs to get to these classrooms. But they were doing
14:21
Speaker 2: that with a smile on their face. And they were
14:23
Speaker 2: still doing that even if they were turning up to
14:25
Speaker 2: what we would perceive to be the world's worst classroom,
14:29
Speaker 2: because they know that education is something that's going to
14:32
Speaker 2: break them free from the cycle of poverty. They know
14:34
Speaker 2: that education is going to give them opportunity. And so
14:37
Speaker 2: I just thought, my God, like we take so much
14:40
Speaker 2: for granted here in Australia. I was so lucky, you know,
14:45
Speaker 2: and literally it's just the lotto of life has had
14:48
Speaker 2: these children born here into a place where they don't
14:51
Speaker 2: get an education, and we we're so lucky. How can
14:57
Speaker 2: I use what I've got to do something? So it
15:00
Speaker 2: was kind of that scratch your head moment. And I
15:02
Speaker 2: think there's also some I guess there given the statistics
15:07
Speaker 2: around Uganda, and I won't kind of bore you with them,
15:10
Speaker 2: but the problem can feel so huge. It's the fifth
15:13
Speaker 2: youngest population in the world. It's a huge population living
15:17
Speaker 2: in a very small country. So many kids aren't getting
15:20
Speaker 2: a chance, and it would be so easy to just
15:22
Speaker 2: walk away and just go, oh, don't even know where
15:24
Speaker 2: to begin, yes, But rather than do that, it was
15:28
Speaker 2: more about, okay, well, how do we just put one
15:30
Speaker 2: foot in front of the other and do something for
15:33
Speaker 2: some kids, because you know, something for some kids is
15:36
Speaker 2: better than nothing for no kids. And so then I
15:40
Speaker 2: came home and I'd met my co founder over in
15:43
Speaker 2: Kena and we just caught up for a drink and
15:47
Speaker 2: we both spoke about how we had to share vision
15:50
Speaker 2: and desire to provide education to kids, and then we
15:54
Speaker 2: started scratching out business plans and pretty much just talking
15:57
Speaker 2: to anybody that would listen about our ideas, most of
16:02
Speaker 2: whom said, you know, you're crazy, come back to us
16:04
Speaker 2: when you finish your UNI degrees, or don't come back
16:07
Speaker 2: to us at all, because you know, who are you anyway.
16:12
Speaker 2: But it was sort of those naysays and critics that
16:14
Speaker 2: kind of fired us up and we were like, we
16:16
Speaker 2: can do this. So started fundraising and then went across.
16:21
Speaker 2: The premise of School for Life that we've always built
16:25
Speaker 2: on was that these schools need to be own and
16:29
Speaker 2: run by local people. And one of our key takeaways
16:32
Speaker 2: from our time spent in East Africa was that, you know,
16:36
Speaker 2: the kind of model of Westerners doing things for people
16:40
Speaker 2: in developing nations and then leaving does not work, doesn't stick,
16:45
Speaker 2: no buy in, yes, you know, and it's a similar
16:49
Speaker 2: thing with welfare. I think I'm going to be pretty
16:51
Speaker 2: controversially in saying that, but I just I believe that
16:54
Speaker 2: you've got to have skin in the game. And so
16:56
Speaker 2: from the start, the model was always that we would
17:00
Speaker 2: community members with the skills, tools, resources funding that they
17:05
Speaker 2: need to be able to build and run schools for themselves.
17:09
Speaker 1: And I guess you had to build a lot of relationships.
17:12
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about over there. You needed to develop trust
17:16
Speaker 1: and respect and rapport and relationships with the people who
17:20
Speaker 1: live there, and I guess the community leaders slash politicians
17:24
Speaker 1: slash education. I don't know. Like to me, there seems
17:28
Speaker 1: like a myriad of fucking variables that you need to negotiate.
17:34
Speaker 1: If I get too technical at any time, just let
17:36
Speaker 1: me know about I'll wind it back, you know. But
17:41
Speaker 1: that like developing all those relationships and the conduit that
17:46
Speaker 1: you needed to do, that pathway between you and I
17:49
Speaker 1: guess the decision makers or the enablers and facilitators on
17:53
Speaker 1: the other side of the world, that must have been
17:57
Speaker 1: an ever present challenge.
17:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, Oh, so many layers, like learning to understand the
18:04
Speaker 2: layers they'n navigating through them. They've got kind of like
18:08
Speaker 2: a sort of similar structure of government that we have,
18:13
Speaker 2: you know, and corruptions rife. I'm a female, which you
18:21
Speaker 2: know is particularly fifteen sixteen years ago when I first started. Yes,
18:27
Speaker 2: you know, females don't have a place at the table
18:29
Speaker 2: when it comes to business, So you know, there was
18:32
Speaker 2: all of that, and then on top of that, it
18:33
Speaker 2: was also kind of then we identified very poor communities
18:38
Speaker 2: that we wanted to operate in, and by nature of
18:41
Speaker 2: their poverty or vulnerability, the issues were so multi dimensional.
18:46
Speaker 2: So you've got you know, not just kind of a
18:48
Speaker 2: lack of education, but a lack of healthcare, deep set
18:53
Speaker 2: issues around domestic abuse, You've got alcoholism, you have you know,
18:59
Speaker 2: women having multiple children, unwanted potentially being forced into unwanted marriages.
19:06
Speaker 2: You know, a huge number of issues, and you know,
19:10
Speaker 2: so navigating the politics but also then I guess this
19:14
Speaker 2: solution for the complexity of the issue was really challenging
19:21
Speaker 2: but also kind of exciting at the same time, because
19:25
Speaker 2: every time we unlocked a relationship with a certain level
19:28
Speaker 2: of government, we felt like we were getting closer. And
19:31
Speaker 2: then once we got into the community, a lot of
19:35
Speaker 2: the issues are relatively simple to solve for, you know,
19:38
Speaker 2: fields coming down with typhoid. Let's put in deep set
19:41
Speaker 2: boreholes to provide the whole community with access to clean
19:44
Speaker 2: water for free. You know, some of them are quite
19:47
Speaker 2: simple to solve for. Others have taken a long time.
19:49
Speaker 2: You know, things like gender equity and domestic abuse, systemic
19:55
Speaker 2: issues that are going to take a long time for
19:58
Speaker 2: mindset to shift around.
20:00
Speaker 1: Wow, this is much bigger than just classroom education, right, yeah,
20:04
Speaker 1: that's just like because I was just thinking schools, kids education,
20:08
Speaker 1: but this is really a community, you know, this is
20:13
Speaker 1: much bigger. This is all the intero family, cultural you know,
20:19
Speaker 1: all of that, that bigger picture, that macro, not just
20:23
Speaker 1: the micro stuff, right.
20:25
Speaker 2: Yeah. And we didn't We definitely didn't know or anticipate
20:28
Speaker 2: that because I think you know, we thought to ourselves, oh,
20:31
Speaker 2: we'll just do a few schools. But then what you
20:34
Speaker 2: actually realize is that if a child isn't healthy physically
20:38
Speaker 2: or mentally, yes, they can't learn. So it doesn't really
20:42
Speaker 2: matter how they're you know, if they're in the classroom,
20:45
Speaker 2: if they're being beaten up at home, they're starving, they're
20:47
Speaker 2: drinking bad water, their health is bad, you know, and
20:50
Speaker 2: then on top of that, you've got the family situation.
20:54
Speaker 2: So you know, once we started we open the schools,
20:58
Speaker 2: the kids are coming to starving. We put in feeding programs.
21:02
Speaker 2: They were missing days of school due to illness, so
21:05
Speaker 2: then we put in healthcare clinics. And then they would
21:09
Speaker 2: go home and start to teach their parents how to
21:11
Speaker 2: read and write. Wow, And their parents would come back
21:14
Speaker 2: in and say we want to learn too, So, you know,
21:17
Speaker 2: it became this sort of holistic community development center that
21:22
Speaker 2: started to completely shift the way the fabric of the
21:26
Speaker 2: community looked. And even just by nature of bringing teachers
21:30
Speaker 2: into the community and providing them accommodation on site, the
21:34
Speaker 2: community members were sitting up straighter. You know, kids who
21:38
Speaker 2: otherwise would have never had a dream. Their dream was
21:41
Speaker 2: to dig, you know, on the field, to grow the
21:43
Speaker 2: food that they were going to use to feed themselves
21:46
Speaker 2: that night, and now dreaming of becoming pilots and doctors.
21:50
Speaker 2: That was just so far from you know, the realms
21:53
Speaker 2: of possibility for any of these young people, and now
21:57
Speaker 2: you kind of see worlds just opening up. So yeah,
22:00
Speaker 2: it really really complex but incredible at the same time,
22:04
Speaker 2: I know.
22:05
Speaker 1: It's much bigger than you, and I know you're going
22:07
Speaker 1: to be self deprecating and evasive because that's you, right,
22:12
Speaker 1: But do you ever go, fucking hell, I've done well,
22:15
Speaker 1: I've done a good jo and I know it's not
22:16
Speaker 1: about you, but do you ever go I'm pretty good,
22:18
Speaker 1: I've done a good job.
22:19
Speaker 2: Not really. It's like, you know, during COVID, I didn't
22:24
Speaker 2: I couldn't get over there for a couple of years
22:25
Speaker 2: and I had my first daughter, and so there was
22:31
Speaker 2: just this hiatus, and I thought, this is going to
22:34
Speaker 2: really kind of test the model, because you know, it's
22:38
Speaker 2: been always locals leading it, running it, executing on the plans,
22:44
Speaker 2: and we can't get over there, so it's kind of
22:47
Speaker 2: going to live or die. And it really lived like
22:51
Speaker 2: it kind of didn't just survive, it thrived. And then
22:55
Speaker 2: so there was just this break in time where I've
22:58
Speaker 2: been so used to like spending, you know, going over
23:01
Speaker 2: four or five times a year, spending you know, a
23:03
Speaker 2: month at a time over there, and then I kind
23:06
Speaker 2: of didn't go there. And so when I did go back, Oh,
23:10
Speaker 2: it just hit me in the face. You know, it
23:12
Speaker 2: was one of the only times where you know, it's
23:16
Speaker 2: just been so long and you're just like, oh gosh,
23:19
Speaker 2: I'd forgotten what this feels like, to see what true
23:23
Speaker 2: transformation looks like and to just see how much hope
23:28
Speaker 2: there is here in otherwise quite broken community. So yeah,
23:32
Speaker 2: it really cool.
23:35
Speaker 1: So why do you do it?
23:40
Speaker 2: Ah?
23:41
Speaker 1: It?
23:41
Speaker 2: You know, it's hard to even grasp anymore because I
23:45
Speaker 2: think it's morphed in so many ways. I love a challenge,
23:52
Speaker 2: and I think it's the epitome of an ever moving challenge.
23:58
Speaker 2: Every stage of the organizations life cycle has challenged me
24:02
Speaker 2: in different ways. But I think it's equally married with
24:05
Speaker 2: being able to see a really tangible impact in that
24:11
Speaker 2: you know, you've got children who perhaps couldn't look you
24:14
Speaker 2: in the eye, were riddled with illness, stunted due to malnutrition,
24:21
Speaker 2: unable to kind of participate. To see them come into
24:27
Speaker 2: a system where they're fully nurtured and grown as humans,
24:32
Speaker 2: not just like academically, almost kind of become like a butterfly,
24:39
Speaker 2: that's the most remarkable gift, most remarkable gift, and it
24:45
Speaker 2: will never get old for me. I don't think so.
24:48
Speaker 2: I think that's the key driver, is just unlocking potential. Yeah,
24:53
Speaker 2: there's nothing like it.
24:56
Speaker 1: And how many people? Like, how many people are on
24:58
Speaker 1: your team? I guess as people who are full timers
25:01
Speaker 1: and part timers and volunteer You're like, how does that work?
25:05
Speaker 1: How many people are involved in making this happen?
25:10
Speaker 2: Yeah? Globally probably one hundred and fifty Wow, I would
25:16
Speaker 2: say the line shairs obviously in Africa, so I've got
25:20
Speaker 2: about one hundred and forty over there. So they're everything
25:23
Speaker 2: from builders cooks, cleaners, maintenance, security, teachers, managers, you know,
25:29
Speaker 2: ground staff, ag et cetera. And then in Australia a
25:34
Speaker 2: very lean team. We're about seven, but then we've got
25:37
Speaker 2: probably another kind of ten odd volunteers and we do
25:42
Speaker 2: anything from kind of marketing, fundraising, strategy, impact evaluation. Yeah,
25:50
Speaker 2: getting the word out there about the work that we do.
25:53
Speaker 1: How did you go mentally and emotionally in that downtime
25:57
Speaker 1: because everyone, you know, we all have spoken about COVID
26:00
Speaker 1: and my you know, we were talking about corporate speaking
26:04
Speaker 1: before we went live, and I literally I wanted to
26:07
Speaker 1: say how much. But in the matter, in a matter
26:10
Speaker 1: of two or three weeks, I lost a year's worth
26:13
Speaker 1: of income of bookings and you're like, oh, this is okay.
26:17
Speaker 1: So this is a new reality. And everybody, you know,
26:19
Speaker 1: and I got off lightly like a lot of people were,
26:22
Speaker 1: you know, the businesses closed, they were fucked. But what
26:26
Speaker 1: about you? Where you couldn't go and be where you
26:28
Speaker 1: wanted to be, You couldn't do you couldn't do it
26:30
Speaker 1: in the way that you've been doing it. How did
26:33
Speaker 1: you navigate personally? Forget the organization for a moment, but
26:37
Speaker 1: how did you cope you work aholic? You over it?
26:41
Speaker 1: You fucking I love it. I'll rest when I'm dead.
26:46
Speaker 1: How did you go with that?
26:48
Speaker 2: That was my time to shine because I love it.
26:51
Speaker 2: I love a crisis, right, So we had our black
26:55
Speaker 2: tied gullible coming out. We hosted ball every year that
27:00
Speaker 2: raises the majority of the operational funds for the EU,
27:05
Speaker 2: so it does anywhere from kind of one to two
27:07
Speaker 2: and a half million dollars in one night, and of
27:10
Speaker 2: course that's an in person event, so we had to
27:11
Speaker 2: cancel that. So, you know, that was terrifying because we
27:16
Speaker 2: were looking down the barrel of kind of fifty percent
27:19
Speaker 2: class of our annual budget just with a line through it,
27:23
Speaker 2: and then equally having to kind of just then strategize
27:28
Speaker 2: for like, well, okay, if we don't have this, then
27:30
Speaker 2: what what are we going to do? So lots of
27:34
Speaker 2: lots of phone calls and kind of chaos. But then
27:38
Speaker 2: in the personal side, I guess it was just, yeah, workaholic,
27:43
Speaker 2: so making sure that because work became at home not
27:47
Speaker 2: in the office, that I didn't just kind of work,
27:51
Speaker 2: you know, sixteen hours a day because I could do
27:54
Speaker 2: that out of my bedroom rather than you know, having
27:57
Speaker 2: I guess a different physical premise. And then the other
28:02
Speaker 2: complex challenge we were navigating was we just can't just
28:06
Speaker 2: switch to a virtual classroom. Our kids come from mud
28:09
Speaker 2: huts without access to electricity and let alone you know,
28:13
Speaker 2: kind of jumping onto Google classrooms. So there was a
28:16
Speaker 2: whole operational challenge of kind of how do we keep
28:19
Speaker 2: the kids in the system, particularly knowing that girls particularly
28:25
Speaker 2: are at risk of falling into unwanted you know, marriages
28:28
Speaker 2: and pregnancies. And so we were really driven and motivated by, Okay,
28:33
Speaker 2: what's it going to take for us to be able
28:36
Speaker 2: to legally work within the confines of the rules of
28:40
Speaker 2: what the Ministry of Education were telling us to do
28:43
Speaker 2: in Uganda, but also still serving the needs of the
28:49
Speaker 2: of the children and their families. So quite quickly managed
28:53
Speaker 2: to kind of you know, we love the word pivot,
28:56
Speaker 2: but pivot our operation and I'm talking you know, hard
29:01
Speaker 2: copy handouts and working in small group outdoor learning environments,
29:07
Speaker 2: still continuing to feed the children, redeploying staff upskilling and
29:12
Speaker 2: training them, using the opportunity to do a lot of
29:15
Speaker 2: maintenance on the schools. We built a boarding facility for
29:19
Speaker 2: six hundred high school students during that time, because construction
29:22
Speaker 2: was still allowed. So just like, how are we going
29:25
Speaker 2: to keep everybody on the tools because we don't you know,
29:28
Speaker 2: there's no job saver or whatever it was called that
29:31
Speaker 2: we were getting if we weren't paying them. The new
29:34
Speaker 2: Gan and Team were, you know, sort of there was
29:37
Speaker 2: no backstop. But that was exciting for me, you know,
29:43
Speaker 2: once the shock, I was actually in Uganda up until
29:47
Speaker 2: I think it was the twentieth of March. I got
29:48
Speaker 2: on the last flight out. I didn't reconcile how bad
29:52
Speaker 2: things were because I wasn't here when all the meat
29:55
Speaker 2: got taken off the supermarket shelves and everybody started toilet
29:58
Speaker 2: holding toilet paper. But I brought got a twelve pack
30:03
Speaker 2: back from U Gander in my suitcase, so I was sweet.
30:08
Speaker 2: The pew tickets, you've got to ration them exactly.
30:12
Speaker 1: How do you decide, like, how do you decide moving forward?
30:20
Speaker 1: Because there must be so many needs, right, It's not like,
30:22
Speaker 1: oh we've got everything covered now, it's good, So moving forward,
30:26
Speaker 1: how do you decide what your focus is going to be,
30:29
Speaker 1: where the money is going to go, Because I guess
30:33
Speaker 1: your objective is not to be in a holding pattern,
30:36
Speaker 1: but to grow and meet more needs and do more
30:38
Speaker 1: things right, to expand and improve and you know, serve
30:42
Speaker 1: on a greater level. How do you decide what gets
30:45
Speaker 1: your focus and what gets your.
30:46
Speaker 2: Dough Yeah, great question and one that's like a constant interrogation.
30:53
Speaker 2: But I mean when i've kind of soul searched, which
30:57
Speaker 2: is usually I've now got too young daughters, and I
31:00
Speaker 2: feel like the time that I've had kind of at
31:04
Speaker 2: three and breastfeeding awake, feeling very alone in the middle ofthonitis,
31:09
Speaker 2: when I kind of ponder these really tricky issues, I think,
31:13
Speaker 2: you know, what gets us out of bed is serving
31:16
Speaker 2: communities that otherwise nobody else would or could serve. So
31:21
Speaker 2: we're talking about kind of extreme poverty environments and taking
31:25
Speaker 2: them from nothing to something, and so ideally we're not
31:29
Speaker 2: there forever. In the years that we've worked with the
31:33
Speaker 2: two communities that we're working in, there's been just a
31:35
Speaker 2: huge shift. They've started to be able to chip in
31:39
Speaker 2: for you know, there's always been an expectation that they
31:41
Speaker 2: will chip in for their school fees, but they've started
31:44
Speaker 2: to chip in in a more substantial way, which means
31:47
Speaker 2: that we can start to kind of look for other
31:49
Speaker 2: communities to work in So I suppose the best way
31:52
Speaker 2: of putting it is we look for last mile communities
31:55
Speaker 2: where others can't and won't build schools, and we use
31:59
Speaker 2: that as so, you know, go for the poorest and
32:05
Speaker 2: have a really good cracket at changing their trajectory through
32:11
Speaker 2: these essentially education centers.
32:14
Speaker 1: I guess. I mean ultimately you want them to be
32:16
Speaker 1: self sustaining and independent and you know, so that they
32:19
Speaker 1: can just continue what you know, you lit the fuse on,
32:23
Speaker 1: you threw the petrol on the fire, and hopefully they
32:27
Speaker 1: can keep that metaphoric fire burning. I want to know,
32:31
Speaker 1: tell me a little bit about your mum and dad,
32:33
Speaker 1: because I'm trying to figure something out about you. Give
32:35
Speaker 1: me a snapshot of mum and dad.
32:38
Speaker 2: Workaholics, self made Dad inherited a big family mess when
32:46
Speaker 2: his father passed away quite early from melanoma. He had,
32:52
Speaker 2: you know, a farm that he had quite he'd been
32:58
Speaker 2: drinking prior to passing away, and there was a lot
33:02
Speaker 2: of debt attached to it. He also was driven by
33:05
Speaker 2: the fact that his mum had polio and had been
33:08
Speaker 2: diagnosed with polio since the age of nine, so some
33:11
Speaker 2: quite a lot of mobility issues. So he was kind
33:14
Speaker 2: of pulled back to the farm where I guess the
33:18
Speaker 2: question was does he kind of sell up and break
33:20
Speaker 2: even then walk away or does he make something of it?
33:24
Speaker 2: And he's quite entrepreneurial, so he sort of made something
33:27
Speaker 2: of it, and you know, continues to work from four
33:32
Speaker 2: am to eight pm every day, you know, age sixty eight,
33:36
Speaker 2: and says that he will die doing it, which.
33:38
Speaker 1: I think, come on, dad, have a breather, old mate.
33:42
Speaker 2: Exactly. And then the education side is mum forty plus
33:47
Speaker 2: years as a teacher. She was my teacher at primary
33:52
Speaker 2: and high school. Come from quite small communities of education,
33:56
Speaker 2: and so you know, she's just incredible educator and and
34:03
Speaker 2: and instilled in me that that passion and for what
34:06
Speaker 2: a gift education is. She's recently retired and is giving
34:11
Speaker 2: me a lot of help with my young family, which
34:13
Speaker 2: is amazing. Enables me to be able to keep doing
34:16
Speaker 2: what I do.
34:17
Speaker 1: And also she serves or could serve I guess as
34:20
Speaker 1: a free advisor in the academic space.
34:24
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely exactly what and.
34:27
Speaker 1: What a mum and dad think of you know, what
34:29
Speaker 1: you've built. So I'm sure they're proud and all of that,
34:31
Speaker 1: but what what do they were they when you came
34:34
Speaker 1: back and went, Okay, here's my idea. Did they roll
34:37
Speaker 1: their eyes or did they go of course, that's.
34:40
Speaker 2: Why are you little? You know, I look, it was
34:45
Speaker 2: a feud for a few years. You know, I was
34:49
Speaker 2: I was studying to be a lawyer, and you know,
34:53
Speaker 2: I was the A grade kid that was going to
34:56
Speaker 2: be a lawyer. And then I went to Africa and
34:58
Speaker 2: I came back and said that I was going to
35:00
Speaker 2: build some schools, and so that was kind of terrifying,
35:04
Speaker 2: which I now understand now that I've become a mom myself.
35:07
Speaker 2: I get it like that's kind of every parent's worst
35:10
Speaker 2: nightmare because you're just going, well, that's you know, all
35:12
Speaker 2: you ever hear about him. The news is bad stuff
35:15
Speaker 2: about Africa. You don't hear any of the amazing stuff.
35:19
Speaker 2: And so I came back and they were just kind
35:22
Speaker 2: of mortified. But I guess they thought it was probably
35:25
Speaker 2: going to be a phase and that it wouldn't get
35:27
Speaker 2: up off the ground anyway. So they went along for
35:29
Speaker 2: a bit. And then I remember when they came over
35:32
Speaker 2: three years into the journey, when we finished the first school,
35:35
Speaker 2: and I thought Dad was going to pass out, like
35:38
Speaker 2: he was just crying, you know, and just you know,
35:42
Speaker 2: just could not believe it. And you know, he is
35:46
Speaker 2: our biggest they both are our biggest advocates. So yeah,
35:51
Speaker 2: it's been a journey, but mostly just because I think,
35:55
Speaker 2: you know, it's a pretty weird thing to kind of
35:57
Speaker 2: come home and say, when you've grown up on a
35:59
Speaker 2: sheep and cattle farming country New South Wales.
36:02
Speaker 1: I think I have nowhere near the experience and I've
36:06
Speaker 1: had nowhere near the exposure that you have. But I
36:09
Speaker 1: went I went to South Africa a long time ago
36:13
Speaker 1: for a while to do some work with a charity,
36:16
Speaker 1: and so it was nine and ninety nine, right, but
36:20
Speaker 1: I was there for over a month, and I was
36:22
Speaker 1: working with kids who are HIV positive and also you know,
36:29
Speaker 1: and a real lot of issues. And I did compared
36:33
Speaker 1: to what you do, I didn't do anything. I just
36:36
Speaker 1: helped out a bit, right, But for me, it was
36:40
Speaker 1: like you know, people go, oh, it was life changing,
36:42
Speaker 1: it was transformative and all of that, but there's some
36:45
Speaker 1: shit that you can't really understand unless you see it,
36:48
Speaker 1: and unless you're you can even see videos and footage
36:52
Speaker 1: and you can hear conversations. But I felt like the
36:57
Speaker 1: most privileged, spoilt, delfish, fucking human. When I got over
37:03
Speaker 1: there and I went, Okay, I have absolutely no problems.
37:08
Speaker 1: My life is Hollywood I have you know, for me,
37:13
Speaker 1: it just gave me. And I know this is an
37:15
Speaker 1: obvious and cliche thing to say, but Annabella gave me
37:19
Speaker 1: just like a perspective that I couldn't have had, Like
37:23
Speaker 1: it wouldn't matter how many stories you told me, how
37:25
Speaker 1: many pictures, how many videos, you know, Like I worked
37:29
Speaker 1: at a few different places, but I worked at a
37:31
Speaker 1: place for a week called Acres of Love, and basically
37:33
Speaker 1: it was just this four bedroom house. And in this
37:37
Speaker 1: four bedroom house there were four bunk beds and sixteen
37:41
Speaker 1: kids and they're all HIV positive and there was a
37:45
Speaker 1: twenty four hour staff rotation. And literally from the moment
37:50
Speaker 1: that I got there, they're like, here's a bottle feed,
37:53
Speaker 1: these kids, do that clean that wash that go out there,
37:56
Speaker 1: like nobody's special except the kids. And You're like, yeah,
38:03
Speaker 1: it just for me, I think. And if you experienced that,
38:07
Speaker 1: like with people that come over like your mom and dad,
38:10
Speaker 1: obviously it was life changing or at least paradigm shifting.
38:14
Speaker 1: Is that true most people?
38:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think anyone gets out unscathed. And we
38:22
Speaker 2: started a parent child trip a few years ago because
38:25
Speaker 2: of that exact experience, I guess, and me thinking to myself,
38:30
Speaker 2: I would love students to feel this when they're in
38:35
Speaker 2: their education journey and thinking about what their own kind
38:39
Speaker 2: of careers and pathways look like, yes, rather than kind
38:43
Speaker 2: of experiencing it, you know, midway through UNI or whatever
38:46
Speaker 2: where you can still you know, you can still pursue
38:48
Speaker 2: a certain pathway. But I think that jolted me so much,
38:53
Speaker 2: and like you say, you can't unsee it, you can't
38:56
Speaker 2: unfeel it, and you know it doesn't ness sssarily mean
39:00
Speaker 2: that everyone's going to go away and start an organization
39:03
Speaker 2: and do something. But it's more, just like you say,
39:05
Speaker 2: it's just this most deep wake up call that we're
39:09
Speaker 2: just so lucky and just to be so grateful for
39:15
Speaker 2: what we have and so yeah, to provide out other
39:19
Speaker 2: people that opportunity became a prerogative for me as well.
39:22
Speaker 2: And I do believe that it's created a good impact
39:27
Speaker 2: for other people, you know, in Australia to think about
39:31
Speaker 2: how they can do something for other people. You know,
39:34
Speaker 2: whatever it is, it doesn't matter what it is. It's
39:36
Speaker 2: just do something. Yeah, use what you have to make
39:40
Speaker 2: a different I went to.
39:41
Speaker 1: This place called I think it was called Door of
39:44
Speaker 1: Hope as well, and it was like this whole facility.
39:51
Speaker 1: And anyway, while I was there, this alarm went and
39:57
Speaker 1: I said to this, this gorgeous lady who was like
40:02
Speaker 1: carrying around fucking three kids, you know, I go and
40:07
Speaker 1: this alarm goes, and all of these people it's like
40:10
Speaker 1: battle stations. All of these people kind of run and
40:14
Speaker 1: I'm like, what's going on? And so this is almost
40:19
Speaker 1: this is hard to believe. But so this was in
40:23
Speaker 1: joe Burg. And so the front of the place that
40:25
Speaker 1: the wall was about I don't know, eight feet high,
40:28
Speaker 1: and on top of the wall was razor wire. Right.
40:30
Speaker 1: But in the middle of this big brick wall is
40:33
Speaker 1: essentially like a steel door about like a galvanized iron
40:39
Speaker 1: door about this wide, so about a meter wide and
40:43
Speaker 1: about six hundred mil high, and inside was like a
40:48
Speaker 1: little crib. So what would happen is these young women
40:52
Speaker 1: who would get pregnant through through no desire to be pregnant.
40:58
Speaker 1: Let's just leave it at that. They would they they
41:02
Speaker 1: some of them were just discarding these babies and so
41:05
Speaker 1: they built this thing where these newborn babies would would
41:09
Speaker 1: be put inside this little crib and it would set
41:13
Speaker 1: off an alarm and they would and I'm like, what's
41:16
Speaker 1: going on? Then they brought in this brand new baby.
41:19
Speaker 1: I'm like that, I'm I'm and everyone's just running around
41:23
Speaker 1: doing all the practical shit they need to do. I was,
41:28
Speaker 1: I'm like, where am I like? What is? How is
41:31
Speaker 1: this happening? Like where you go? I don't know anything.
41:35
Speaker 1: I am an idiot. And I was crying. I was crying.
41:40
Speaker 2: I was I was a mess.
41:42
Speaker 1: I was a mess. I was thinking about this child's life,
41:45
Speaker 1: and I was thinking about the poor mum, and I
41:46
Speaker 1: was thinking about how is this happening in you know? Anyway?
41:52
Speaker 1: It is? The need is vast, and it's not it's
41:56
Speaker 1: not diminishing. I wanted to know. This is maybe a
41:59
Speaker 1: weird question, but like a lot of people who are
42:03
Speaker 1: a percentage of people who work in similar spaces to you,
42:07
Speaker 1: they're linked to a religious organization or I'm not going
42:10
Speaker 1: to ask you if you're religious, but is there any
42:12
Speaker 1: kind of spiritual guiding force in your life? Or are
42:15
Speaker 1: you just really pragmatic and practical And you're like, no,
42:19
Speaker 1: I'm just doing it because or is there you know,
42:22
Speaker 1: we need to feed kids, educate kids, and make lives better.
42:26
Speaker 1: And I know that on that on a level, you're
42:29
Speaker 1: very practical and strategic. But is there something else as well? No?
42:34
Speaker 2: Not, not really. I went to a high school that
42:37
Speaker 2: really deeply valued service, no religious affiliation, and I'm not
42:43
Speaker 2: religious myself, and nor is schoolful life.
42:47
Speaker 1: But I think that probably helps in a way, maybe definitely.
42:51
Speaker 2: And you know, we've been really, we've been really you know,
42:56
Speaker 2: quite clear and adamant about not being religious and taking
43:03
Speaker 2: kids from any religion or no religion, you know. So
43:06
Speaker 2: that's kind of a core part of why also why
43:10
Speaker 2: we actually started something rather than joined forces with something
43:13
Speaker 2: that already existed. But you know, just this idea of
43:18
Speaker 2: service above self with such a huge part of my
43:20
Speaker 2: high school kind of I guess motto or values, and
43:27
Speaker 2: it just taught me from such a young age that
43:31
Speaker 2: you give, sorry that you get so much more than
43:34
Speaker 2: you give when you help others. And yeah, so I
43:39
Speaker 2: guess that's that's it. Really, there's not I wish there
43:42
Speaker 2: was sort of some kind of Buddhist or whatever.
43:44
Speaker 1: Well, I reckon your philosophy is loving kindness and service, right,
43:49
Speaker 1: I mean.
43:50
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and give what you can. You know, it doesn't
43:53
Speaker 2: matter what that is, but you know, and I can
43:55
Speaker 2: promise you get you know, tenfold in return. And so
43:59
Speaker 2: and also I suppose also just the opportunity to create community.
44:05
Speaker 2: I love how connected people become to something like this,
44:11
Speaker 2: and that's really inspiring to be a part of because
44:14
Speaker 2: I think you find really like minded people who were
44:17
Speaker 2: driven by this similar kind of purpose and passions. So
44:21
Speaker 2: that's probably kept me going as well.
44:24
Speaker 1: I'm always I'm always paying attention to guests and thinking
44:28
Speaker 1: about what I'm going to call the show, what I'm
44:30
Speaker 1: going to call this episode, And so I now know
44:33
Speaker 1: that this episode is going to be called service above self.
44:35
Speaker 1: So thank you for that. Thank you for because sometimes
44:38
Speaker 1: I get off and I'm just going to come up
44:39
Speaker 1: with it myself. This is also a hard question. We'll
44:44
Speaker 1: wind it up because you've been very gracious with your time,
44:47
Speaker 1: But how how apart from the fact that you've gotten
44:54
Speaker 1: older and wiser and had lots of experiences, how are
44:57
Speaker 1: you different from the twenty year old vision of you
45:01
Speaker 1: or you know, pre Uganda. But how do you think
45:04
Speaker 1: you are? You know, if you had have taken the
45:07
Speaker 1: lawyer path and done. How do you think you're a
45:10
Speaker 1: different human being to you know, the sliding door Annabelle
45:15
Speaker 1: that would have gone left instead of right. I know
45:18
Speaker 1: that's a hypothetic. Well I know it's a hypothetical, but
45:22
Speaker 1: it's like like, for example, when I was in my
45:25
Speaker 1: early twenties, I went, Fuck, I don't want a job.
45:27
Speaker 1: I want to work for me. So I haven't had
45:28
Speaker 1: a job for over three and a half decades, right, So,
45:31
Speaker 1: but I could you know, I think, Wow, if I
45:33
Speaker 1: had have said, well, I'm just going to work for someone,
45:36
Speaker 1: my life would have been very different. But I literally
45:38
Speaker 1: haven't had a boss for three and a half decades.
45:41
Speaker 1: But I could kind of guess how it would have gone.
45:43
Speaker 1: What about you do?
45:45
Speaker 2: You know what?
45:45
Speaker 3: Because I'm a fucking terrible employee, I'll be in jail
45:53
Speaker 3: and I look, there's been like dark moments where I'm
45:57
Speaker 3: just you know, at the edge of burnout and just
45:59
Speaker 3: going like why I can't like, maybe I'll just go
46:01
Speaker 3: get a job and I'd probably be paid three times
46:04
Speaker 3: as much and have to work kind of you know,
46:06
Speaker 3: a temp is.
46:07
Speaker 2: Hard, but there's just no way, Like I just I
46:11
Speaker 2: think the character and the resilience that it's built in
46:18
Speaker 2: me to solve the things that are just so far
46:26
Speaker 2: outside the realms of kind of what's expected has really made,
46:32
Speaker 2: you know, a huge impact on me. And then I think,
46:35
Speaker 2: as I kind of have mentioned a couple of times
46:37
Speaker 2: throughout this, it's a life that I've built. It's not
46:41
Speaker 2: a career or a job. It's everything. You know. My
46:46
Speaker 2: friends are around it, my family is involved in it.
46:49
Speaker 2: I've got my you know, my daughters are in you
46:52
Speaker 2: going to be involved in it. It's a rich kind
46:55
Speaker 2: of tapestry of opportunity and and I've got this kind
47:02
Speaker 2: of whole other world in Uganda, Like I got married
47:05
Speaker 2: over there. They put on a surprise wedding for us,
47:08
Speaker 2: you know, like it's just there's just the richness of
47:11
Speaker 2: it is just so immense. I just can't imagine not
47:15
Speaker 2: having that and kind of doing a job that paid
47:20
Speaker 2: the bills and was nothing more.
47:23
Speaker 1: Do they there's a dumb question, of course they do.
47:25
Speaker 1: But are you embraced by the community. Do they love you?
47:28
Speaker 1: Do they have a name for you.
47:31
Speaker 2: Like they have a special like yeah, my mama Anna. Yeah,
47:38
Speaker 2: definitely embraced. I try and stay in the background though
47:41
Speaker 2: I really don't want to be, you know, mother kind
47:45
Speaker 2: of hair over there. Like again, it's about empowering them
47:49
Speaker 2: to be their own heroes for themselves, and so I
47:52
Speaker 2: think ideally I'm lifting from underneath as much as I can,
47:56
Speaker 2: and I've always tried to be quite intentional about that.
47:59
Speaker 2: So I hope that that's the way that I'm seeing.
48:02
Speaker 2: But in returning after COVID, there was a big hurrah,
48:05
Speaker 2: and I mean that was just just blew my mind.
48:07
Speaker 2: So we've got the documentary actually is being released on
48:12
Speaker 2: SBS on demand this week, so you can hop on
48:15
Speaker 2: and see that. It's called Seeds Planting Hopes through Education
48:18
Speaker 2: and you can see kind of more of that. Just
48:22
Speaker 2: how incredibly special the communities are.
48:25
Speaker 1: Have you ever heard of a dude called Justin Wren. No,
48:30
Speaker 1: so Justin Wren. I had on the show now Justin Wren. Yep,
48:34
Speaker 1: so Justin with a w with a w Wren. Justin Wren.
48:39
Speaker 1: So Justin Wren. Is was a UFC fight up, so
48:43
Speaker 1: in the UFC and he he had a real moment
48:47
Speaker 1: like you in in Uganda with I think they're called
48:55
Speaker 1: thet Theti pygmies. Yeah, so he built all these Wells
49:03
Speaker 1: in Uganda and it's called Fight for the Forgot, Fight
49:06
Speaker 1: for the Forgotten. Okay, fight for the Forgotten. And we
49:12
Speaker 1: had him on and he's just a beautiful human. I
49:15
Speaker 1: love him. I fucking love him. He's such a and
49:20
Speaker 1: he was like his life was a bit shit. He
49:22
Speaker 1: was a you know, like a world level MMA fighter
49:26
Speaker 1: in the UFC. Like his life was going shit, and
49:30
Speaker 1: he went to he went to Uganda. I can't remember
49:33
Speaker 1: why he was there, and he met all these pigmies
49:36
Speaker 1: and they just embraced him. And now he spends half
49:41
Speaker 1: his life there and he's had bloody what's that disease
49:45
Speaker 1: you get from the water, what do you call it?
49:47
Speaker 2: Ophoid malaria?
49:50
Speaker 1: Like ten times? And you know he's you know, he's
49:54
Speaker 1: always but yeah, like reminds me. You two remind me
49:58
Speaker 1: of each other. Just just that people doing awesome things
50:01
Speaker 1: for people in need.
50:03
Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm going to look him up. I'm going
50:04
Speaker 2: to listen to his podcast.
50:06
Speaker 1: Check him out, check him out. All right, how do
50:09
Speaker 1: we help? How do we help point us in the
50:11
Speaker 1: right direction? Yeah, just jump on jump on our website.
50:15
Speaker 2: It's called School for Life dot org dot au. You
50:19
Speaker 2: can provide a child with a scholarship, or you can
50:23
Speaker 2: sign up to get our newsletters. Everything makes a difference,
50:29
Speaker 2: so and we do lots of events throughout the year,
50:33
Speaker 2: so get involved.
50:36
Speaker 1: You're the best, You're the best.
50:37
Speaker 2: Thank you, no, thank you for having me.
50:39
Speaker 1: Ah amazing, amazing. Annabelle will say goodbye, affair, but thank
50:44
Speaker 1: you so much. Congratulations on what you're doing. I know
50:46
Speaker 1: you don't want any of that bullshit, but fuck it,
50:48
Speaker 1: I'm giving it to you. Thanks great, congrats to you
50:52
Speaker 1: and your team, and thank you so much for being
50:55
Speaker 1: generous with us but also generous with the people that
50:58
Speaker 1: you're serving.
50:58
Speaker 2: It's beautiful. Appreciate at you my pleasure. Thank you