WEYBURN, Sask. – Rodney Sidloski returned from Africa dispirited and burned out.
Ten years as an emergency and development worker in countries such as Sudan and war torn Mozambique had left the Saskatchewan farm boy needing a break.
A year off convinced him he wasn’t going to return, at least not permanently, but it didn’t douse his desire to help others. In 1994 he incorporated HELP International, a Weyburn-based charity with an office in Nairobi, Kenya, that is designed to meet needs and solve problems.
That’s what Sidloski does best.
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“My university training is actually in clinical psychology and anthropology,” he said.
But he didn’t grow up one of 14 children on a farm near Halbrite, Sask., and not learn about logistics and how to make do. His father was an inventor and all the children were exposed to the idea of building or adapting things to make something else work.
Those skills came in handy when Sidloski arrived in Africa as a food monitor and ended up in charge of a truck fleet, developing agricultural programs and building bridges.
When 10 tonnes of food sat waiting in the desert for collection and distribution because the truck drivers only worked regular business hour shifts, he went to work.
He commandeered trucks. He rented a former peanut processing facility. He set up night lighting and organized a second dispatch of trucks at 10 p.m.
Sidloski said when things have to be done in Saskatchewan, people do them.
“It’s just common sense,” he said. “I just brought people together.”
That’s what HELP International does, too. The organization works with government, communities, other organizations and business, mainly on environmental and school programs.
At HELP’s 10 acre city farm in Wey-burn, students participate each June in programs to determine what’s broken and how to fix it.
“We focus on honing up those inherent skills of Saskatchewan and prairie culture.”
Those skills are then applied to international development by completing a project. For example, the farm is dotted with traditional African houses built by students.
Students have applied low-cost, low technology processes to create new products, such as recycling paper into fibre boards that can be placed under tin roofs of traditional housing in Kenya for insulation and noise control.
They mill Styrofoam trays for use in soil plugs at plant nurseries. They manually make bricks and press seeds into oil to learn how other cultures do things. All the while, the environment is key.
“Kids do really worry about it,” Sidloski said.
In Kenya, HELP programs are responsible for planting trees, revitalizing city slums and helping people learn how to do things for themselves. A proposal to establish a polytechnic school for post-war reconstruction in Sudan would see students begin by building their own school.
