Guest post by Kathryn Dunmore, Red Cross blogger
Surmounting many challenges to achieve her dreams, Red Crosser Odette Cyr has spent the latter part of her life helping others in times of crisis.
Odette had worked for Canadian Red Cross as administrative assistant to the Secretary General in Ottawa when she went on sabbatical, 10 years ago, in India. It was December 26, 2004, when she was evacuated from her vacation home to the mountains to avoid the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami that hit the area.
“After it, I had decided to continue on my travels to Australia but it didn’t feel right, people needed help,” she explained. “If I were in Canada when that happened, I would have given money to Red Cross; this time, I decided to give of myself and help the community clean up.”
Taking the training to become a delegate, Odette stayed 27 months in Sri Lanka in support of the Federation’s humanitarian efforts. After that, she was deployed to Indonesia for almost three years then to Haiti to work as Head of Support Services for 21 months.
The challenges she surmounted were many: first, before she left Canada, she was diagnosed with lung cancer.
“Working in the Ottawa office, I worked with a lot of overseas personnel and listening to their stories, I thought this is what I want to do,” she said. “I was 48 years old and didn’t think it would happen. I had a small dream in my head so for my 50
th birthday, I decided to go to India. It was three months before I was to go on that trip that I was diagnosed with lung cancer.”
Making a full recovery, two years later, she decided to go travel to for a year. After backpacking for three months in India she decided that she would go to Sri Lanka for Christmas. Only five days after she arrived the tsunami hit. Beyond motivating her to work as a delegate to help others, the tsunami changed her life even further. The man who helped Odette escape to the mountains after the tsunami is now her husband, Ravi.
Odette credits her drive in helping others that has given her a ‘second life’.
“It was as if a second life were starting for me,” she noted, who is now 62. “In life, you have to have dreams and guts. I had dreams and guts and when you work with your heart and passion, you cannot make a mistake.”
“The Red Cross has always been a passion for me. I work for the Red Cross because I believe in its mission.”