Daughter of L-128 member returns to Haiti

Kirsty Henderson is devoting her life to helping victims of natural disasters

Kirsty Henderson digs a hole in Bangladesh, where she and other volunteers are building five playgrounds for schools in the area of Rayenda.
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KIRSTY HENDERSON, daughter of Local 128 (Toronto, Ontario) member William “Willy” Henderson, has returned to Haiti for a second time following that country’s devastating January 12 earthquake.

Working with Hands On Disaster Response, a U.S.-based non-profit organization that provides help to survivors of natural disasters around the world, Henderson is no newcomer to hard work. According to her father, she has spent the last 10 years traveling the world and working part time as a volunteer in disaster zones. To help fund her efforts, she released an e-book in March titled, “The Underground Guide to International Volunteering.” Half of the proceeds ($7) from each book’s sale will be donated to Hands On Disaster Response. (For more information visit www.nerdynomad.com.)

Kirsty Henderson transports wood through a jungle in Sumatra, Indonesia. She and other Hands On Disaster Response volunteers are building transitional shelters for people who lost their homes following a Sept. 2009 earthquake.
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In Henderson’s blog, she writes about her efforts in Haiti: “It seems impossible that one person could make any difference in this mess, but when you get a bunch of hard-working people together, it’s amazing what can be accomplished. My first two full days of work were on a home that had collapsed into a pile of rubble and tangled rebar, and I was pretty overwhelmed at first. But having done several Hands On projects, I should have known that it would be cleared impossibly quickly. As usual, I was surrounded by some of the hardest workers I’ve ever met and the high-intensity day in the hot sun was draining and painful but rewarding, and it served as an immediate reminder as to why I keep coming back to these things.”

Henderson’s dad began his boilermaker career in 1967 in Glasgow, Scotland. After moving to Canada, he joined Local 680 (St. Catharines, Ontario) in 1980, and is currently a member of Local 128.