"Barton Brooks's compassionate heart and leadership brings hope to some of the darkest corners of the world.
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I admire all his hard work and especially enjoyed seeing the positive difference he's making in Africa."
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– Laura Bush: First Lady of the United States of America
ABOUT
Barton Brooks
It's been over twenty years since I started "Guerrilla Aid" - back when I was a younger man with a heart full of fire. I wanted to put my mark on the world and do a bit of good, and had some remarkable success during the first four years. Unfortunately, I was knocked off my path with a near fatal motorcycle accident in Uganda.
Through surgery after surgery, I could never make peace with the fact that I was no longer able to do what I loved, and felt like I'd left too much on the table. I spent years in rehab, battling mental demons, and always wondering if I could get back up and try again. So 15 years later, I mustered a bit of courage and tried to step back out in the world, and as fate would have it, it worked.
Now I'm back doing what I love - being a bridge for those with needs, and those that can help, and having an incredible adventure along the way. Even though it's different now (with a 50+ year old broken body all the aches and pains that come with it), I'm happy to say that the fire of my youth has returned.
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I've realized that it's never too late to pick up an old dream, and you're never too broken to be brave.​ So, even if I'm not quite as strong as I once was, I'm out here in the arena, doing the best that I can.
The long version: How it all began, ended, and began again...
I lived an itinerant existence most of my life - living in Europe, Asia, New York and LA - but never staying anywhere longer than a year or two. I was either running from my life or searching for it, and I could never tell you why at the time. I was just an unmoored college dropout, going from job to job, never feeling like I had a place in the world.
During a familiar moment of frustration, I saw a show where Angelina Jolie was talking about Cambodia, and bought a plane ticket that night. It seemed about as far away from my life as I could go - both in distance and reality, and it turns out, that decision changed my entire future.
In Cambodia, I met a group of monks near Temple Bayon taking care of some orphaned boys, and we played a little soccer, struck up a quick friendship, and took a few pictures. It was a simple moment, but when I got back to my hotel room, that picture brought me more joy than I'd felt in a long time. It made me want to help that little community, so I got home, raised some money, and six months later was back in Cambodia - with a little cash, school supplies, and soccer balls for the boys. It was nothing but a first rudimentary attempt to make someplace just a tiny bit better than when I'd found it.
***This was the picture taken that first day, the one that changed my entire life.
That simple event blossomed into a small non-profit organization focused on immediate global aid, where I'd travel around the world and email youtube videos with requests like, "I need $7 for a beehive, will you help?" It took off dramatically, and I began to create change everywhere I went.
This was long before GoFundMe or social media, and at the time it was quite a novel approach. I gave cows to Maasai widows in Kenya, planted trees in Mozambique, worked with an orphanage in Nepal, built floating libraries in Laos, schools in Cambodia, and facilitated projects in Burma, India, Uganda, and elsewhere.
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My approach was fast and fluid, and I got attention very quickly. I got a call from the White House where I was asked to create something in Africa and Asia for First Lady Laura Bush. I went on to join her at the United Nations, greet her in Senegal, help organize a trip to southeast Asia, and see her in Utah. She was always gracious and kind.
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Then came the lovely folks at Oprah, who wanted to highlight my work on oprah.com as I ran around the world doing my "guerrilla aid." We even signed a TV deal on OWN for me to host travel show about my work.
Traveling and posting for Oprah was remarkable, because her readers would donate to help build clean water wells, chicken coops, and other projects. Thousands of people were being helped, and I'd finally become the man I'd always wanted to be.
In March of 2009 (Friday the 13th), I was hit by a truck on my motorcycle in Uganda. My femur was shattered, I had a broken shoulder, cracked skull, broken arms, knees torn from the ligaments, and was left for dead on the side of the road. A taxi drove by, and I was folded up and put in the back seat, with my leg on the floorboards turned backwards. I went in and out of consciousness for the hour long drive to Kisoro, before I was stabilized at a small local hospital. A few days later, I was put on a Medevac flight to Kampala for procedures, before being flown home to NY for months of reconstructive surgeries.
After seven surgeries and months of rehab, I made it back to Uganda on crutches - determined to keep going. A few months later, after being upgraded to a knee brace, I went to Haiti after the earthquake in 2010. I maintained my deal with Oprah and called in to Gayle King's radio show weekly to talk about efforts on the ground. With her followers, we rebuilt the first two schools in the entire country! I was officially back on track.
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But my leg was feeling wonky in Haiti, so before I moved on to South America, I went home to NYC for a quick doctor visit. I learned that my femur was rebuilt incorrectly, catastrophically so, and in order to minimize further damage, my leg had to be rebroken immediately. There would be years of corrective surgeries and rehab to follow.
I checked back into the hospital, and my life on the road was over. Everything disappeared - funding dried up, projects languished, the Oprah TV deal was cancelled, and the effects of PTSD overtook my mental health. I retreated to my home in Woodstock, a completely different person than I was just a year earlier. I went from running around the world making a big difference, to a melancholy man wandering his yard, tending to his chickens and watching the deer.​
With the loss of my sense of self, I floundered for years trying to take control of my mental health, failing miserably each time. I was hospitalized after nearly ending it all - feeling like I was already dead, so why not make it official?
I was in the process of getting my affairs in order, weeks away from when I was planning to end my life, when I was introduced to a man named Bessel van der Kolk, and he agreed to be my personal therapist. He literally saved my life. Bessel wrote the best selling trauma recovery book, "The Body Keeps the Score" and while working with him, I began the slow journey back to myself. The light came back on, and I spent hours a day working back to my carefree, optimistic, and adventurous mind, and finally started to feel like myself again. But with all that growth, what was I supposed to do now?
One evening during a session with Bessel, he made the comment that he didn't think I was done with the aid work, and thought I could return to the old adventurous me. I scoffed at the thought, told him that guy was dead, but I began to wonder if he was right. Was there any way to reconnect with my past? Was it even possible?​ I mean, God, I was now in my fifties and so much slower, with plates in my arms and shoulders, and a titanium femur that made me limp when I'm tired - who would believe in me now?​​
I decided to push through the self-defeating talk, and one afternoon found a bit of bravery. I called former supporters - donors, sponsors, and friends - telling them I wanted to try again, and shockingly, they all believed I could and said they'd help how they could.
It seemed the only thing standing in my way, was me.
So long story longer, I'm back on the road, and it's better than I could have ever imagined (other than the slipped disc, torn rotator cuffs, surgeries in Bangkok, and the rabies scare) but, I've never been more at peace with my place in the world.​​
