When Louise Lefebvre turned 50 years old, she decided to fulfill a lifetime goal. She had always wanted to do humanitarian work, to give back something, so she approached an organization, Volunteer Tibet, that found her a job teaching art therapy in the Himalayas. She was to give six unpaid months of her life, travel to India at her own expense and use her art talents to assist Tibetan refugees.
The story of her journey will be told in over 300 photographs to be mounted at the Seaside Centre on Oct. 1 along with a slide presentation by Lefebvre. The one-time-only event, A Cry for Compassion,will raise funds for the Tonglen Foundation, an organization that works in the trenches of India with beggars in extreme poverty to provide medical and educational help.Lefebvre's talents are well known on the Coast. She had been a teacher for 28 years in French immersion, her first language, and had studied photography, writing and painting. Her film Moose Country has been shown on the Coast, and many will remember that her clothing consignment store in Sechelt, Moose on the Loose, also offered a small gallery to showcase local artists. All this was put aside at the beginning of 2006 when she set out for the Himalayas.
When she arrived in the mountain town of McLeod Ganj, 12 hours north of Delhi anda prime residence of the Dalai Lama, she found that her original assignment was not possible as many of the refugees were still in Nepal. She was asked, instead, by the Guchusum Foundation to teach former political prisoners, many of whom had been persecuted by the Chinese and were now needing help in re-entering society.It was like working in the basement of an upscale prison, she recalls, and the 18 students and their teacher had to muffle up in mittens and hats to attend classes in the winter cool of the high country. She had no materials so she had to buy chalk and write on a slate board and no texts except for some ancient grammar books. Somehow, she taught English, life skills and computer knowledge. Sometimes the group enjoyed writing poetry or drama. Many already knew some English while others needed to start with ABCs.
She also taught English to women of the Stitches for Tibet sewing co-op, who would put down their needles for part of the day and attend class, and to local doctors who needed to learn English phrases for their practice. She loved it.
It took onlythree weeks for her to feel at home. One of the reasons for the smooth transition, Lefebvre feels, is that she lived among the people in the same circumstances. She ate with the locals, rode the buses, squatted in the same fields used for a toilet and wore the same saris as the women. She regards this sense of ease as a gift. "I've been given a gift - I can put my arm around a leper," she says, "and I can give something, friendship, a bowl of mutton or a blanket." She lived simply. "In my room I had a bed, a table, a cup, a bowl and one fork. It's all you need." Soon she was invited into people's homes and was surprised to find they pitied her. She was, in their eyes, old at 50, alone and without an accompanying male. They also gave her a mark of respect as a teacher by calling her Lucy-la.
McLeod Ganj is a tourist town and therefore achoice begging area for children and women. While teaching, Lefebvre met the Scottish founders of the Tong-len Foundation. The fundraising event on Oct. 1 will donate 50 per cent of proceeds to this cause.
"Just $1,000 would provide a medical tent," she says, "or two classrooms or one heart operation." True, a small donation of time or money doesn't make a huge dent, but Lefebvre believes it makes a difference even to one person on one day.
"It's not about go big or go home" she says. "If everyone could give a little bit " she muses.
Admission to A Cry for Compassion is $18 at the door. Many of the photos have been mounted and will be priced individually for sale. They are mostly of people: babies with wide eyes, a beggar child of a leper mother, children playing with gravel while their parents work on a construction site and the laughing faces of students. The exhibition opens at noon and the presentation is from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Seaside Centre in Sechelt on Sunday, Oct. 1.
