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