Strategic Coach Resources

The Strategic Coach’s Director of Sales and Marketing finds herself delivering aid in Belarus.

“Where on earth are we going?”

As the tiny van bumped across a snowy field, Gaynor Rigby wondered where she was being taken. In her role as The Strategic Coach’s Director of Sales and Marketing, she travels frequently, and on holidays she’s often abroad, visiting places like Paris and Thailand. But this was no normal vacation: She’d volunteered for a relief mission to Belarus, and was now packed into a van full of food and supplies. The landscape was so barren she couldn’t see where on earth they could possibly be headed. There was no "there" there.

Belarus: Living in the eye of the storm.

Belarus is a small country the size of Kansas with a population of 10 million. Situated between Poland and Russia, it’s been a battleground for centuries of wars and conquests. Recent history hasn’t been any easier on it.

On April 26, 1986, a failed nuclear reactor in the Ukraine city of Chernobyl exploded. Radioactive gas and particles were carried on the wind and rain, drifting into nearby Belarus. This simple rain had a destructive effect equivalent to 150 Hiroshimas. Belarus’s challenges are compounded by its political situation. US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice recently called the country “the last dictatorship in the center of Europe.” The current president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, has been accused of rigging elections to prolong his rule, persecuting journalists, and making his opponents “disappear.” Amnesty International cites the country as a regular violator of its citizens’ human rights.

While Gaynor traveled in a van through the countryside, protests were erupting in the Belarusian capital of Minsk. Thousands of demonstrators gathered on the traditional “Independence Day” to oppose the government’s rule, and were charged upon by troops in riot gear, who beat them with rubber truncheons. Several protesters were jailed: Demonstrations near government buildings or the president’s house are not allowed.

Giving something back.

The path to Belarus started two years before in a Goal Cultivator discussion group. While talking about her goals for the future and reflecting on her life, Gaynor decided it was time to share some of her good fortune with others.

She knew about a Strategic Coach participant named Brian U’ren, who’d started an organization called Canadian Aid for Chernobyl (CAC). Another member of the group had been sponsoring an orphan student through CAC, and she was intrigued by the idea.

“Societally,” says Gaynor, “orphans in Belarus are treated like non-persons.” Some have lost their parents, while some — particularly those with disabilities — are simply left behind at hospitals by parents who can’t afford to take care of them. But hospitals in Belarus aren’t like hospitals in Canada or the US: Families are expected to provide food, clothing, and medicine for patients. A hospital with the capacity to hold 300 patients might have one set of surgical instruments. These institutions can’t take care of the children, so they send them to orphanages, where they can stay until the age of 14. Beyond that, they’re on their own. Seventeen percent of the orphans try to kill themselves when they have to leave the orphanage, and 40% wind up in jail, usually for stealing food.

Her contribution helped support a young man through this critical period. He not only finished high school, he’s now gone on to university. She continues to support him, but still wondered if there was something more she could do. It turned out that there was: Join one of the relief missions to Belarus.

An ever-expanding mission.

Brian U’ren generously credits The Strategic Coach for the fact that he was able to start CAC. “The Strategic Coach Program enabled us to create the world’s largest charity in Belarus using all the processes I learned.” With the increase in income he created in his business and the new free time he found, he was able to take on one of his lifetime goals.

He started by delivering suitcases full of donated medicine to the country. By this sixth trip, he’d shipped 90 containers — each the size of a full transport truck. The medicine, food, and other aid delivered by the organization has been valued over $24 million.

Part of Gaynor’s contribution was to make sure all of these goods were accounted for, partly for the charity’s sake, but moreso to satisfy the government’s standards, which are rigorously bureaucratic — especially when it comes to Westerners’ activities in the country. From there, the goods were divided up, ready to be taken to people throughout the region.

essentials.

The van full of supplies finally reached a small community where a handful of people live in patched-up, unheated houses. The delegates delivered food boxes to the residents, including an elderly woman — one of many who live there on their own, their husbands lost long ago — and three little girls whose mother was away at work. Looking back at the girls’ house as the van drove away, she witnessed a scene that made her appreciate the true gravity of the local situation. “The girls were standing around in the living room hugging each other,” she says. “They were so excited just about having something to eat.”

The average Belarusian makes the equivalent of $40 a month, but food costs are on par with North American prices. This forces many Belarusians into a terrible conundrum: eat radioactive food, or starve.

While working in Belarus, the delegates are billeted with a host family — a convenience that they pay for in order to help the families out a little more. But the CAC has to warn visitors about the things they shouldn’t eat, such as mushrooms picked from a nearby forest. Tests on these mushrooms showed that they contained as much radiation as seven full-body X-rays. “The family I stayed with took me into their home and treated me like family,” says Gaynor. “I was offered raspberry jam and didn’t realize until later that the raspberries were grown in the garden.”

For a grown adult who would soon return to a healthy environment, this was just a frightening accident. For children living in the region, radioactive food is serious concern.

Each summer, sponsor families bring children over to Canada through the CAC. While there, the children receive dental and medical treatment and a respite from the harsh environment at home. With the proper diet, some of the effects of the radiation can be reversed. Many of the children improve visibly during their stay. Best of all, they have fun.

Transforming one life at a time.

Much of the CAC’s effort have been concentrated in the area of Chausy. The town now has a fire-engine from Brockville, Ontario. And the orphanage, a post WWII relic, has undergone extensive renovation.

Toward the end of the mission, the children of the orphanage put on a concert, which they stage each year to thank the Canadian delegates. Their confidence and bright disposition was a complete contrast to the world outside.

Later, some of the delegates talked amongst themselves. “What’s the long-term prognosis for this country?” they wondered. Because of factors like chromosomal damage, weakened immunity, and extreme poverty, the Belarusians’ future as a people is in jeopardy.

“You want to help as many people as you can,” says Gaynor, “but CAC has recognized that they don’t have the resources to make a big enough change in lots and lots of people’s lives. So they have to focus in on groups and families and certain individuals, and transform those people’s lives. From there, the ripple effect can happen.”

The “ripple effect” phenomenon has drawn many people like Gaynor to the CAC — delegates, donors, families, and other volunteers — allowing the organization to feed and deliver medical treatment to more than 700 people and see 70 orphans through to university. Only time will tell what change these individuals, supported to discover their full capabilities and gain confidence in themselves, will work on the future of their country.  

How to find out more or get involved with CAC.

Visit CanadianAidForChernobyl.com. Or make a tax-deductible donation to: Canadian Aid for Chernobyl P.O. Box 244 Brockville, Ontario Canada M6V 5V5 To find out how The Strategic Coach Program can help you realize your lifetime contribution goals, call us at 416.531.7399 or 800.387.3206.