One idea can change a world
Friday, August 30, 2002 - Reprinted with permission of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
By Jason Feifer
Telegram & Gazette Staff
PAXTON-- Roger L. Whiting did not need binoculars on his 1996 Serengeti safari because the unfamiliar life he sought was all around him.
Nevertheless, the exotic African animals and their natural grace could not capture Mr. Whiting's interest, nor could the untamed landscape or its crude dirt roads. Instead, he became drawn to the people around him, who talked of poverty, hunger and a life of constant struggle.
"It was unavoidable," he said. "It's one thing to see it on National Geographic, but it's another thing to see it in real life. I was in shock. I came home and realized I've had an awfully good life."
The images and conversations haunted him for weeks until he reflected back on a conversation he had with a Tanzanian waitress. She told him of her desire for an education, which she could not afford. In Africa, even secondary education has a price tag. Men are usually the only ones who are given the opportunity to learn.
This memory captured an injustice, where money was a roadblock to knowledge. Mr. Whiting was soon comforted, though, because he decided on what would bring him peace. From across the Atlantic Ocean and from a world where luxury is expected, he resolved to find that girl and send her to school.
For reasons he may never know, the girl never went to school. He found her and encouraged her to apply to a computer school, which she did. Disappointment came when he contacted the school to make sure his money got there. It did, but she didn't.
Nevertheless, Mr. Whiting had found a calling. There are countless girls in Africa who could benefit from education, and they know it. They desperately want to learn because they know that knowledge is their ticket out of a poverty that threatens to swallow them. Because of lack of money or family obligations or a stifling society, the classroom is a place these girls could not otherwise see without Mr. Whiting.
"Monday morning comes here and the kids say, 'Do I have to get up and go to school today?' " he said. "Over there, they want to go to school. There's an incredible acknowledgement for the need for education for them to advance themselves."
Upon that principle, Growth Through Learning was born. In 1998, Mr. Whiting raised enough money to send 12 girls to school. The following year, Growth Through Learning sent 32 girls to school. This year, he expects to help between 130 and 140 girls.
The nonprofit organization has grown steadily, and now has a board of directors and four scholarship coordinators in east Africa who find girls that cannot afford school. These girls submit applications and an essay on the importance of education which are reviewed by a Growth Through Learning committee.
Mr. Whiting, an energetic man in his 60s, has remained at the helm since day one. He runs the organization out of his home in Paxton, devotes every day to it and does not earn any money from it. Once a year, he buys himself a plane ticket to Africa, where he tries to visit with as many scholarship recipients as possible.
To him, these trips are remarkable. In the small villages where he goes, he is often the only white person that the locals have ever talked to. They may have seen white tourists or missionaries, but Mr. Whiting comes to them as something quite different.
Like a missionary, he said, he wants to see a change in their society. However, he insists that the change will not come from him.
"My thought is not to go over there and make social change like a missionary but to educate them to the level of the boys," he said. "When that happens, they'll demand their own change."
When he meets with the girls, they are thankful but shy, he said. He asks them questions about their lives and their studies, and he wants to know if they've been properly educated about AIDS, which has been quietly destroying the continent. If they learn nothing else, he said, it is all worthwhile if the girls save themselves from the disease.
While some are too overwhelmed to talk at length, Mr. Whiting has no doubt that they are grateful. He is constantly getting thank-you letters from them, and many address him as "father" and sign their letters, "with love, your daughter."
"They accept me not only as their benefactor but as their parent," Mr. Whiting said. "One of the things I try to emphasize to them is that we're not just a money tree. I'm not over there with a bag full of money. I'm there to encourage them to make something of themselves."
That more than anything is how Mr. Whiting differs from the tourists and missionaries that hike through the African villages, glassy-eyed and filled more with sympathy than synergy. Alone, he travels to lands that most governments treat as if beyond repair to ask blunt questions and get honest answers.
When he goes back to Paxton, he brings with him enough fuel to last him a year -- pictures of smiling girls whom he barely knows but whose stories he has added endless chapters to. What makes these pictures so special is that the smiles in them are for more than just the camera. They are for the fields -- the unforgiving crop fields the girls have left -- and for the new fields ahead of them, of medicine or teaching or anything they aspire to.
As years go by, they will surely have themselves to thank for their hard work and success. For now, though, they thank a man who came out of nowhere to give them a future.
"I've had a real good life. And then, you see what the conditions are over there, where they're just looking for clean water to drink," Mr. Whiting said. "I had a realization that it's time to give back to the world. I've taken enough."
For more information on Growth Through Learning, call (508) 757-7765.
Jason Feifer is a correspondent in the Telegram & Gazette's Holden bureau.
Last modified: Sep 07, 2002, 19:46 EDT