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In more than 25 years of humanitarian work, Alain Lapierre has lived among refugees in the Central African Republic, the only white man in a camp of 30,000; delivered a jumbo jet full of food into the middle of a war zone; steered his truck down streets littered with bodies left to rot in the sun; and even lost his office and all his possessions to a volcanic lava flow.
As an emergency team leader with CARE Canada, Lapierre was among the first aid workers on the ground when earthquakes flattened Kathmandu and Port-au-Prince, and again when a tsunami devastated northern Japan. He’s negotiated with commanders of child soldiers, helped villagers in Pakistan whose homes were washed away in floods and met with Syrians trying to live their lives as the war with ISIS waged all around them.
And he would probably still be on the front line of disaster relief somewhere in the world today if not for his own personal crisis: the inoperable Stage 4 lung cancer he was diagnosed with last November. Lapierre, 52, a non-smoker and a non-drinker, is frank about his future.
“I’ve had a very interesting life, but at the same time it’s a good lesson learned,” he says. “You see, I don’t have a future. It’s just a question of time, but I have to continue to live. So many people are in a worse situation than me.”
Lapierre is tanned, trim and fit, and healthy looking. He stepped away from his job with CARE Canada last November after the lingering pain he’d been feeling on the left side of his chest was diagnosed in a hospital in Jordan where he had been working with refugees.
Now he balances chemotherapy and radiation — and other treatments through the Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre — with daily fitness walks. And he’s taking time to reflect on a life spent helping others in the world’s trouble spots. He’s grateful CARE has supported him during his illness.
Among the global community of humanitarian aid workers, Lapierre is a legend. But that’s not how he sees himself. He’s humble and matter-of-fact about why he’s spent his life running toward disaster instead of away.
“There’s adrenaline, yes, but every time it’s an opportunity to see a real impact of your work,” he says. “You can work many months in the office and never see the result of your work, but when you jump into an emergency — a few hours after you start, you’ll start to see difference. You’ll see people get medicine, get water. Then the life comes.”
Lapierre was born near Quebec City, where his father was an airport firefighter and his mother a government worker. He studied agriculture at a college in Alfred, On. and was inspired by teachers who talked of the aid work they’d done in Africa. He visited Malawi in southeast Africa with Canada World Youth and knew immediately that humanitarian aid would be his life’s work.
“I’m a guy with conviction,” says Lapierre. “For me, it was important to keep this conviction. When you’re young, it’s easy to have your principles, but it’s also easy to lose them. Some of my friends decided it was time for a wife, a house and a normal life — nice holidays and all that stuff. But not for me. I think it was better to live my life this way. To make my principles my priority and not my quality of life.
“Maybe it was not a life of material things, but when I look back it has been an extremely good life.”
Alain Lapierre has spent more than 25 years as a humanitarian aid worker. The 52-year-old CARE Canada is now reflecting on his life since being diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer last fall.
Lapierre recognized early that the stress of the work posed dangers to aid workers. He steered clear of alcohol and other unhealthy choices that he saw colleagues succumb to.
“When the mind is clean, it’s easier to cope with the difficult issues.”
Along the way, there has been adventure and horror. Lapierre was heading up an office for Save the Children in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002 when he got frantic word that Mt. Nyiragongo, an active volcano on the outskirts of town, was erupting. Lapierre, who was outside the country at a meeting, rushed back to find the airport and a third of the city covered in lava, including his agency’s office.
“I called my head office in London and said, ‘OK, now we have a real emergency, but they didn’t believe me. I said, ‘No, it’s real. It’s erupting’.”
Another assignment took him to Liberia during the final, violent days of the notorious Charles Taylor presidency.
“The fighting was quite intense. Head office asked, ‘Alain, what do you need?’ I said we needed food. They said, ‘OK, we’ll send you a 747. Can you do it?’
“It was challenging. There was still fighting and a 747 is a very big plane. I said, ‘It’ll be difficult, but I think it will be OK’.”
After arranging for some trucks to be ready for the shipment, Lapierre secretly made his way to a village near the airport — it was dangerous for a white man to travel — where he hid until nightfall when the plane was to arrive. The operation went off without a hitch.
“I’ve known Alain for years and he comes out with these stories all the time,” says Jessie Thomson, CARE Canada’s emergency director. “You’re like, ‘What!’ But he’s such a humble guy. He’s not boasting at all.”
“Alain is one of these rare people in this sector who have been doing it forever but hasn’t burned out. Lots of people get bitter and jaded, but Alain has always just stayed so true and committed to the humanitarian cause.”
Lapierre joined CARE in 2006 after previous stints in Africa with Oxfam and Save the Children. He made a home in Gatineau, but was ready at a moment’s notice to head to the latest disaster.
When the call comes, he says, “I have to go.”
“It’s always in the first moments of a disaster that people are hesitant to go. There’s not a lot of people who are willing to put their hand up. But for me, there wasn’t ever really a question. It was, I’ll go’.”
That willingness to go, that conviction, has come at a cost. Lapierre has had two failed marriages and has a son, Kevin, 21, from the first, and a six-year-old daughter, Eloane, from the second. He knows his commitment has taken a toll, but he’s proud of his children.
“I can look at my son and he’s on a good track. My daughter is very young but she’s on a good track too. I look back and they’re going in the right direction.”
Lapierre says he’s dealing with his own looming death in the same way he’s tackled other disasters — by being practical, calm, motivated and upbeat.
“It has been over half a year since my diagnosis,” he writes in a blog post published this week to mark International Humanitarian Day, Aug. 19. “While I have come to terms with the fact there is no cure, I am hopeful I can extend my time here just a little bit longer, to make up for the many years away and to focus on enjoying every day, every moment of my life.
“Like the many humanitarian responses I have lived through in my career, it’s not perfect, but every moment where you can get back to living your life counts. And so, I am counting myself lucky for each extra day and for each extra moment I have.
“My humanitarian life has shown me that I remain one of the lucky ones. Even if there is now an end in sight, I am privileged.”
CARE Canada is requesting that all those who wish to share a message of support to Alain Lapierre to send to the email: messages-for-alain@care.ca
bcrawford@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
As an emergency team leader with CARE Canada, Lapierre was among the first aid workers on the ground when earthquakes flattened Kathmandu and Port-au-Prince, and again when a tsunami devastated northern Japan. He’s negotiated with commanders of child soldiers, helped villagers in Pakistan whose homes were washed away in floods and met with Syrians trying to live their lives as the war with ISIS waged all around them.
And he would probably still be on the front line of disaster relief somewhere in the world today if not for his own personal crisis: the inoperable Stage 4 lung cancer he was diagnosed with last November. Lapierre, 52, a non-smoker and a non-drinker, is frank about his future.
“I’ve had a very interesting life, but at the same time it’s a good lesson learned,” he says. “You see, I don’t have a future. It’s just a question of time, but I have to continue to live. So many people are in a worse situation than me.”
Lapierre is tanned, trim and fit, and healthy looking. He stepped away from his job with CARE Canada last November after the lingering pain he’d been feeling on the left side of his chest was diagnosed in a hospital in Jordan where he had been working with refugees.
Now he balances chemotherapy and radiation — and other treatments through the Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre — with daily fitness walks. And he’s taking time to reflect on a life spent helping others in the world’s trouble spots. He’s grateful CARE has supported him during his illness.
Among the global community of humanitarian aid workers, Lapierre is a legend. But that’s not how he sees himself. He’s humble and matter-of-fact about why he’s spent his life running toward disaster instead of away.
“There’s adrenaline, yes, but every time it’s an opportunity to see a real impact of your work,” he says. “You can work many months in the office and never see the result of your work, but when you jump into an emergency — a few hours after you start, you’ll start to see difference. You’ll see people get medicine, get water. Then the life comes.”
Lapierre was born near Quebec City, where his father was an airport firefighter and his mother a government worker. He studied agriculture at a college in Alfred, On. and was inspired by teachers who talked of the aid work they’d done in Africa. He visited Malawi in southeast Africa with Canada World Youth and knew immediately that humanitarian aid would be his life’s work.
“I’m a guy with conviction,” says Lapierre. “For me, it was important to keep this conviction. When you’re young, it’s easy to have your principles, but it’s also easy to lose them. Some of my friends decided it was time for a wife, a house and a normal life — nice holidays and all that stuff. But not for me. I think it was better to live my life this way. To make my principles my priority and not my quality of life.
“Maybe it was not a life of material things, but when I look back it has been an extremely good life.”
Alain Lapierre has spent more than 25 years as a humanitarian aid worker. The 52-year-old CARE Canada is now reflecting on his life since being diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer last fall.
Lapierre recognized early that the stress of the work posed dangers to aid workers. He steered clear of alcohol and other unhealthy choices that he saw colleagues succumb to.
“When the mind is clean, it’s easier to cope with the difficult issues.”
Along the way, there has been adventure and horror. Lapierre was heading up an office for Save the Children in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002 when he got frantic word that Mt. Nyiragongo, an active volcano on the outskirts of town, was erupting. Lapierre, who was outside the country at a meeting, rushed back to find the airport and a third of the city covered in lava, including his agency’s office.
“I called my head office in London and said, ‘OK, now we have a real emergency, but they didn’t believe me. I said, ‘No, it’s real. It’s erupting’.”
Another assignment took him to Liberia during the final, violent days of the notorious Charles Taylor presidency.
“The fighting was quite intense. Head office asked, ‘Alain, what do you need?’ I said we needed food. They said, ‘OK, we’ll send you a 747. Can you do it?’
“It was challenging. There was still fighting and a 747 is a very big plane. I said, ‘It’ll be difficult, but I think it will be OK’.”
After arranging for some trucks to be ready for the shipment, Lapierre secretly made his way to a village near the airport — it was dangerous for a white man to travel — where he hid until nightfall when the plane was to arrive. The operation went off without a hitch.
“I’ve known Alain for years and he comes out with these stories all the time,” says Jessie Thomson, CARE Canada’s emergency director. “You’re like, ‘What!’ But he’s such a humble guy. He’s not boasting at all.”
“Alain is one of these rare people in this sector who have been doing it forever but hasn’t burned out. Lots of people get bitter and jaded, but Alain has always just stayed so true and committed to the humanitarian cause.”
Lapierre joined CARE in 2006 after previous stints in Africa with Oxfam and Save the Children. He made a home in Gatineau, but was ready at a moment’s notice to head to the latest disaster.
When the call comes, he says, “I have to go.”
“It’s always in the first moments of a disaster that people are hesitant to go. There’s not a lot of people who are willing to put their hand up. But for me, there wasn’t ever really a question. It was, I’ll go’.”
That willingness to go, that conviction, has come at a cost. Lapierre has had two failed marriages and has a son, Kevin, 21, from the first, and a six-year-old daughter, Eloane, from the second. He knows his commitment has taken a toll, but he’s proud of his children.
“I can look at my son and he’s on a good track. My daughter is very young but she’s on a good track too. I look back and they’re going in the right direction.”
Lapierre says he’s dealing with his own looming death in the same way he’s tackled other disasters — by being practical, calm, motivated and upbeat.
“It has been over half a year since my diagnosis,” he writes in a blog post published this week to mark International Humanitarian Day, Aug. 19. “While I have come to terms with the fact there is no cure, I am hopeful I can extend my time here just a little bit longer, to make up for the many years away and to focus on enjoying every day, every moment of my life.
“Like the many humanitarian responses I have lived through in my career, it’s not perfect, but every moment where you can get back to living your life counts. And so, I am counting myself lucky for each extra day and for each extra moment I have.
“My humanitarian life has shown me that I remain one of the lucky ones. Even if there is now an end in sight, I am privileged.”
CARE Canada is requesting that all those who wish to share a message of support to Alain Lapierre to send to the email: messages-for-alain@care.ca
bcrawford@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/getBAC
查看原文...
