Jane Goodall, Messenger of Hope!

The 2012 SmartTalk series has begun! Jane Goodall started us off this year with a presentation at the DuPont Theatre in Wilmington, Delaware on Tuesday night. Sylvia Barreiro – Thomas came with me to meet Jane backstage where we learned about a sweet children’s book about Jane called ” Me…Jane.”

What I found in Jane was a woman who at the heart of a lifetime of research and study of animal behavior had a heart for the living – the earth, the environment, the people, the animals and our indomitable spirit.  Indomitable is a word derived from indomitus a latin word meaning untameable – or impossible to subdue. In meeting Jane I was taken by her determined personality; she is driven by a hope that people can make a difference. She told us that she sees hope in the young people she meets all over the world. They want to protect the earth. the resources, the animals – the people.

Beautiful Jane Goodall told how as a child she had a dream that one day she would go to Africa and write stories about the animals that lived there. This is exactly what she did – but how did a young woman without a college education and very little money become such a world reknown messenger of hope and peace? ( Jane is a UN messenger of peace – but it is really about the hope if you ask me.)

Jane said that it was her mother who believed in her and nurtured her to take a first trip to Africa. With a dream in her heart she went and with the opportunity to work under Louis Leakey as his secretary – Jane began her work researching chimpanzees in Tanzania.  There Jane named the chimps she encountered and knew their ways and behaviors through observations. Jane documented a revolutionary finding when she observed a chimpanzee utilizing grass to retrieve termites from a mound. This important observation made Louis Leakey question how we define mankind, he wrote, “We must now redefine man, redefine tool, or accept chimpanzees as human!”The discovery led to the funding Jane would need to continue her research and as Leakey insisted, she would achieve a doctorate from Cambridge University.

Jane transformed from young woman with a dream to woman with a mission. Within her study Jane became aware of how little we really know about animals and also how little we understand about our own behaviors. Jane became an activist when she saw how the behaviors of people throughout the world ultimately affected the eco systems, and lives of people and animals living in Africa. The greed and carelessness of the world results in poverty and violence, not to mention the demise of natural habitats.

Jane established the Jane Goodall Institute  in 1977 and in 1991 a wonderful program called “Roots and Shoots” began as an effort to bring awareness to the world through young people that come up with environmental projects. Roots and Shoots is catching on and there are over 10,000 groups. Roots and Shoots participates in the UN Day of Peace by creating larger than life size doves made from sheets that are paraded down the streets of the festival.

Jane is almost 80 – and she travels 300 days out of the year to speak about hope. She teaches people all over the world about her love for animals; it is the driving force that prepared her to teach and love people; she sees that we have an indomitable spirit to survive. The indomitable spirit – it is the spirit that says we are more than a number or a name – we are passionate and can not be subdued.