Veronique Bourbeau On Bringing Clean Water To Those In Need By Running The African Continent
Veronique Bourbeau is an ultra-distance runner, author & public speaker with a passion for humanity.
Driven to make a difference in the world, she attributes her passion and hyper-resilience to a near-death experience she had at the age of 12. She realised that life now had nothing to fear, which allowed her to reach her full potential.
Veronique took up running in her 30s as a mother, Masters student and full-time professional journalist. Running was a sport at which she excelled and soon marathons were not enough and Veronique moved on to ultra-distance running. Veronique combined her humanitarian goals with her love of sport and the non-profit organisation Run4Humanity was born.
Veronique will soon be the first woman to run the entire continent of Africa, from Alexandria to Cape Town, which means she will run the length of Africa to bring clean and safe water to millions of people in more than 19 countries, simultaneously setting a Guinness World Record.
Veronique discusses how she combined her passion for running with a desire to bring clean water to the communities who need it most and her current plans to run the length of Africa to expand her water projects and amplify their impact.
Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)
[Sarah Ripper] - To start off, could you please share a bit about your background and what led to your passion for social impact?
[Veronique Bourbeau] - It's funny, because I’ve always had two separate ways of describing my journey which formed into one. I have always been passionate about humanitarian work. When I was young, my role model was (and still is) Terry Fox. Terry Fox is a Canadian athlete, but at the age of 19 he got cancer. One of his legs was gone, and his mission was to run the land of Canada to raise money for cancer because he got cancer. He wanted to raise awareness and money for kids who have the same illness as him. I remember when I was young, I was a bit chubby and bullied because of it; I didn't have a lot of friends around me. The only way I was always inspired was Terry Fox. Even when I was always last in sports, the only one who gave me the power to carry on is Terry Fox. He was a big role model for me, and my life continued. I've always been passionate about Africa and making a difference, one of my dreams was to go to Africa and work there. My philosophy has always been to be immersed with the locals and not to become a white colonialist. I truly believe they have everything they need to make their own way, but sometimes they just need a little push. I went in Senegal and the only thing which shocked me, not necessarily the way that they were living, is the lack of clean and safe water. In the village I was in, I was the only one of all the people in the village who got access to clean water. I was the only one who got this fancy pill you put in the water to make it drinkable.
I was so ashamed that I would go outside of the place to drink because I was thinking why me? Why should I be the only one because I'm a white woman from Canada? That makes absolutely no sense, and that shock has been carrying me for the rest of my journey. I came back in Canada, and I decided that if I have one mission it is now safe drinking water, because we are living on the same planet. We are all the same, even if we are not in the same country, we are all the same. At the time however, I didn't know how to help. Fast forward, I did my life, I was a journalist, travelled around the world, and ended up starting running. When I started my first marathon, I didn't even know how to run, but I wanted to do something physical, so I just bought an old cheap treadmill. I remember convincing my husband to bring the treadmill home, it cost $50 from someone at his workplace. Anyway, the treadmill comes home, and I didn't even know how to run, so I had to Google how to start running. I discovered the RadWalk strategy, so that's how I started. I started running for 1 minute until I reached 40 minutes, and after that I said, "what should I do with this?" I went to the running boutique and bought a book titled How to Start Running: from beginner to expert, and to this day I remember the eyes of the salesman when I bought the book. I told him I wanted to run a marathon, and he said even experienced runners cannot run a marathon. For me, I had thought how I can have this book and just run around my block, I need to do a real challenge. He tried to convince me not to do it. But anyway, I bought the book and the next day I started training. Six months after I did my first marathon, I was totally hooked and now marathons were not enough. I started to do longer distances; at some points I did 100 miles and said, "let's just push a little bit, let's try to do 250 kilometres." I ended up winning some of those races, and in the meantime, I had an epiphany. I was working in another country in a job I wasn’t sure I loved, but I was asking myself the question what do I want from my life? Do I want to carry on in a job I'm not sure I like, a life that other people want me to have, or do I want to have the life I want? I came back inside of me and said, “do you know what, if Terry Fox can run a country on one leg, I can do it with two, even if I'm going really slow." In 2016, I did 3,010 kilometres in 72 days, self-supported with my daughter on a bicycle alongside me. All the camping gear was in the back of the bicycle; we were literally sleeping and camping everywhere.
But the most beautiful thing about this run was the humanity shared by people. It wasn't just because it was Japan, people were stopping to offer me food or a bed. I had this small heartfelt connection with people, and I didn't even speak Japanese.
We all managed to understand each other with this translating app, and I remember at the end of the run, I was just crying because after three months, it was finished. I wanted to carry on, but because of Visa reasons I needed to go. I was so sad that this run finished, not because of how good I was at running, but more because of the transformation this run gave me. After that, almost simultaneously I realised I have my mission to bring water to the world and this ability to run and inspire people. I wanted to empower people to create a better world through sharing humanity, and this is how Run4Humanity came into the world.
Can you tell us more about Run4Humanity and the impact you're generating across the different projects you’ve established?
To be honest, at the beginning it took me a while to believe in myself enough and see I could be a non-profit leader. It took me years before I registered my organisation. We started by legalising it in U. S, and now we are fully registered here in Australia, which I'm massively proud of. It took me years to empower myself to realise the impact I want to create is not through getting money from someone else.
The impact I'm creating is not through waiting for someone else's money. I wanted to create the change I want to create, because one thing that’s important to realise is you cannot change the world until you step back and change yourself first.
A lot of my work started by myself asking the basic question who am I? But after that question I asked myself many others; what kind of impact do I want to create? What is the emotion I have inside of me? Who is creating the action I want to have and the impact that I want to see? What I was seeing inside of me was more of a mess than it was clean. Before being the leader, I'm becoming every day, I had to be honest with myself and create the change inside of me first. It took me going through ups and downs, but when I did that, I had this full-on journey of being a non-profit leader, which is the most beautiful gift I have given to myself. If I have something I wish I did differently, it would be I should have done it earlier. But I couldn't have done it with the mess I had inside of me at that time.
Can you tell us a bit more about the water projects you've developed and what impact this has created?
I'm super excited because now we have officially three projects in line. I'm excited equally by the three, so let's start with the one here in Australia. I am on a mission to bring clean and safe water to the Indigenous community here in Australia, because I truly believe that both in Australia and Canada, we have the same problem of bringing water to all of our First Nations and Indigenous people. These people should have water right now, and this is my calling; it's my mission to do whatever it takes. Even if you have so many rules and regulations to navigate, I'm ready to take them on and to help every person, one at a time.
I often say one kilometre at a time, but I also say let's bring water to one person at a time. If we bring water to just one person at a time, wherever they are on the planet, I think we are doing a good job.
The reality is the solutions exist. The water technology which can help those people are there, we just need to make the right partnerships to bring them to the people who don't have access to water. One project is here in Australia for the Indigenous community, but I want to recreate this in all other countries who have First Nations people: Canada, US, and New Zealand. Another project is in Fiji. Can you believe that 20,000 people do not get access to clean and safe water in Fiji? I already work with a water partner, so when the finances are done, I will be running the water systems in the island of Fiji to bring water to the entire country. After starting it, the whole country will get access to clean and safe water. It's a gift you don't even understand because we take it so much for granted. You take water from the tap and it's just part of our life, but so many people do not have half the same chance as us. The third project, which is my baby, is to run the length of Africa from Alexandria to Cape town. That means 14,000 kilometres of running across more than 19 countries, setting a Guinness World Record in the process. But all of this doesn't matter.
What matters the most is millions of people will have access to clean and safe water. Sometimes when it’s difficult to do this work because I feel lonely or frustrated, I close my eyes and remember I have a reason to push myself and fight.
These people don't get access to anything, because when you don't have access to water, how can you develop your society? How can you go to school, how can you have a better life? You can’t because your basic needs are not met. If you want to have a more fulfilling life, a more connected life with more humanity, you must have water, it's a no brainer. My two passions are to bring water but also to bring humanity. You then realise that one doesn't happen without the other, you cannot bring humanity when someone is struggling to drink. This is what gives me the most joy every day, when I have the privilege to do that. How many people have the privilege to live their life and say they will make a difference in this world.
The way we work is let's say we start in Egypt. We have a partner who is Sawyer, a water filter brand who are well known across the world. When you go hiking, it's the filter you use, but they are also well known in the developing world for giving filters to everyone. This is the group who are in Fiji, they give water to the entire country of Liberia, so I’m excited to have them as a partner. In Egypt, we will use Sawyer water filters, and this removes 99.999 percent of the bad stuff to make the water clean. We will have partner on the ground to distribute the filter, and they will make sure that if part of the filters gets out, they can provide other tools when necessary. All over Africa we have other partners from different countries in Africa. When we work in countries like Kenya and Uganda, we have partners who are local which create more kiosk water filters.
The lady who is behind this (it's her own business) is empowering the women who take care of all the filters which give clean water to entire villages. They don't just create water; you create a sense of belonging for all the village and jobs for people.
We are open to work not necessarily with just one partner but with different partners. This is right for the country we are running in, and now we are discussing financing. We have ministries who are interested in coming here to different countries in Africa. We are discussing this with a big water corporation, and I'm over the moon about that. Hopefully the discussion will be fruitful, and everything will go along according to plan so I will be able to start running probably in twelve to eighteen months. This takes a lot of organisations to make sure the right people get access to the right solutions, and I'm here to celebrate water and humanity.
What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently creating a positive social change?
I will start with my own perception because I'm originally from Canada. In Canada, the world of non-profits is not as dynamic as here. Since I'm in Australia, I feel so much privilege because I meet so many people who empower myself and give me the courage to continue. Impact Boom are great at empowering people and making people believe in themselves to continue in the path of non-profits or social enterprise. Luke from Sponge and B Corp is creating a nice networking space for all the people like us who are trying to make change.
One of the struggles I think I have is the loneliness in our sector. When you want to create change at that level, it sounds weird, but you are different. You don't necessarily think like most other people, so creating opportunities for networking is massive.
Yesterday I had a discussion with the guy who created African Care. What he's doing is putting together a village in Africa with higher education to make sure people from Africa get access to the highest education possible. Without that, they would have to travel far away. I have so many other people to recommend, Read That Impact, Engage Change, I have so many names to say because we cannot do what we are doing alone. One thing I'm privileged by is I think slowly but surely, I'm part of this awesome community you are creating here in Australia, and I cannot be grateful enough for that.
To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend to our listeners?
I'm an author, so I just published my first book Fearless. The book is One Woman's Transformational Journey from a Treadmill to running the African continent. This book is not about me, it's about all the people who helped me to become the person I am today. I’m a public speaker who shares about the near-death experience which helped me to become the humanitarian I am today; I can travel to anywhere in Australia. If you feel this project is right for you, and it resonates somehow with your values system and who you are, please connect with me. I love talking to people who have the same values. We cannot go far alone, but together we can, so why not change the world one kilometre at a time and bring water to one person at a time?
