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| And the running begins |
Beyond The Comfort Zone
By Jessica Fell
Patrice Gibbons
hopes her selfishness can help raise women out of hunger in Africa. It’s a big
call.
She is one
of 22 women who have committed to raising $10,000 – as part of The Hunger
Project and Business Chicks Leadership and Immersion Project – to help women in communities in Uganda raise
themselves and their families out of poverty.
“I am the
most selfish person I know . . . [but] you’ve got to be pretty selfish to raise
$10,000. I’ve got to go to all my friends, who I love and adore and ask them
for money to support me on this project to try and make a difference” said the
36 year-old Communications Manager.
Patrice has
guaranteed the $10,000 to the trip organisers. If she can't raise it,
she’ll have to pay it from her back pocket. She has six months to fundraise
and knows how to pitch herself.
Patrice has
been known to have Coke and chocolate for breakfast. She does not run, ever.
Yet she spent Saturday night plying a friend with wine for instruction on how
to run, because she has registered to run 14 kilometres in four months time. She
knows her friends will pay to see her struggle up Sydney's Heartbreak Hill at
the City2Surf in August. It’s the first strategy in her fundraising plan.
"I am
motivated by the fear of failure. In the next six months I am going to spend a
lot of time outside my comfort zone . . . I want to feel like I've achieved
something I could never, ever do," she said. "Not raising the $10,000
means I've failed. I don't like to commit to anything unless I can do it
well", she said. She even set up a spreadsheet
before committing to the project, detailing every possible avenue for
fundraising.
It won't
be her first trip to Uganda. At 25, Patrice dumped her job as a
journalist at The Financial Review
and left Sydney with a backpack and $4,000. She continent-hopped and worked in
London as a writer and producer for almost seven years, before returning to
Sydney in 2009, via Africa.
Adjusting
to life back in Sydney was the launching pad for The Perspective Project (http://myperspectiveproject.blogspot.com.au/)
– Patrice’s first step out of
her post-travel slump. While she knew her life was great on paper, she said she
felt the need to start appreciating the little things in her new life, rather
just missing her ‘London life’. In a bid to find some elusive happiness, she
committed to photographing one thing that made her smile and blogged about it
every day for a year. And she did it.
The blog
came to close in December and Uganda is her next project: "I moved to a
new job with a better work/life balance, but discovered after The Perspective Project I didn't have
anything in my life to balance it out with. Instead of just watching reruns of
The Voice every night, I thought I should get a new project," she said.
The Uganda
trip is an opportunity to use her personal journey to impact the lives of women
in Africa, and stems from her childhood aspirations to be Prime Minister and
save the world. "While I’m a selfish person who rarely does anything that
doesn't have a personal benefit for me – the same as many of us – I hope what I’m
doing to make my own life happier, will also help improve someone else's life
too."
