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megram - 55NovOttawa - Index

Ghandi
“N
o child has died since your water came here.”
Maude Barlow says she “grinned for a month” after one of the villagers in
Solidaridad, Bolivia, greeted her with these words in 2007.
The social activist — who has headed the Council of Canadians since 1988 —
had worked with the village, which did not have running water, for a number of
years. In December 2005, when she won the prestigious Right Livelihood Award,
she used the $10,000 prize to have water pipes laid in Solidaridad.
International aid had previously provided the village with a health clinic and a
school, but neither had been usable without running water.Any potable water was delivered by
truck and most villagers could afford no more than one barrel load.The precious water had to be
used for drinking, washing, watering their animals and their gardens and washing their clothes.
Maude’s gift changed life in the village significantly. Clean water was a key to health and
education for the villagers.The hospital and the school could function.The people and their
animals could drink safely.And, as her greeter said, no child had died since she brought clean
water to Solidaridad.
“When you see what people can do individually — and more important, what they can
do collectively — you understand that you can really make a difference,”says Maude,who was
appointed the first Senior Advisor on water issues to the the United Nations last month.“I didn’t
spend that much money, but it really made a difference to that community. Seeing that
makes you committed and makes you make changes in your own life too. It’s moving work. I
thought if I don’t do anything else in my entire life, at least I did that.”
In fact, as one of Canada’s most recognizable voices of dissent, she has spent most of her
life working for the causes she believes in.
She learned her zeal for changing the world early. As the daughter of social crusaders
William and Flora McGrath, activism came naturally to her.
“My dad was a criminal justice activist and advocate, a wonderful man,” says Maude.“He
was one of the people who led the fight against capital punishment in Canada. My mother too,
though she was much more traditional in her approach.I was lucky.I grew up with fine parents
who gave me very strong values about giving back to the world.”
Like Maude, her two sisters exhibit strong social consciences in the way that they contribute
to their communities. Her older sister Patricia runs the Belleville General Hospital
Foundation. Her younger sister Christine serves on the National Parole Board.
The importance of family, says Maude, is another of the values that the sisters learned from
their upbringing.“I took what I learned from my parents and kept it.Family means not quite everything
— I wouldn’t be doing this work for other people who aren’t family otherwise — but family
is very, very central to my life.That is more and more so, the older I get,” says the 61-year-old
grandmother of four.
“We’re a very close-knit family,”adds Maude, pointing to the many Japanese-style paintings by her
mother that adorn the walls of her elegant, antique-filled Ottawa home and speaking with pride of
her two sons, daughters-in-law and “gorgeous grandkids.”
November/December 2008 • 11 • Fifty-Five Plus Magazine
be the change you
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