When it comes to international volunteering, Michael Dion digs it … literally
BEXLEY, Ohio — The seeds of Michael Dion’s love of international volunteering were planted more than 30 years ago — although you could say they were actually planted more than 500 years ago.
In the early 1990s, as the world geared up to mark the quincentennial of Christopher Columbus’ 1492 arrival in the New World, Smithsonian-affiliated archaeologists sought to examine how societies were impacted by the globe-changing event, particularly when it came to such things as agriculture, medicine and disease. However, the archaeologists had a lot of ground to cover … well, uncover in this case. They needed volunteers, even if those who volunteered had no experience whatsoever in such digs.
“I said, ‘Why not?’” recalled Dion, who spent a week digging on the volcano-devastated island of Montserrat. “I helped excavate for a week or so and fell in love with that. I did a number of projects around the world. … How many people can say they’ve dug across from Red Square?”
As much as she dug archaeology, what she truly fell in love with was international travel. She estimates she has been to about 60 countries, and most of those visits have come through volunteering — from teaching English in China to working in a refugee camp in Greece. It was all a far cry from her professional work of more than 30 years in banking and technology.
These days, her passion for international service work often manifests a volunteer with the Fuller Center for Housing’s Global Builders program. She counts 19 total Global Builders experiences since her first trip in 2011.
The first Global Builders trip was in 2011 to Haiti, a nation that had been devastated by an earthquake the previous year, an event that would bring The Fuller Center to the already impoverished Caribbean nation.
“It was early — it might have been the second house we built,” she remembered of the project that would launch the 56-home Lambi community, which was completed and dedicated in 2014 during another of Dion’s eight total Global Builders trips to Haiti. “I just loved that project. … It’s good to see a project from beginning to end.”
She also had a chance to volunteer in Pignon, Haiti, where The Fuller Center now works far away from the chaos in the capital of Port-au-Prince. Unfortunately, because of violence and political instability in the country, Global Builders trips to Haiti are on an indefinite hold. That disappoints her, but she is grateful for the continuing home-building efforts by Haitian locals in Pignon, under the determined and quietly effective leadership of Geral Joseph.
“Haiti really has a spot in my heart,” Dion said. “It’s just so unfair to the people, but it’s the reality. Fortunately, I’m friends with Geral, and I see all the pictures of the homes he’s building, and they look fabulous. He’s doing really good work there.”
In addition to Haiti, Dion has volunteered as a Global Builder in Peru, Nepal. Thailand, South Africa, Puerto Rico, Portugal and El Salvador, those last two most frequently. She just returned from her third Global Builders trip to El Salvador earlier this month, and she’ll be making her fourth trip to work in Portugal in February.
She praised the rapid progress of building in El Salvador, notably in the Apeneca community where she just worked, and is excited about seeing Portugal’s project for refugee families’ homes in a converted furniture factory from beginning to end similarly to the way she saw the same in Haiti’s Lambi Community.
She has traveled so much now that when asked if there is a “bucket list” country she would like to visit, her answer is simple:
“No.”
That’s because she has found that as she has become immersed in different countries’ cultures off the well-trodden tourist paths, people are much more similar than glancing observations from afar might have you believe.
“I just love to travel,” she said. “I learn new things every time I go somewhere and meet new people. But people are really the same all over the world. They want the same things. They want a place to live that’s comfortable. They want work that satisfies them. They love family. That’s a human thing. That’s not a territorial thing.”
2 Comments
Thank you for interviewing my friend, Michael Dion. Her work is amazing!!!
Loved talking to Michael! Her extensive and continuing record of travel and service would wear most folks out!