About Karen and the Board
A Little about Karen Leonard and why she founded Lifestart Foundation
Karen Leonard has resided in Essendon, Australia all of her life. For the past thirty years she has successfully run a small business, The Karen Leonard Music School.
Several years ago while backpacking through Vietnam, Karen met a young street kid and they had an instant connection. He introduced Karen to his world , his fellow street kid friends and their families. It wasn’t long before Karen was supporting several street kids by encouraging them back to school and paying their education costs.
After returning home from this first trip deeply affected by the plight of these people, Karen made a commitment that she would return to Vietnam and support him and a few others.
At Karen’s annual friends and family Christmas Eve Party later that year, she suggested to everyone that instead of buying the usual obligatory Christmas present that everyone put into a hat the amount of money they would normally spend on a present and on her return trip to Vietnam, she would help a poor family improve their life with this money. The idea was wholeheartedly embraced and so it began.
As word got around friends and family donated more money to help children and families in Vietnam. Initially Karen’s help and assistance in Vietnam was rather “ad hoc”.
Whilst Karen had no problem receiving donations from people that trusted her and that she knew, it became uncomfortable when friends of friends that Karen didn’t know began to give her money to take to Vietnam. It was then that Karen decided that what she was doing needed to be set up formally in order to be accountable to all of these people. Lifestart Foundation was registered in Australian under NGO registration Number A0045550E and in Vietnam under PACCOM AT416.
Prior to her first trip to Vietnam Karen had never harboured any ideas at all that would have suggested that this is what she would be doing with the rest of her life. Indeed, she had probably envisaged being semi-retired by now, taking it easy and enjoying the fruits of her labour in relative comfort!
Karen now has no plans for any type of retirement and, in fact, has never worked harder than she is doing at this present time. She views her thirty years of teaching music to the privileged and running a small business as an extremely long apprenticeship for the work she is now devoting the rest of her life to.
Lifestart Foundation Board
Sue Long – Vice President
Sue Long became involved with Lifestart Foundation while she was working in the civil service in the UK on the team responsible for secure government networks. In her role as In Country Manager for Lifestart Foundation in Hoi An she was integral to the development towards the goal of becoming self-sufficient and self-sustaining as a charity. She has relished the challenge of managing varied projects, staff, volunteers while looking for opportunities for improvements in processes in procedures. She continues to support Lifestart Foundation from strategic and organisational perspectives. There is more information on Sue’s volunteering role in Hoi An in Karens blog.
Ken Hopkins – Treasurer
Ken was conscripted into the Australian army in 1969 and spent one year in Vietnam during the war. His interest in Vietnam developed in the 1990′s through tourist visits back to Vietnam. In 2005 he saw a television documentary on Lifestart Foundation and made contact with Karen. After a visit to Hoi An to see first hand the Lifestart Foundation projects Ken committed to assisting Lifestart Foundation. Ken is a chartered accountant who is now easing out of work and is spending more time supporting Lifestart Foundation projects and it’s financial and administrative matters.
Greg Holman – Secretary
Greg retired as a school principal at the end of 2007 and met Karen through a friend shortly afterwards. After meeting Karen and discussing the work Lifestart Foundation was doing he was keen to become involved with their work. Greg’s first trip to Hoi An to volunteer was in March/ April 2008 and he has been fortunate enough to be able to return at the same time since then.
Working with Karen, the other volunteers and the people Lifestart Foundation are supporting in Vietnam has provided him with remarkable lifelong memories. Greg has found you get so much more out of volunteering than you put in. He also supports Karen and Lifestart Foundation back in Melbourne in any way he can. Lifestart Foundation has definitely provided Greg with great opportunities and helped fulfil his desire to volunteer both in Australia and overseas.
Sherry Berger – Creative Director
Sherry Berger graduated from Moore College of Art & Design in 1996 with a B.A. in Communications Arts. She started her career as a graphic designer and branding supervisor for KYW-TV3, CBS Television. After 7 years, Sherry left the business and began traveling. Since then, Sherry has explored over 40 different countries, immersed in their cultures and customs, many of which lack the freedom of artistic creation and expression. Recognizing the many opportunities she was afforded in life, like an art education, would become the driving force behind her motivation. Sherry started volunteering in 2004 with Cross Cultural Solutions in Costa Rica as an Art & English teacher for underprivileged children. The majority of her philanthropic work has been with Lifestart Foundation in Vietnam.
As creative director and founder of the Lifestart Foundation Workshop, Sherry helps those living in disadvantaged situations earn a sustainable income through the creation of fine arts/crafts. Recently Sherry has accepted position as Director of Culture Xplorers Foundation to initiate projects and fundraisers that empower local communities to sustain their living traditions through education, economic incentives, and cross-cultural partnerships.
Sherry currently lives in Philadelphia where she continues her career as freelance designer and branding consultant for small businesses.
Vinh Dao
Vinh left Vietnam and came to Australia as a refugee in 1979. He has been involved in a number of community activities and is a founding member of VNTV; the only community Vietnamese Television programme in Australia. He was introduced to Lifestart Foundation by a close friend in her final days of her fight against a terminal illness. Vinh has helped to promote Lifestart Foundation amongst the Vietnamese community in Melbourne and provide advices on cultural issues. Outside these community activities Vinh is a IT Programme Manager with a major bank in Australia.
Peter Hansen
Peter Hansen is Lecturer in the History of the Church in Asia at the Catholic Theological College, Melbourne, Australia. He holds degrees in arts, law and theology, including a PhD from the Melbourne College of Divinity and an MA from Monash University, Melbourne. His Masters thesis, completed in 2000, centred on the 1988 canonization of the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs. In 2003, he was visiting research fellow at the Institute for Religious Research at the National Centre for Social Science and the Humanities, Hanoi. He has recently completed a doctoral thesis on the migration of Northern Catholics to the South in 1954-55.
From 1990 until 1993, he worked in the refugee detention centres in Hong Kong and the Philippines for the Jesuit Refugee Service, providing legal advice and pastoral care for Vietnamese Asylum Seekers. It was at this time he began Vietnamese language studies.
From 2004 to 2011 Peter was Parish Priest of Our Lady’s Parish, Craigieburn. He was previously inaugural Director of the Mary of the Cross Centre, the Church of Melbourne’s principal facility for the assistance of families afflicted by substance abuse.
Richard Brown
Richard originally became involved in Lifestart Foundation through his professional association with Karen Leonard. After an invitation to the annual dinner dance he became more interested in the work of the foundation, which lead to a family trip to Hoi An and a visit to the school a day out with the children and an involvement in the educational scholarship interview process. As a passionate person as regards education and development Richard extended his involvement to the board of Lifestart Foundation.
Richard Brown is a senior financial adviser and has extensive experience in accounting, tax and financial planning. He is one of the founding directors of Abound Financial & Lifestyle Planning and current sole director. He has been involved in accounting and financial planning from 1993 onwards.