The Bridge - Whidbey Bridge DEC 2016

WHIDBEY

BRIDGE

A STORY OF COMMON GOOD: Ann Medlock is the

founder of Giraffe Heroes Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to telling the stories of those who “stick their neck outs for the common good” across the globe. There have been over 1,300 “Giraffes” in the years since, and all their stories can be found at giraffe.org Page 4

FOR WHIDBEY ISLAND’S OVER-50 CROWD

DECEMBER • 2016

An international experience

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A supplement to the Whidbey News-Times, South Whidbey Record and The Whidbey Examiner

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WHIDBEY BRIDGE

December • 2016

Longtime Red Cross operator looks back on experiences

By EVAN THOMPSON

ethompson@whidbeynewsgroup.com

Serendipity and immersion have been the name of the game in Dan Prewitt’s life.

Prewitt spent nearly half a century working with the American and International Red Cross in the emergency management field where he saw many aspects of life: the good, the bad and everything in between.

He’s witnessed war, starvation, genocide and natural disasters. While what drives the response by Red Cross to these events is problematic and sometimes painful, it can also be rewarding, he said.

Prewitt, who is originally from Iowa and now lives in Langley, served a variety of roles in both the American and international branches of Red Cross, from an assistant national director for preparedness to the head of delegation and country representative. He’s served in senior or lead operational positions in over 20 disaster

operations in the United States and its territories, including Guam, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands from 1973 to 1991, and 12 international missions in nine countries from 1985 through 2008.

It was when his feet were on the ground that Prewitt felt honored; he was in the thick of it all, where unplanned events happen at random times.

“That was my privilege at a personal and professional level,” Prewitt. “There’s some bad times, really bad times, but those are offset by the good times.”

Prewitt’s passion for the work has been clear in the eight years Langley resident John Lawson has known him. In addition to his many years with Red Cross, Prewitt also volunteers weekly at Good Cheer in Langley.

“He gets very emotionally involved wherever he is,” Lawson said. “I’ve listened to him tell stories where he has tears in his eyes.”

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Dan Prewitt spent nearly half a century working with the American and International Red Cross in emergency management.

Prewitt’s long career with Red Cross wasn’t something he planned. He served in the Air Force for four years, fulfilling roles as a cartographer and member of an electronic intelligence division, and made his way to the Pentagon.

After his service, he took a temporary job with the American Red Cross. His

first few years were relegated to the Red Cross headquarters in Washington, D.C., and after a while he became unsettled. While proud of his work, he felt it wasn’t exciting or challenging, so he began requesting temporary assignments overseas.

One of Prewitt’s first international assignments came in 1975 when he ran

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a refugee program after Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese Army.

It was his first experience dealing with large numbers of multi-cultural people, where he was tasked with processing the refugees into temporary housing in places like Guam. The refugees would stay for two to three months before a more permanent solution could be found.

Another assignment came in the mid-1980s when he participated in food relief operations for the Sahel famine in North Africa. He and others also helped them to rebuild the capacity to feed themselves.

“That really got my

juices going,” Prewitt said.

“I’ve never been a headquarters type.”

“It’s important to be on the ground,” he added.

Every experience Prewitt had was also different from the last, whether it was natural disaster relief operations or conflict-oriented.

Modifying and adapting to each situation were among the challenges.

He was the head of delegation for relief efforts during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Over 350,000 people had fled to Tanzania, where Prewitt would be stationed for the next year. The logistics of setting up basic necessities such as water, food, and sanitation in time were cumbersome.

“We couldn’t save them all,” Prewitt said. “When you’re talking about cramming people into an area smaller than Langley, you’re going to get diseases.”

His last assignment took him back to Africa in Niger for a drought operation.

Prewitt’s work has offered him perspective.

He feels Americans need to be more global in their outlook of the world, and be empathetic as opposed to challenged by it.

“I’m a patriot, I suppose you could say, but a patriot in a sense that I want our country, our culture to come to terms with the fact that it’s not an island,” Prewitt said. “We need to become more global in our approach. There’s just too many challenges.”

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DECEMBER 2016 • VOL. 1, NO. 11

WHIDBEY

BRIDGE

WHIDBEY BRIDGE STAFF Executive Editor & Publisher............................KEVEN R. GRAVES Associate Publisher.................................... KIMBERLLY WINJUM Editor.................................................................MEGAN HANSEN Staff Reporters.................................................EVAN THOMPSON Admin........................................................... HEATHER SCHMIDT

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WHIDBEY BRIDGE

November • 2016

Honoring those for sticking a neck out for common good

By EVAN THOMPSON

ethompson@whidbeynewsgroup.com

Despair. Disgust.

Those were just a couple of the feelings Ann Medlock felt while watching and listening to media in the early 1980s. She felt the media’s crosshairs were too focused on the negatives of the world rather than the positives.

Medlock knew there were people out there doing enlightening and empowering things, yet no one was there to tell their stories.

“I kept thinking, ‘In all this wide torrent of disempowering news, I bet there’s somebody who’s got an idea on how to fix that,’” Medlock said.

It turned out that somebody was her.

Medlock, an 83-year-old Clinton resident, is the founder of Giraffe Heroes Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to telling the stories of those who “stick their neck out for the common good” across the globe. There have been

“It’s incredible. To me, there is nothing that represents taking personal responsibility more than someone who sees a problem and says, ‘I can help fix that,’ and actually does it.”

Lynn Willdford, former project writer

over 1,300 “Giraffes” in the years since, and all their stories can be found on the organization’s website at giraffe.org They include humanity workers, attorneys, educators, civil leaders and countless others who fight corruption, gang violence and environmental threats, just to name a few. The “Giraffes” are also from a host of different countries including Kenya, India, Egypt, Tibet, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

By telling their stories, Medlock hopes it will inspire others to become more active citizens. The criteria for a “Giraffe”

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nominee includes taking a significant risk for the common good, “alleviating suffering, rectifying injustice, or advancing goals such as peace or a healthy environment,” according to the organization’s website.

Medlock operates out of her office in Langley, while there are eight other affiliates with the organization overseas.

Her husband, John Graham, is the director of operations for the Giraffe Heroes Project and a former U.S. diplomat.

Graham said telling the stories of the heroes has an immense impact on changing people’s behavior, a fact that he said Medlock figured out early on.

The project has taken them to sometimes difficult and dangerous places in developing countries, that are in need of hope, guidance and shining a light on active citizens. In the early 1990s, the project was involved in the transition of the Soviet Union into Russia. It is also currently involved in Zimbabwe,

Evan Thompson / Whidbey News Group

Ann Medlock, a Clinton resident, is the founder of the Giraffe Heroes Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to shedding light on those who stick their necks out for the common good.

Medlock said professional fundraisers have tried to give “Giraffe” awards to famous people in exchange for money.

“We have some respect for the choices we make, and if we started doing that, no one would respect our choices,” Medlock said. “It helps to not give a damn about money.”

Medlock really doesn’t.

She once mortgaged her house to keep the organization afloat and declined to keep any money raised by the organization in order to pay her staff.

The organization’s philosophies also reached

where a dictator is running the country and where human rights issues, corruption and poor leadership is taking place, Graham said.

“We’ve become an important political force in Zimbabwe in a key point in its transition,” Graham said.

“Here from our little Langley office, we were having an impact on history,” he added.

In Medlock’s eyes, no “Giraffe” is superior to the other. There are no awards given out to the top “Giraffe” because to do so would defeat its purpose.

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classrooms in 1991 and is known as the “Giraffe Program.”

“It’s about training them to be brave and compassionate citizens,” Graham said.

Lynn Willeford, board president of South Whidbey at Home, was a freelance writer for the project for around half a decade.

“It’s incredible,” Willeford said. “…To me, there is nothing that represents taking personal responsibility more than someone who sees a problem and says, ‘I can help fix that,’ and actually does it.”

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