Giving sight to China’s blind – Australian aid worker on helping people see, and witnessing the ‘magic moments’ when they do
Ian Wishart, chief executive of the Fred Hollows Foundation, discusses the global eye-health organisation’s work in China, which is home to the highest number of blind people in the world
Culture shock I was born in Adelaide in 1959 and started my life as a fairly typical Australian kid, living in the suburbs and supporting the local football club. My father was a radio engineer for Philips, a Dutch firm that manufactured radios in Adelaide. When the manufacturing base moved he was made redundant. He got a new job at the Post and Telegraph Department in Port Moresby, so aged 11, I moved from an ordinary life in Australia to an extraordinary life in Papua New Guinea.
My dad was effectively an aid worker – he was there to improve the phone system – but in those days they weren’t called aid workers, they were “colonial administrators”. PNG was Australia’s only real colony. When you go to a developing country for the first time, especially as a young person, you suffer from culture shock. Your mind is buzzing, wondering why the world you once knew has disappeared and you are now faced with this new world. It was my first experience with seeing people in poverty. We arrived in 1970 and I left in 1977, when I finished high school. I had to go back to Australia for university. Independence took place in 1975.
Quarter-life crisis I remember having dreams about what I would do when I grew up – I wanted to help people in developing countries. They hadn’t invented the terms “international development studies” or “aid worker” in those days. If they had, I would have chosen that in a flash.
Instead, I went to the Australian National University, in Canberra, and studied science. I qualified in maths and information technology and my plan was to become a schoolteacher, but then I realised developing countries weren’t taking schoolteachers because they were using their own.
I worked as a teacher in Canberra for a couple of years, then worked in the public service for a few years and then I got frustrated because I wasn’t doing anything meaningful. I had what I call my quarter-life crisis at 27 and went off backpacking around the world for five months. I ended up in the UK for a while, where I worked as an IT consultant.
Having a basic respect for people is important. People are poor and not as educated as you, but if you don’t respect them you’ll never get on and build things
On the front line One day I decided that was it, I was going to do what I’d long dreamed of. I approached all the charities and was offered a job at World Vision as a trainee project officer in humanitarian work. I started work there in 1989 and for the next six years I was involved in frontline emergencies around the world.