Lucy Perry went from volunteer to CEO in eight years. She heads up Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia in Australia, an organisation raising funds and awareness for a network of hospitals and a midwifery school in Ethiopia. Below she shares how applying her skills to helping some of the most marginalised women in the world helped her find her purpose.
My background is as an art director. I’m a creative. A communicator. My first proper job was with an advertising agency but that came to a sudden end when I had a massive motorcycle accident, broke my leg very badly and was in plaster for a year. Once I was back on my feet, I founded my first business, a creative company called Pure Graphics. My first major client was a huge building company and I spent the next decade developing the business and my creative skills.
I first heard of the work of Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia about 10 years ago when the cofounder, Australian obstetrician Dr Catherine Hamlin, was profiled on Oprah. I was so moved by the plight of the fistula patients, who Catherine described with such kindness, and I was motivated to do something to help. Just a few days later a friend lent me a book, Hospital by the River, which tells Catherine’s remarkable life story. I was horrified that Catherine’s patients had suffered such horrific childbirth injuries simply for lack of emergency obstetric care. I was also inspired by Catherine’s adventurous life in Africa.
I’m not a doctor, but I knew I had valuable skills in communication and offered my time for free to the organisation. I knocked their communication into shape, launched a website, then a social media strategy and wrote their brochures and newsletters. I was running my own creative services firm and Hamlin Fistula Ethiopia was my favourite client. But it wasn’t paying a cent.
Before long I was invited to travel to Ethiopia on a photography assignment to shoot the hospital, staff, patients and of course Dr Hamlin herself. That first trip was a swift kick to the gratitude gland. I met Catherine at the operating table at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital. She was in her early eighties then and operating on her third case for the day.
The fistula patients have suffered terrible childbirth injuries caused by prolonged obstructed labour. In Australia, you would simply have a Caesarean if this happened but in Ethiopia, where there are few hospitals and very few obstetricians, women in obstructed labour suffer for days and days until their baby eventually dies. The immense pressure causes a hole between the vagina and the bladder and sometimes the vagina and the rectum, which leaves her incontinent.
I travelled all over Ethiopia, shooting the hospitals, staff and patients and really understanding the Ethiopian context of this life-changing work.
Dr Hamlin asked me to be the CEO of a brand-new fundraising entity in Australia in 2012. I’ve never worked so hard in all my life but I have never found my work so rewarding. In my previous professional life, if I used all my skills and worked really hard, a client of mine would sell more concrete. Now I’m working for a cause I really believe in and the same skills can be applied to changing lives and really making a tangible difference. Women go back to their families healthy and cured. We have the most fabulous team here in Australia and one of them said to me recently: “I had no idea what finding your purpose meant until I started working here.” It was a great reminder for me how rewarding my work really is.
Looking to change the world? Try the following:
– You have skills. Use them for good. You don’t need to be a doctor to save lives.
– If you would like to help a charity, ask what they really need. Don’t just go ahead give them what you would like to give.
– Mobilise your friends and networks behind a cause that matters to you.
– Work HARD. Great opportunities do not come to those who sit on the couch.
– Don’t be a charity cynic: donations really do make a difference