Day 238: Lori DiGuardi

May 26, 2010 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“I am most passionate about wanting people to understand that they have a capacity for unlimited power and possibilities.  I really try to help people understand that they are only limited in doing or being who they want to be more or less by their own beliefs.”

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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Lori, for agreeing to be part of this Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?

Lori DiGuardi: Yes.  Well first, you’re welcome, and my name is Lori Ann DiGuardi.

Toni: And Lori what do you do?

Lori: I do a lot of things, but primarily I’m a mother of two teenagers, and I am an International Director of Brain Tree Primary School in Kyanja, Uganda, and as many of the children call me their mother, so I, actually, I’m a big mama to a lot of kids.

Toni: Fantastic.  Well Lori, who do you inspire and how does that happen?

Lori: I inspire, I believe, many of the people that I come in contact with, and that happens I think in different ways.  For example, when I work with Brain Tree in Uganda, I think that the fact that I give the school my attention and my love inspires the children there and community there to have hope and to believe that things that maybe they thought weren’t possible are actually possible.

Toni: Lori let’s back up a second, because those that are listening to this interview, I want to make sure that we know what is this school?  What does it do?

Lori: Brain Tree Primary School is a grammar school more or less or a lower school from Pre-K to 7th grade, and the school was started originally to help out orphans and underprivileged children in the village of Kyanja back in 1994.  The children who are orphans obviously didn’t have … well, they didn’t have money, some of them didn’t have any type of extended family.  The area was very poor.  The closest school was very far away, and one woman, Agnes Mukasa, who visited the village, saw all these children around, and she was determined to do something for these kids.  So from that time back in 1994 until today, the school focus is to give all kids education and an opportunity regardless of financial ability.

Toni: That’s amazing; that’s amazing.  So I would imagine that there’s a lot of inspiration that goes on here, and you were talking about the hope and belief of that education.  How does … what happens at the school as far as your involvement and how that inspires the children, but I would imagine others around that environment as well – what happens?

Lori: In Brain Tree on a day-to-day basis?

Toni: Yes.

Lori: Well, the children … what happens there may not have my name on it day-to-day – I kind of work in the background – but these children come to school and regardless of where they’re coming from … some of them live at the school; we have a dormitory there.  But regardless of where they’re coming from, they all come together as children, and they start their day with song and they sing throughout the day.  And as Mrs. Mukasa, who is the founder of the school, says “When children start singing together, they forget about their worries.  They forget that if they had breakfast that morning or if their mother died the week before.”

Something magical happens when you allow children to be children, and I think the primary happening at Brain Tree Primary School is that it allows children to come together and be children.  And I don’t know if a lot of us actually think about what that means or that some kids can’t be kids, but a lot of the children who are not able to go to school in parts of the world like in Uganda and some places, they have to fend for themselves or they have to take care of younger siblings or they have to fetch firewood or grow their own food, and school is not something that is a given.

So at Brain Tree, not only are they able to be children and sing and play, but they’re learning about the world, they’re learning about each other.  And through my involvement, I’ve helped raise awareness and funds to keep the school going, and I’ve also connected the school community there with other people internationally, primarily here in the states.

So these kids who at one time thought that no one really knew about them or cared about them now have friends that live across the ocean, so there’s a lot that goes on that benefits not just those kids, but even the kids here.  When you learn more about your world, you can’t help but be touched and inspired to be more of who you are.

Toni: How do you think the work that you’ve done being associated with this, the awareness that you have created around this school and everything else that you may be touching, how do you think it helps other people to explore their own potential?

Lori: Well, specifically with Brain Tree, when I’ve spoken to people here at home or children here at home … I’ve done a number of public speaking events and assemblies, and it amazes me how the story of these people in Uganda, who a lot of them don’t have their fundamental needs met, how they are so grateful and are living their lives as fully as they can.

That inspires people back here to take a look and take stock of what they have and what they’re doing with it.  And I find that children here, especially in our lower schools, say under the age of ten or nine, they don’t have the concept of limits … oh, like, you can’t raise $10,000, you’re only seven years old, or you can’t save a life, you’re only, you know, ten years old.

When children hear about the needs of other children or other even adults, they just automatically want to care and help, and when you’re surrounding … when you’re around those children, you can’t help be inspired by them.  So the teachers and the adults and the parents of the kids here in stateside that learn of the work that the kids want to do for Brain Tree, they’re right on board with it.

Toni: So it’s children helping children.

Lori: Yes.  Yes.  With the … and then adults, you know, of course adults are involved in that, but yeah, children have the most amazing ideas of how to create a better world.  They don’t have … they don’t have self-imposed limitations like we adults do.  They just go for it as long as they’re allowed to do that.

Toni: Wow, that’s really something, and I can imagine if I am the parent of one of those children that you’re going in and you’re speaking to about the work that you’re doing in Brain Tree and the schools and the ideas that are being generated by the children in the room, that buzz, how could a parent of that child not want to look at their own potential of how they can help and support what that child wants to do?

Lori: Yes.  Yes.

Toni: Lori, what inspires you?

Lori: Well I know we only have 15 minutes.  Almost … there’s so many things that inspire me.  I get inspired when I see the possibilities that exist in every moment, and that can come from people.  When I talk to someone, I read about someone, I see their accomplishments, that inspires me, because whatever can help me step out of my well-defined comfort zone of who I think I am.  So being around children, for example, they don’t have these limitations, so children really inspire me, and even elders.  Elders are fairly humble, and they don’t need to blow their own horn anymore, but if you sit with them silently and they tell you about their lives, it’s just amazing what comes … that you hear, the stories that you hear.

Nature; the beauty of nature inspires me.  There are so many possibilities for our lives.  I mean even death inspires me, because once death comes, the possibilities of who you can become or what you can do in this lifetime are over, so when I find … when someone I know dies, their death inspires me to be all that I can be more than I am at the moment.  Again, there’s just so many things.  Architecture, creativity in all its forms, natural and manmade, inspire me.

Toni: Lori, what would you say you’re the most passionate about?

Lori: I am most passionate about wanting people to understand that they have a capacity for unlimited power and possibilities.  I really try to help people understand that they are only limited in doing or being who they want to be more or less by their own beliefs.

I mean it’s different, like when we talk about Brain Tree, some people there, their fundamental needs aren’t being met so it’s hard to … it’s more difficult to help inspire them to be even more than they can be when they’re maybe not eating properly or have a place to live.  But here in our culture, in our country, people … pretty much their fundamental needs are met, so they’re not limited by those things.  They’re limited by their belief systems, you know, their resistance, their doubt, and so I’m so passionate about helping to unlock that resistance and doubt and letting them see, like kind of rekindle the spark in their life.

And I’ve come upon that more how I can help people see that, do that, or feel that through my work with Brain Tree, because Brain Tree has done that for me.  But I am most passionate about helping people realize their potential.  Yeah, so, I don’t know, that was a long way of saying that, but …

Toni: No, absolutely.  What I’m hearing from you is that you … with the work that you’re doing and what you see and what you’ve said now that, you know, the people … the children at Brain Tree, they’re not having their fundamental needs met but the smallest … I would imagine the smallest gesture of having food is just awakening a possibility in those children.  Aand here with the work that may be done here in the states where there are more people that are having their needs met that still do not realize that to awaken their own possibilities, that is the work and the bridge that I see that you’re trying to connect between those who don’t and those who have but yet they still don’t see their possibilities.  That’s where I see the link is in the work you’re doing.

Lori: Yes.  Yes.

Toni: That’s awesome.  What do you do to explore your own potential?

Lori: Well first of all, life’s given me plenty of opportunities to step outside my comfort zone, whether I like it or not.

Toni: I hear you.

Lori: So that’s an exploration in self-discovery on a day-to-day basis.  Yeah, I think that I’m just wired that way to try to explore life and examine my belief systems and examine how I can become more rather than less, if that makes sense.  And so that means traveling to other cultures.  It means listening to music that just moves me, working, walking out in nature, going on workshops with people who have a message to tell me that I hadn’t thought about before, reading books, talking to you.  There’s just a number of things.

I tend to see the possibilities all the time, rather than focus on problems or the status quo.  I took a course in transpersonal psychology one time, and one of the great thinkers that I was reading said that being normal is not so great, because being normal is a stunted stage of growth.  And so I’m proud to say that I don’t think I’m quite normal, because I don’t want to be stunted, you know?  I want to keep growing until there’s no time left to grow, yeah.

Toni: That is … it’s just amazing and the work that you’re doing as well.  Lori, I tell you, this Project just continues to, I don’t know, humble me, I guess … and I know those who are participating and also reading and listening to interviews like yourself.  We can’t thank you enough for agreeing to be part of this Project, and we were honored to have you.  Thank you for the work that you’re doing, and we will have the link to your website so that others can learn more about Brain Tree, and I think the message here is, you know, let’s always look to what’s possible, and that’s pretty cool.  Thank you so very much, Lori.

Lori: Well you’re welcome, and thank you for all that you’re doing, too.

Toni: Take care.

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For more information about Lori DiGuardi:  www.braintreesesaw.org

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