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www.oakvillebeaver.com The Oakville Beaver Weekend, Saturday January 27, 2007 - 3 "I think any time you do life-altering trips like that, they're obviously going to resonate in your work, if you're an honest artist and writer." Tom Cochrane, musician and spokesperson for World Vision Canada Life is his highway Oakville's Tom Cochrane has been forever changed by his humanitarian trips to Africa By Krissie Rutherford OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF T PHOTO COURTESY TOM COCHRANE om Cochrane has looked into the eyes of a young girl as she watched her mother die of starvation in war-torn Mozambique. He has seen remnants of genocide in Rwanda, the effects of the AIDS epidemic in various parts of Africa, and visited with young orphans who have to raise their younger brothers and sisters. The way the singer-songwriter sees it, it's impossible for those experiences not to affect his music. "I think any time you do life-altering trips like that, they're obviously going to resonate in your work, if you're an honest artist and writer," said the 53-year-old musician, who has called Oakville home since 1985. "Those trips definitely have done that with me." A long-time spokesperson for World Vision Canada, a Christian relief, development and advocacy organization, Cochrane recently returned from his sixth humanitarian trip to Africa. This time, he spent five days in Rwanda. "That was, boy, initially a tough one," Cochrane said in a phone interview. "It was a heavy one." Early in the trip, he visited a memorial church that contained remnants of the 1994 Rwanda genocide that saw more than 10,000 people massacred. "We visited Nyamata, and a church where thousands of people, mainly women and children, were slaughtered," said Cochrane. "We saw the bones of literally thousands and thousands of people. A lot of them were just wee little skulls with big gashes in them, which were obviously machete gashes. It was just a horribly heavy trip from that point of view." Visiting with kids in child-headed households also had quite an impact on Cochrane. "Little 15-year-old girls bringing up her sisters on her own. We saw a number of situations like that," he said. "She's basically a mother for her sisters at 15. It was powerful, but it was good seeing them being taken care of." All three of the girls in that particular child-headed household, Cochrane says, are now sponsored. That was one of many bright spots from his trip to Rwanda. The World Vision gift catalogue in action was another of those bright spots. It sees sponsors buy things like a chicken or goat for a family, or medical supplies for a village. "We saw a lot of people, women in particular, with HIV and AIDS, some of them, who were getting medication, were getting antiretroviral drugs, thank God," said Cochrane, who spent some of his time in Rwanda delivering goods facilitated by the gift catalogue program. "The logistics in getting those drugs, you can imagine, are tough when a woman has to walk, you know, six miles over mountainous terrain to get drugs when she's feeling sick. "But with that said they are getting the drugs, so you did see a lot of good stories, which is always uplifting." Another highlight in Rwanda was performing at a reconciliation meeting. It's a program that encourages kids from all backgrounds to sing, dance and tell stories about recovery and understanding. "We were just dancing up a storm with them. I'd pull out my guitar and I'd sing a bit of a song or two and the kids would laugh and stomp. It was great," said Cochrane. "I've found that probably the most attentive audiences have been in Africa. It's always a thrill." And he's looking forward to more of those thrills as he gets set to go on tour with his recently-released, self-produced album, No Stranger. It was three years in the making and came out seven and a half years See Cochrane page 4 · Wood & Vinyl Shutters, Supplied & Installed · High Quality at Affordable Prices · Customer Satisfaction Guaranteed · Serving Oakville with Shop at Home Service Authorized Vinylbilt Dealer www.shuttersetc.ca Shop at Home Service FREE