AVI Gift in Wills Officer Meg Barnes (centre) with Paia and John Ingram
August 29, 2024
Include a Charity Week: Tea with John and Paia
Introduction by AVI Gift in Wills Officer, Meg Barnes.
This story starts with a decision to journey around Australia with my husband and two young children. Now that we’ve settled back at home in Victoria after 18 months on the road and living in Darwin, I have a chance to reflect on our incredible adventure. In particular, the remarkable AVI donors I took the opportunity to enjoy a ‘cuppa’ with along the way.
Over the years, I had spent many hours talking over the phone with John, so in April 2023, as we were travelling through NSW, I reached out in the hope we could meet as we passed through the Glasshouse Mountains in Southern QLD. That ’quick hello’ turned into a warm and welcoming afternoon.
While my kids played happily for hours in the living room with toys from John and Paia’s grandchildren, I had the privilege of hearing more about John’s story and the impact of his time volunteering. John was kind enough to write his story so it may be shared with other AVI supporters.
– Meg Barnes, AVI Gift in Wills Officer
This is John’s story…
August 29, 2024
“I first volunteered as an AVA (Australian Volunteer Abroad) in West Malaysia in 1966-67. There, I taught English in a Malay-medium secondary school and provided professional development to Malaysian teachers of English and American Peace Corps volunteers. In 1968 I travelled to PNG as a volunteer Resident Tutor in the new University, after which I stayed on in the PNG Education Department for a few years and later married my wife, Paia, who is from Gaba Gaba village in Central Province. For about ten years in the 1990s I served on the Board of AVI.
I feel a very strong connection with AVI. Following my experience as a volunteer, my life, professionally and personally, has been lived across cultures, providing opportunities for people in minority cultures to achieve the identity, self-esteem and professional and vocational skills to allow them to live satisfying lives. My time as a volunteer changed how I understood the diversity of people. and was the first step in a lifelong experience of living and working across cultures.
For me, AVI is as much about changing the people of Australia as it is about bringing ‘development aid’ to the people of developing countries. I see it as a very important institution in changing Australia to be the kind of country that I want my children and grandchildren to live in.
It greatly influenced how Paia and I raised our children as bi-racial, bi-cultural people, proud of their heritages and effective in being able to operate across diverse cultures. It also led to our active participation in the community as our children grew up, particularly in the ethnic communities in Darwin where we actively fostered interaction between communities in the spirit of genuine multi-culturalism.
It is for these reasons that I have made a small but regular financial contribution to AVI for the last forty plus years, and why I will leave another token contribution in my will. I would encourage anyone who believes in Australia as a multicultural society, and as a relatively wealthy country that should contribute to the development and well-being of countries throughout the world, to financially support AVI.
My contribution to AVI is miniscule compared to the value I place on this organisation. It is a token of my esteem for AVI and my recognition of how my thinking changed as a result of my experiences as a volunteer between 1966-68. Indeed, how it changed the direction of my life.”
– John Ingram
John and Paia’s children and grandchildren
Paia and John Ingram
As a member of the Fundraising Institute of Australia and as part of Include a Charity week 2024, AVI is sharing the stories of some of our most valued supporters, their connection to our work and why they have decided to leave a gift in their will to AVI.
You can learn more about including a gift to AVI in your Will on our website or by getting in touch with AVI’s GIW officer, Meg Barnes on 0466 533 016 or via email at mbarnes@avi.org.au.
