Guest post by Youth Advisory Comittee member Sara Elkadri.
I had the pleasure of speaking with Tanya Grygaski, an environmental engineer from Ontario, and minutes into the conversation I could feel Tanya’s passion through the tone of her voice as she shared her stories and experiences from over the years.
Tanya began her relief work when she was an undergrad at the University of Waterloo. She was part of the Engineers Without Borders program and provided water supply alternatives for communities in Tanzania. This project inspired Tanya to join the Registered Engineers for Disaster Relief Charity, which was teamed up with the Canadian Red Cross. Tanya explained that this was a time in her life where she wanted to take on every challenge and opportunity that came her way—and it just kept growing from there.
Since then, Tanya has been on several missions to the Maldives, Austria, Zimbabwe, Haiti, London, St. Luca, and Sierra Leone.
Tanya was recently featured in the
Faces of Humanity campaign.
In April of 2015, Tanya was sent out on an Ebola operation in the Kono District of Sierra Leone. She was a Water and Sanitation Delegate with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent societies. Through this role, Tanya provided supply, treatment and distribution of safe water to the Ebola Treatment Centre. As well, Tanya supervised a local technical team of 13 staff, including chlorination staff, generator operators, plumbers, electricians, maintenance staff, and carpenters.
In the end, Tanya really emphasized that the most rewarding part of all of her work is being able to see the difference she is making firsthand and to see the locals who are suffering through these crisis,’ but persevere to help others really motivates her to keep going.
Learn more about the work of Canadian humanitarians like Tanya who are part of Faces of Humanity.