Founders

GONZAGUE PIERRE LOUIS

What is the most important help that can be offered to a person who has disability?
Ask Gonzague Pierre-Louis, who is probably the most well known person with a disability in Rodrigues.
He will reply without hesitation : to be able to work and earn a salary that will enable me to provide for my family. My job allows me to live a more or less normal life and permits me to contribute my share to the family budget so that we can have most of what we need.
My job also gets me out of the house, meet other people and have social contact. But most important aspect is that it allowsme to get some money.
"To have learned to read Braille, play the guitar and sing, walk with a white stick, all this is very important too, but most important is to work and earn a wage". Before I started to work, I did many things but I was always stuck in the house and was totally dependent on gifts and social security pay-outs to buy the basics of life for me and my family.
Now that I am working and earning a wage it has made a big difference to me and to peace of mind.
To get a pension from the Government is a great help, and to some handicaped people it is extremely important if they real ly can't get a job. But for me the most important is the money I get from my job at the Care-Co handicraft workshop.

Question : Wouldn't you have preferred to open your own workshop and start your own business rather than "
In fact that does not worry me very much", he replies.
To work for oneself and to start ones own business isn't always as easy as all that. There are aspects to running a small business that I might not be able to tackle without help. That is why being part of a group has definite advantages.
At Care-Co workshop each person is assessed on his ability to do a certain operation and then he does it.
The operation that I do is quite simple - did not take long to learn and I am one link in a chain of operations making handicrafted goods. Other with different handicaps find their place at different stages and some can do things that I would find difficult to do. All together we can produce quality goods that can be sold all over the world.
What is the most important to me is that the workshop is well organized, work is disciplined and fair to all. That wouldn't mean than I wouldn't like to earn more that I get ! However I have no great complaints about the work at Care-Co .

Sports and social activities are also important and helpful to people who have disabilities, especially those who cannot work.
My wife helps as a volunteer in a small group which takes in children with mental handicaps which is run by the Rodrigues Assiciation For The Disabled and I don't see anything wrong in that, on the contrary I encourage her to continue. However for me it is still most important to aim to create paid employment for handicapped people.
Singing and recording cassettes on my music is another great pleasure for me. But there are risks in that, it is in the hand of the people who commercialise the cassettes. However the pleasure that I get to hear my music on the radio and playing on people's cassette players makes to financial risks worthwhile.
I certainly haven't yet become a millionaire from my music, but who knows one day ! So far this has enable me to go to England, Wales and Australia with the "Groupement des Artistes" and the National Council for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled".

Always cheerful and ambitious Gonzague Pierre-Louis has many projects lined for the future, but his basic activity is his job at the Care-Co.

PAUL DRAPER

Paul Draper, MBE, is an Englishman who met many Mauritians in London when he was studying there. He went to Mauritius in 1994 and obtained Mauritian citizenship. He started a small project for unemployed youth in the town of Rose Belle. In 1982, he and 3 colleagues started Care-Co in Rose Hill, the land being leased from the Anglican diocese of Mauritius, with the help of the then Bishop of Mauritius, the Rt. Rev. Trevor Huddleston CR. In 1987, Paul visited Rodrigues and decided to settle and open a branch of Care-Co there. The Rodrigues branch of Care-Co grew and a purpose-built Centre was constructed on land leased from the government. The Gonzague Pierre Louis Special Learning Centre, named after a very independent blind Rodriguan, was built in the same complex and opened in 1994 with Mrs. Susan Auguste as Head Teacher. In 1993, Paul Draper was awarded an MBE (Member of the British Empire) In 2001, he became the first British Honorary Consul in Rodrigues from 2001 until 2003. In 2003, he retired as Honorary Consul and Manager of Care-Co but still lives on the island and helps as Advisor, Consultant and Fund-Raiser. N.B. Craft-Aid is now called Care-Co (Rodrigues) Ltd

SUSAN AUGUSTE

Mrs. Susan Auguste was born in Scotland where she trained as a primary school teacher. After her studies, she joined the Volunteer Missionary Movement (VMM) and was sent to Rodrigues in January 1974 to teach English and Geography in Rodrigues College. She and her husband moved back to Scotland but returned with their children to settle in Rodrigues in 1983. Susan taught English Language for another 10 years in Rodrigues College until she heard about the project to open a small private school for children with hearing impairments. Her mother put her in touch with Dr. Morag Clark MBE. (Coincidentally also Scottish).
Susan has been in charge of the GPL Centre, which celebrates 25 years of existence in 2019, and seen it grow from 3 pupils in 1994 to almost 60 in 2020. In fact, over the past 25 years, more than 250 children have attended the GPL Centre.
Susan was British Honorary Consul to Rodrigues from 2003 until 2018.
In 2018 she was awarded the BEM British Empire Medal .

Dr. MORAG CLARK

Dr. Morag Clark, MBE, who died in 2019, was an International Consultant in Oral Education of the Deaf, a method which encourages the deaf child to make use of his residual hearing with the help of appropriate hearing aids and learn to talk naturally. Dr Clark, who travelled to many countries to advise on Oral Deaf Education, came for the first of her annual visits to Rodrigues in 1993 and came annually until 2002, and even several times after that. She was of enormous assistance to us in the development of spoken language among the deaf children of Rodrigues. She helped to identify and assess the first group of pupils, all of whom were profoundly deaf and aided for the first time at 8 years of age. These first pupils are now adults and in full-time employment in the adjoining CareCo workshop making jewellery and other articles from coconut shell. They also bottle local honey which has won several awards at the International Honey Show in London. These young deaf adults are all able to talk, so are able to fully integrate the general population and become contributing members of their family and community.

ARCHBISHOP TREVOR HUDDLESTON

He was a famous British Anglican who was a Priest in Soweto in South Africa during the Apartheid era. He wrote a book called « Naught for your Comfort », which became a best seller and which described the situation in South Africa and the injustices of Apartheid. He was one of the most outspoken critics of Apartheid. He was expelled from South Africa by the Apartheid Government, and only returned there briefly after Apartheid was abolished.
He spent most of his life campaigning for an end to Apartheid.
He was Bishop of Masasi in Tanzania. He was Bishop of Stepney and then became Bishop of Mauritius and Archbishop of the Indian Ocean.
He helped to found the Craft-Aid organisation in Mauritius.
He died in 1998.

BERNARD LESPINE

Bernard was an Air France Captain and a test Pilot for Airbus Industrie. He was on board the first flight of the first fly-by wire Airliner – the Airbus A320. He was the President of Enfance&Partage in Toulouse. He was dedicated to offer all help possible to children in Mauritius and Rodrigues. The 1st floor classrooms of the Special Learning Centre in Rodrigues are called the « Centre Bernard Lespine » in his honour. He died on Jan 1st 2000.