Tragedy, Shame & Community Healing with George Boutros and Judy Saba

Judy Saba: Judy Saba is a cross-cultural psychologist with an extensive career working with the New South Wales Police and currently operates within a charity focused on domestic violence. Her career was kick-started over 30 years ago as one of the co-founders of the Maronite Counseling Services, where she played a pivotal role in community mental health support and understanding cultural nuances in psychological practice.

George Boutros: George Boutros is a dedicated humanitarian and the co-founder of the Sydney to Lebanon Humanitarian Aid Appeal. His journey started with Friends with Hope in response to personal and community tragedies, leading to a career focused on addressing emergency needs in Lebanon by providing food, medicine, and essentials, driven by compassion and community responsibility.

Summary

George Boutros has turned two of the most painful experiences of his life into movements that have genuinely changed communities. Joining Debbie and cross-cultural psychologist Judy Saba, George opens up about losing his cousin to suicide, the nine months that shook his tight-knit Lebanese community to its core, and how that grief quietly built something none of them could have predicted. What started as a group of cousins and friends scrambling to make sense of unimaginable loss became Friends with Hope, a support network that broke taboos, filled church halls, and changed the way an entire community talks about mental health and suicide prevention.

Then life moved on. Until the Beirut explosion stopped George in his tracks. A half-question to a colleague at Qantas turned into 27 tonnes of humanitarian aid and an organisation that now supports 23 charitable entities across Lebanon. This is an honest, moving conversation about grief, purpose, dignity, and what it really looks like when a community decides to stop looking in and start looking out.

Key Takeaways:

• Turning personal tragedy into community hope can lead to impactful and sustainable support systems.
• Community-driven initiatives can shift cultural narratives around taboo topics such as mental health and suicide.
• The importance of providing dignified aid and support to preserve the self-respect of those in need.
• Leveraging personal and professional networks can greatly enhance the reach and impact of humanitarian efforts.
• Engaging with and utilising diverse skills within a community can build a robust support network for charitable causes.

Notable Quotes:

1. "We need to try and turn a negative into a positive. And we did." - George Boutros
2. "It wasn't because of what we did; it was because of what the community responded to." - Judy Saba
3. "You bring along people on the journey, people will come and go or they'll stay." - George Boutros
4. "It encapsulated hope for those that went before us." - Judy Saba
5. "We need all hands on deck. It's a call to arms." - George Boutros

You and your mental health is important to us. If this episode brought up any heavy emotions, please know you do not need to carry them alone. Reach out to Lifeline, Beyond Blue, or the counselling service at Hills Sanctuary house at hshl.org.au 

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Transcript

0:00:00 - (Debbie Draybi): Welcome back everyone to another episode of Finding Sanctuary. I'm really excited today I've got a former guest who's now we've made co host Judy Saber. Judy's a cross cultural psychologist. She's had an extensive career working with New South Wales Police, but currently is working with a charity around domestic violence. But our journey started a long time ago, over 30 years ago. Judy was actually one of the co founders for the Maronite Counselling Services.

0:00:28 - (Debbie Draybi): So I was a young psychology intern when I first met Judy and she's been instrumental in my development and my career and in everything in life. So it's just so beautiful to have you sitting next to me. Judy, I'm so excited that you can co host with me today.

0:00:42 - (Judy Saba): Thank you so much. It's such a joy to be here and to see the incredible work that you're doing with the podcast, you and the team. It's just absolutely inspiring and it's such a joy to be here.

0:00:53 - (Debbie Draybi): Well, Judy, you've been a big part of the inspiration to this and you started a lot of this. You know, your leadership, your guidance and your vision for Maronite Services has always inspired me. We've got a special guest today, haven't we?

0:01:06 - (Judy Saba): We sure have.

0:01:07 - (Debbie Draybi): We've got George Boutros who also I met many years ago with Judy in those early days of Maronite Counselling Services. George is the co founder of Sydney to Lebanon Humanitarian Aid Appeal. That's his recent project that he's been on. That's that's evolved and we're going to talk a bit about that. But when I first met George, it was with Robert's charity foundation, Friends with Hope and we're going to talk a bit about.

0:01:32 - (Debbie Draybi): But it's so exciting having you here joining us, George.

0:01:35 - (George Boutros): Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

0:01:36 - (Debbie Draybi): We've all gone full circle and reconnected again.

0:01:38 - (George Boutros): It's been about 27 years since I've been back to crew, so it's been a while.

0:01:42 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah.

0:01:43 - (George Boutros): Good to be here.

0:01:44 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah. No, it's so lovely having you here, George. And you know, it's beautiful. Like when we first met with Friends with Hope, I remember that being a really big part of the theme of our connection of it was in the context of a horrible tragedy in your family and community. And I remember one of the first things when we met in those early days, talking to you about how you process those, the traumas that we have in life and turn something negative into something positive and really build that hope for family and for community.

0:02:15 - (Debbie Draybi): To know that we can learn from those experiences and really grow from them. And that's what hoping we can have a conversation with you today about your relationship with Hope and how it all started and how you now come to do the work that you're doing in the humanitarian space as well.

0:02:32 - (George Boutros): Yeah, I recall seeing Judy when the tragedy happened. She had this big smile on her face, and she came with Father Shora at the time when the tragedy occurred. And I just looked at her and I said, yeah, I think she's going to be part of our process in here. It was a tragedy, and it affected a lot of our friends, our cousins, the community. And it was a shock to us. We didn't really feel that we had ever experienced anything like that.

0:02:59 - (George Boutros): And Judy had this great big smile on her face, and, you know, you could just tell that she was going to put her arms around us. And that's how the journey began. And, you know, Father Shora was there, steadfast, strong, faithful. I just felt, you know, we're going to be okay, but we're going to go through some, you know, some sad times, some trauma. But, yeah, we decided one day, as a community and as cousins and as friends and as leaders to say we need to try and turn. Turn a negative into a positive.

0:03:30 - (George Boutros): And we did. It hurts, but, you know, it doesn't go away. But, you know, we've learned to accept and understand. But more importantly, how do we bring others along the journey and bring that hope?

0:03:43 - (Debbie Draybi): Do you want to tell us a little bit about the tragedy, what happened, and what led you to come and seek help?

0:03:49 - (George Boutros): Yeah, look, our cousin committed suicide. And, you know, we were just caught off guard, and there's a lot of tragedy there. We just didn't know how to deal with it at the time. We couldn't accept it. It was painful. There was a lot of sadness, a lot of anger, a lot of why, which naturally happens when these things happen. But more importantly, we were such a large community from our village and so forth, that we just didn't know how to deal with it at the time.

0:04:17 - (George Boutros): And everyone was trying to seek an understanding of what had happened. Judy stepped in and said, okay, guys, this is what we need to do. And we started processing it over time. We started talking about what can we do in the community? 

0:04:47 - (George Boutros): I don't know if the church was ready for it at the time, but we quickly mobilised and thought, so how do we do this now? How do we create the awareness? How do we allow people to understand that there is hope? And I think it was Judy that came up with the theme, friends with hope. We had some other words which we were angry and we were presenting to Judy, but Judy said, no, we need to. We need to explore the hope part of the sadness.

0:05:12 - (Debbie Draybi): And she did. Yeah.

0:05:14 - (Judy Saba): Gosh, George, you give me so much credit. And yet, you know, my side of the story is a little bit different. It was how you taught us as the practitioners. And I remember there was Ronnie Kroos, there was Deb, there was Natalie hadn't come on board yet, but was exploring coming on board. And I remember you walking into that room, into Monsignor's office that day, and the sadness, but the anger and the grief was palpable.

0:05:43 - (Judy Saba): I know that. I remember talking to Ronnie about this as well. And we both shared this, that what we noticed most was that we needed to be silent and we needed to listen. Because what wasn't making any was the fact that there was nothing that any of the textbooks or anything could have taught us about this. Because this was happening not just as tragic as it is, it was happening in a community that had had a history of never talking about this.

0:06:09 - (Judy Saba): And that really mattered. It really mattered, Deb. And I think you don't give us the credit. It was you and the boys.

0:06:17 - (George Boutros): I think there was a lot of people. I think it was a lot of people. All our cousins, all our friends. We were just in shock.

0:06:24 - (Judy Saba): Yeah.

0:06:24 - (George Boutros): But we used the church and Judy and Father Shore at the time, they were our vehicle. And how do we actually get onto this journey and try and do with unimaginable pain? And even till today, you know, it's 27 years past, you know, we still think about it every day. We've just processed it in a way where we accept it and we pray and we've reconfigured it in our capacity to understand what happened. But let's turn that around now and not look in.

0:06:58 - (George Boutros): Let's look out and say, who else is hurting in the community and what else can we do to help? And that's how we basically formed the counselling services and so forth. Yeah.

0:07:10 - (Judy Saba): And, George, I remember vividly that the impact on you and your small group of friends when there was a series of further incidents with other people and it was what. What was drawn from you and the guys. And I will say the guys, they were girls too, but the guys were the ones who were in with us. It was what we drew from that that we were able to reframe and use with the other families. And so in a lot of ways that led us to a whole different way of working in those spaces. And I think the impact of that became really important because as we started to support other families that were having cause, it was about a nine month period and we had six incidents that we worked with behind the scenes.

0:08:10 - (Judy Saba): I remember very clearly thinking every single time we went into those spaces, it was the things that you had all told us that we were able to use as the safe space to be able to say, we can't answer your questions as to why, but we want to listen.

0:08:27 - (George Boutros): And I think we relived it every time it happened within the nine months. It brought up and triggered our own raw emotions as we were processing them. And I remember Judy and Father and Ronnie at the time when he came on board, you know, we were scrambling to see, well, why and how. And we started re questioning ourselves and questioning the why. We also felt in hindsight later, many years ago, that you were actually counseling us along the journey.

0:08:55 - (George Boutros): You know, I couldn't see it at the time, but where they were drawing strength from us and trying to deal with the matter. You were actually counseling us along the way by just being able to talk about it, get it off your chest, share the thoughts, you know, and just calm the nerves and start accepting what has happened that we can't, you know, undo. And that's how we started healing. And then we started getting really involved in it. We formed a bit of a committee.

0:09:24 - (George Boutros): We thought, how do we do this and actually make an impact? And all of our cousins and friends, they all wanted to come on board. And so we decided to do something. And that's when the counseling services started being established with Father and St. Joseph's we started.

0:09:40 - (Judy Saba): Do you remember the blue lounges?

0:09:42 - (George Boutros): Yeah, remember the blue lounges?

0:09:43 - (Judy Saba): Do you remember when we first started, we had nothing to sit on, so we were standing and you know, as beautiful Deb as our community is, it was someone who had come in for counseling the next day, turned up with a blue Lounge wrapped in plastic. You know, it was like. That's the beauty of our community. And I think that's why this project was so semin. And I call it a project. It's not. It was a whole. It was a lived experience of so many people coming together that created something that we can't do differently.

0:10:13 - (Judy Saba): Like, it influenced the way I practice. I'm sure it's influenced the way you do. Because there's nothing, no textbook, no theory, no medical doctor, no medicine that takes the place of lived experience. And I think we as a community know that, but we've never been able to articulate it in that way. And we took a lot of flack from psych services and all of that, saying, why are you in there talking to whole groups of people? But we knew the community needed to talk.

0:11:06 - (George Boutros): Yeah, I remember. And then we all thought, you know, we're not doing enough. And then we thought, so what are we gonna do now? How are we gonna take it to the next level? How are we gonna into actual hope and give it the energy that it deserves? So we decided to do a massive fundraiser and be able to collect the donations and be able to support Father Shore at the time and provide a counseling service and start bringing people into the service.

0:11:35 - (George Boutros): So we had a great function at the La Montage, if you remember. And we sold over 800 tickets. Because that's where I met my future wife, at the L' Arm Tage. It was at the function there.

0:11:45 - (Judy Saba): See, I told you, you've got to have hope.

0:11:46 - (George Boutros): We'll get it. We'll get into that later. And so we brought about 800 people. We had a massive function. And it was Friends with Hope. And it was a lovely night. And we raised over $120,000 at the time. And we said, right, that's exactly what we want to do. We want to be able to support and bring the service to our wider community. And we did.

0:12:10 - (Judy Saba): And it's funny. Cause the money was so secondary. It was. I vividly remember Ronnie and myself doing a tour. And it was just. We decided it Was time to let people know the facts, that this is not something to be ashamed of, it's not something to hide away. And I think, to me, that was the really big thing that the community didn't know. And those who did know were the ones that contacted us.

0:12:40 - (Judy Saba): But there was also another avenue to that, too. And. And Deb, this was so important to our work as well. And I know Ronnie and Natalie, since everything that we had been taught in the Western tradition around people who take their lives, every single one of those indicators was there with all of the boys. And, you know, they all had. Most of them maybe had broken up with a girlfriend, and the families were happy.

0:13:05 - (Judy Saba): They thought, good, they can get a nice Lebanese girl. A lot of them stopped going out, you know, and we would see that as a risk factor, whereas the family saw it as a positive. He's now home, he's with the family. A lot of them were visiting, you know, and we didn't know this. The families were telling us this. And what we found was there was a pattern of all of these indicators, not that you can ever really predict, but things that in the Western world, they would see as red flags, and we were embracing them as positives.

0:13:33 - (Judy Saba): And so that also was something that we've taken back, and certainly in my work since then, we've taken that back and we've shared that across, not just with counsellors and therapists and medical practitioners, but with police to be able to say to them, these are the sorts of things that you need to notice and listen to. It's not just about the textbook versions.

0:13:55 - (George Boutros): I want to take you back to the function. I remember a poignant moment in the whole night when Judy came up to speak and there was absolute silence.

0:14:04 - (Judy Saba): That never happens at a lead function.

0:14:07 - (George Boutros): Even the waitresses and the waiters stop, you know, sometimes when someone's talking and you can hear the rattle of the plates, the whole room. And that's when I knew it was at that moment where the message was getting across to the broader community. Because it had been a couple of years after our tragedy and up to, you know, half a dozen tragedies along the way. And we had just started making in grounds into the community, like you said, talking at the churches. I just felt that when that moment when Judy came up and spoke, it was just amazing. There was absolute silence. And I yeah, we're on our way.

0:14:44 - (Judy Saba): And you've come so far from there in Terms of, you know, talk about turning difficult things into hope. Wow.

0:14:52 - (George Boutros): Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, we kind of went on life, we got married, we had kids, we did our thing. And then one day I started getting SMSes and phone calls from my phone and, oh, have you watching the news and what's going on and so forth. And there was a massive explosion and I had lost my dad a couple of years before and I always had this sense of what can I do next to help someone or to try and turn a negative into a positive. And I was just lost a little bit.

0:15:21 - (George Boutros): It just wasn't enough. I wasn't fulfilled. There was no real purpose outside of life and marriage and kids and everything. I wanted to do a bit more. And then as soon as I saw the Beirut explosion and the impacted people and the tragedies, then I thought, wow, we need to mobilize, we need to do something. And, you know, yeah, we formed the charity foundation. I happened to ask a friend of mine at Qantas, do you think I can send a container full of food and medicines?

0:15:50 - (George Boutros): It was half a question. I wasn't fully heart into it. Then the next day he called me and said, the container's ready for you, when do you want to send it? And I just felt this overwhelming sense of, I know exactly what I need to do now. So I went home, started SMSing all our cousins and friends and within two, three weeks we had 27 tons worth of humanitarian aid, food, medicines, goods, and we didn't even know what and where we were sending. We just knew we had to do something.

0:16:21 - (George Boutros): So then we partnered with the Lebanese Maronite order. Then we partnered and sent the container to them and then we said to them, distributor wherever you need to distribute. And we did. Then they wanted a second container. So then we thought, this is getting really serious now. So we sent a second container and then we took a break. And then we thought, I really want to do this full time, all the time.

0:16:44 - (George Boutros): And so we did. We registered with the Australian Not For Profit Commission. We were ATO endorsed, we formed the committee, we submitted all our paperwork, they gave us the approval, we got on social media and the rest is history. And so we're up to 23 entities all over Lebanon. Orphanages, monasteries, churches, special needs kids, elderly, charity kitchens. And so we collect our funds and donations here in Australia.

0:17:13 - (George Boutros): We've partnered with warehouses and companies in Lebanon. And so we buy the food and it gets delivered straight to the orphanages and straight to the front door. We miss the middleman. Every dollar you donate you give us, we actually use it. We got no overheads. It's all volunteer work. And now I'm getting pumped up again. I need to go hard and look, that's been our theme. And it's not only us. You bring along people along the journey, along the journey, people will come and go or they'll stay.

0:17:47 - (George Boutros): And so we have a very trustworthy team of people that help us. And you go to mental health and you look at Lebanon, you know, no services, no support or minimal support. Kids being collected off the streets, bringing into the orphanages. You look at the elderly who can't leave their homes, who are suffering from mental illness, and they got no one to be able to talk to. You know, you look at the special needs kids, where they're being dropped off and their families don't come and visit, we see all of that.

0:18:19 - (George Boutros): And so although we don't go into the mental health aspect there, what we can do is provide a little bit of dignity with some food, some goods during Christmas for the girls, the teenagers. We did hygiene kits in some of the orphanages. Just the basic fundamentals that we take for granted. In Australia, they don't believe because we haven't been to Lebanon yet to say thank you face to face and to hug them.

0:18:46 - (George Boutros): So, yeah, we need to go to Lebanon very, very soon. But it's a movement now. We get people donating, not wanting to be recognized. We have silent partners. There's always money coming in.

0:19:01 - (Debbie Draybi): Oh, that's incredible, George. Yeah, just listening to you, you know, you've incredible. In your lifetime, you've turned two horrific tragedies into positive experiences where you brought communities together, communities in pain, communities suffering, communities in need, and just come together and supported them and really built that hope. I think that's remarkable for someone to do.

0:19:27 - (George Boutros): I think they're choices too. You gotta sometimes choose what you want, what's gonna get you out of bed, what's gonna give you purpose. And, you know, we're faith driven. We wake up, we do the sign of the cross and God, we were in your hands. And the biggest tragedy for me was being able to do something and you didn't do it. We can do it, and it's growing. But now we need more people because we're victims of our own success now.

0:19:56 - (George Boutros): So the demand's coming in too great for our capabilities. And this is one of the reasons why we wanted to talk about how do we convert a negative into a positive. We need all hands on deck. It's a call to arms. There's so many places in Lebanon that are reaching out to us, that have absolutely no support, no financials, and they do live day by day. And so we're pinpointing exactly where they are. Even in the south, the north, in Beirut, all over Lebanon.

0:20:29 - (George Boutros): Yeah, yeah. So.

0:20:31 - (Debbie Draybi): So, George, if someone wanted to get involved, how would they do? Like, what is it?

0:20:34 - (George Boutros): You can go on our socials, we've got. We've got Instagram, we've got Facebook. You can contact us. And we're looking for people to help us along. And it's really an opportunity to. We're not after the donations. It's not only about the money. You gotta come along the journey, you gotta feel that you're actually making a difference. And when people go to Lebanon, I say to them, go to this place because they're waiting for you, because you.

0:20:59 - (George Boutros): Your money that you donated for it went there. And then they go there and they have this whole experience of feeling what you've actually accomplished, which is giving them the ability to live and just be happy for that moment. There's so much to do and there's so many levels of support that we can offer, but at the moment, it's only about humanitarian aid and goods and medicines. And at the moment we're getting a flurry of cancer patients that can't seek medicines. And if they do seek medicines, it's fake. And so they think they're being treated and they're not being treated.

0:21:38 - (George Boutros): This is a tragedy in itself in Lebanon. And so how do we help? How do we mobilise? Whom can we seek advice from? Where are the pharmacies? So when the cash and the donations come in, we sometimes have an opportunity to be able to provide some of those medicines and so forth.

0:21:54 - (Judy Saba): Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, it goes back to that word you used, George, about maintaining people's dignity in the process. And I think when. When you talk about how you provide these physical things, it's all about uplifting their dignity and about really saying, we see you and we may be far away, but we see you and we hear you.

0:22:15 - (George Boutros): Absolutely, yeah.

0:22:15 - (Judy Saba): And I think I can't wait for you to go there, because having been there a couple of years ago, you do see the fruits of all of the aid that's coming in. But I'm just so excited that you were able to leverage your own workplace to be able to engage that. And how good is it when we start to use our privilege and our power to create hope? There are a lot of people that probably work for huge organizations that would Never think to leverage the partnership of their own organizations. I'm always going to fly Qantas now.

0:22:47 - (George Boutros): You know that. Absolutely.

0:22:48 - (Judy Saba): You better. I do. But, you know, jokes aside, that is such a big thing, to be able to know such a community.

0:22:56 - (George Boutros): Absolutely. And the theme that always stuck with me is, you can't do it on your own. Every transaction, everything we did once they found out it was a charity. Oh, okay. Oh, you can have that for free. Or now we're donating that service. Even the container was given to us for free. And so you look at that and you go, wow, we can actually do this. And it actually humbled us. It actually brought us down to earth and go, we are actually pretty blessed here.

0:23:25 - (George Boutros): As much as tragedies we've had in our past, we need to deal with it, we need to move on. And you need to just keep going. And we are. Until someone says stop.

0:23:34 - (Debbie Draybi): I love, I love. When you first started, you asked half a question, you said to your colleague about a container, and it's incredible that you had that bravery and that curiosity. And it just opened this incredible door.

0:23:46 - (George Boutros): But then our cousins motivated us even more because then they got excited, then they wanted to be a part of it. Then the word spread, then the SMS kept coming. Then we started getting delivery. People were going to Coles and Woolworths and just buying, you know, everything and then dropping them off at our houses. So then we had to use four houses because we had so much goods and services. And then the container, we took them all down. And you should see the photos.

0:24:11 - (Debbie Draybi): What a beautiful story.

0:24:12 - (George Boutros): And father. And Father Peter Boutros, who's part of our charity as well. So he's in Lebanon. He looks after us and makes sure that everything is proper and legitimate and seeking exactly where the pain is. And that's what we're trying to focus on. The source of the power, the pain. And so how do we do that together? So he's an inspiration for us. And I hope he blesses us along the way as well.

0:24:37 - (Judy Saba): I think that's definitely a goer.

0:24:41 - (George Boutros): But when you look at the mental health in Lebanon, like, let's open that topic up as an example. Where is the service? Where is the support?

0:24:49 - (Judy Saba): Yeah. And George, it's interesting you say that. Cause even when I was over there a couple of years ago, we were doing a documentary and I met a doctor there and we just started chatting. I was behind a camera. And he then said, what do you do? And I said, oh, I do this, but I'm also a psychologist and he said, oh, our psychologists can't do any more. They're broken. So there was so much that they were doing that they wanted support for the psychologists, and that's what we were able to garner. And support from here was just that occasional phone call just to be on the other end of the line if they wanted to debrief. And that's a whole other area that even those providing that support.

0:25:29 - (Judy Saba): So they're living the tragedies and they're trying to help others through the tragedies. So it's from both ends of the spectrum. So you're spot on there, George, to open that up and to say, we're thinking now, we will always be trying to support with food and provisions and things, to uphold dignity, but what's the next layer of that and who can come on board to lead and do that?

0:25:53 - (George Boutros): That's a hard one. That's a hard one. That's beyond me.

0:25:55 - (Judy Saba): And it may not be your.

0:25:57 - (George Boutros): It's beyond me. I wouldn't know how to. Or where to start.

0:26:00 - (Judy Saba): But, you know, there's someone listening tonight.

0:26:03 - (George Boutros): I hope so. I hope someone can knock on our door and say, I'm going to take the lead. I know exactly what to do, how to do it, and then we'll bring the cavalry in and support. I would love for someone listening in to be able to contact us. And, yeah, you know, there's a lot to do. We're just trying to work out how to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:26:24 - (Judy Saba): Amazing.

0:26:25 - (George Boutros): Effy.

0:26:25 - (Debbie Draybi): Judy, I have a question for you. In this podcast, we've been exploring a lot, the challenges of taboo topics, whether it's around mental health or other things that are really difficult to talk about. And just as you're both talking about your experiences with Friends With Hope early on and now even George, with your humanitarian work, thinking about the challenges of breaking that taboo and really opening up difficult conversations and enabling, you know, ourselves and our communities to talk about things that were forbidden in the past. And, Judy, I just want to start with you around what have some have been your key messages from these two, you know, experiences, particularly with the Friends with Hope.

0:27:06 - (Judy Saba): Yeah. Gosh, have you got a week? It's a huge question, Deb, but it's a really important one. If I could start back, first of all, with the notion of talking. And I think there's one thing that we really have to put on the table, and that is talking doesn't create safety for people, and it doesn't create a good outcome. So that's the first thing it doesn't mean we shouldn't be talking. But it's not the only way that people experience and take the gifts from what they're learning.

0:27:36 - (Judy Saba): So with every person that's talking about it, there's probably 200 that will never talk about it, but who are listening, watching how you're behaving, the individuals in the church and may never come forward, but they are watching, listening, and waiting to see if that's where I would go. So our behaviors are always. Our responses are always on the table, and they're always.

0:28:01 - (Judy Saba): We never know who we're responding to. That's the first thing. But when people do choose to talk, and talking is a choice, that has always been an issue in our community. Things like a whole range of topics, you know, which I could list, spend a week listing, are things that will not. That they won't come in the environment of our faith to talk about. And suicide's a really important one.

0:28:34 - (Judy Saba): So those. Those assumptions had to be addressed and reaffirmed, and that's why we were able to have those conversations. But those topics that are taboo are not just cultural. And as we go through generational stages, these things are shifting and changing. You know, when my grandmother was around, you would never, ever think of leaving the house on your own as a female, for example. And now we have this ability to be progressive and to be able to do those things and still stand within what we believe and what our commitments are to our families, our faith, and our community.

0:29:13 - (Judy Saba): So it is important to understand that taboos do get transformed and they change and they grow. And that's what I think the project did, George. I think it wasn't because of anything we did. It was because of what the community responded to, what was happening. That meant that it was no longer that hard to talk about emotional pain. I think the hardest thing now that we're dealing with is violence in our communities, domestic violence in our communities that is so shrouded in shame and so shrouded in a fact that if I speak out, it's gonna affect my family, my children, everyone.

0:29:48 - (Judy Saba): And we have to shift that dial a little bit, because our faith tells us that Everybody has a right to be safe. Everybody has a right to love and be loved. So it is important that as we shift through these things that were really impossible to talk about 30, 40, 50, 60 years ago are now things that we're compelled to talk about. Because if we don't talk about them within community, our kids, our grandkids, our nieces and nephews, they're gonna talk about outside of community, and they're gonna get advice and support in ways that may not be the only way of responding to something like that.

0:30:24 - (Judy Saba): But, George, how do you feel about the.

0:30:25 - (George Boutros): That? Yeah, look, we see it from a humanitarian aid. You know, you talk about taboo and shame and so forth.

0:30:32 - (Debbie Draybi): The amp factor.

0:30:33 - (George Boutros): People don't want to be seen being given food, asking for help. It's horrible. It saddens us. And so when we give out food bags, they don't want to be seen. So we have to wait until they're at home so that we deliver to them. They will not come out and accept in front of us. And so you have to be respectful for that. You have to be. You got to know your situational awareness. You got to be able to the room and establish, am I harming someone or am I upsetting someone out of the goodness of our heart? We're doing the right thing. But sometimes you always need to step back and say, I don't want to embarrass anyone. I don't want to be able to hurt anyone, but I want to deliver something to you that just gives you that sense of hope and dignity without the hab and the shame and it being taboo. It's okay.

0:31:21 - (George Boutros): We're allowed to help and you're allowed to accept. It's okay.

0:31:25 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, I think that's a beautiful one. Around giving each other permission. And often when we do bring up topics, it enables the conversations, but it also normalizes it and recognize that it is okay to get help.

0:31:38 - (George Boutros): Absolutely.

0:31:39 - (Debbie Draybi): We can't do everything on our own, and we're not meant to do everything on our own.

0:31:42 - (George Boutros): Yeah, absolutely.

0:31:43 - (Debbie Draybi): And I think that's been a huge message in our conversation. George and Judy, around. You know, what you've demonstrated really, in both your examples, is the strength of our community when we do come together. Yeah.

0:31:57 - (George Boutros): We are so strong.

0:31:58 - (Debbie Draybi): The things that we're capable of achieving when we as a collective, you know, when we come together and we have that strength and community, that's so powerful,

0:32:08 - (Judy Saba): and it creates a really important responsibility as a community because it also means that because we understand that or we're on that learning curve to understand it, that we also show compassion to other communities. There's so much happening in the world.

0:32:30 - (Judy Saba): One of the greatest gifts is to show that compassion internally, but to always be open to how we show it externally. So we live that gift of compassion. We don't just act it.

0:32:43 - (George Boutros): And when we stick together, we're very strong and we come on board and we can make things happen. That's the reality of it. And so we do. We want people to come on board, support us, be a part of it, let's grow. There's a lot of, of mouths to feed. There's a lot of support to give. We just want people to come on board and follow the journey and be a part of the journey and see where God takes us.

0:33:07 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, I think that's a beautiful message around, particularly for our listeners who are isolated and feel that disconnect from community, you know, about coming together and being part of something meaningful and building that connection. And doesn't mean you have to be enmeshed in it, but it's around. Finding a to way to reconnect.

0:33:26 - (George Boutros): I need to call out some of my committee members, so Francis Cuttar and Veronica Cutta and Father Peter Boutros. The things that they do in our charity, I can't do. But when you bring it together, you can make magic and be able to drive outcomes that, you know, are converted from ideas into real action. You can talk forever, but you gotta roll up your sleeves and you actually gotta deliver. And that's what we want to do and that's how we drive our passion and motivates us even more. But now we need help because we're.

0:33:58 - (Debbie Draybi): We've grown.

0:33:59 - (George Boutros): We've grown.

0:34:00 - (Debbie Draybi): It's beautiful.

0:34:01 - (Judy Saba): What does that help look like, George?

0:34:03 - (George Boutros): You know, you could be an expert in social media. You know, you could be able to be the mouthpiece of our charity. It's not about the money or the donations. The money and the donations are going to come along, but if you're at home trying to work out a purpose or something that you want to latch on, that will make you feel good along the journey. You need to call us because you need to come on board because it drives us to be better people, but also bring you along the journey as well. And when you actually see the actual benefit you provide as a group, it's humbling. And we're gracious that we're allowed to do it. We have the ability to do it. That's the key.

0:34:42 - (Debbie Draybi): So anyone out there listening, you know, your diversity of skills. It doesn't have to be anything specific, whatever you can offer George will make a fit.

0:34:50 - (George Boutros): Absolutely. That's what he does.

0:34:51 - (Debbie Draybi): He's an engineer by background so, you know, he's good at bringing things together and making them work well together.

0:34:56 - (George Boutros): It's funny you say that because I remember a conversation with Judy many, many years ago when I was telling ifix aeroplanes. What does an engineer do? They sort out the problem, they identify what the problem is and then they fix it. And it's the same theme with everything that we do here. Just turn the negative into a positive. And that's how we're built. That's our DNA.

0:35:16 - (Debbie Draybi): Yeah, that's beautiful. You know, just as we're finishing up, is there any messages?

0:35:22 - (George Boutros): Look, thanks for the platform. Thanks for allowing us to be ourselves, to talk about tragedies in a respectful manner. And also, more importantly, when we leave this room, what are we doing tomorrow about being able to help people?

0:35:37 - (Debbie Draybi): That's beautiful, George.

0:35:38 - (George Boutros): That's what we want.

0:35:40 - (Judy Saba): And I think it's the same. You said something before, George, and it resonated with me and I think it's what we leave is that everything we do and the way we do it and how we approach it is about upholding people's dignity and being helpful, not harmful in how we do it. And that emotional harm can happen without us even knowing. To me it was encapsulated in your dignity packs for young girls.

0:36:06 - (George Boutros): Absolutely. Yeah.

0:36:07 - (Judy Saba): There could be nothing more incredibly comforting to know that your self dignity is upheld. So for me it's very much about every response matters, every person matters. And just remember that when you're dealing with a person, there are 150 watching how you're doing that and working out whether you're the person they're going to reach out to.

0:36:30 - (George Boutros): Absolutely. That's nice.

0:36:31 - (Debbie Draybi): Now for those of you that feel like you're far away from home, you're disconnected from where you started, coming back and reconnecting with people that helped you along your journey. I mean, such a beautiful thing. We haven't worked together for a long time, but just sitting here with you is just re energizing and reminds me of, you know, why I started doing this work and for me the importance of reconnecting with that because sometimes we can be far away from it and get a bit lost along the way. So thank you both for sharing and thank you for being such a wonderful inspiration and for your leadership in our community. And just so proud to be sitting with you. So God bless you both.

0:37:10 - (George Boutros): Thank you so much.