A First Hand Look at World Neighbors from Lone Tree, Colorado

Bill Brackett served as World Neighbors executive director from August 1987 to 1996. He and his wife are now retired in Lone Tree, Colorado. Bill has traveled the world with World Neighbors and he shares the following experiences in his own words.

“For more than 50 years men and women across our planet have witnessed the World Neighbors connection and commitment to change, which are corner stones to a better world.” ~Bill Brackett

When I came to World Neighbors, my wife, Ann and I committed that we would visit a program together each year with Ann paying her own way. It was the best decision we had made in a long time. Now that we are 78 years old, these are fond memories and a common commitment to continue working for change in our world.

Our first trip together was to Peru in 1988 where we visited with farmers and their families high in the Andes. After landing in a five-seat single propeller plane in the upper reaches of the Amazon, local tribesmen with large bows and arrows escorted us to their village where they were learning Spanish in order to buy land (only Spanish-speaking people could buy land in Peru at that time). The next morning we took a bath in the muddy river just at the edge of the village. Only afterwards we realized that there were people behind the trees along the bank watching our every move. Lesson learned!

Later that year we visited Nepal where we exchanged knowledge with the representatives of the World Neighbors global staff and making plans for the future. Ann and I then went to India where we met men and women who had developed small gardens that enabled them to live healthy lives and create small income producing animal projects.

In succeeding years we visited the Philippines in Southeast Asia as well as Kenya in East Africa, plus Mali and Burkina Faso in the West.

My involvement with World Neighbors has made me a better person. I have become a better listener, no longer need to take credit for group change, and look at the earth as one community with many complex parts. I don't picture myself as helping anyone but simply walking alongside others who are about changing their world. I learned to be a better facilitator and have since worked with other nonprofits to change their own worlds.