Peggy Shaughnessy and her daughter Liz Shaughnessy-Rowe run Whitepath Consulting, company that has developed programs to help communities deal with issues of addiction and violence. The two had been invited to the Pacific Ocean island of Guam by the Indigenous Chamorro people.
“We were quite thrilled to go to the other side of the world to take our work there,” Shaughnessy said.
Shaughnessy says they had started teaching their workshops when the presidents of North Korea and the United States began rattling their sabres, including a direct threat against Guam by North Korean President Kim Jong-Un. While it made the Canadians anxious, Shaughnessy says it was nothing new to the people of Guam.
While it made the Canadians anxious, Shaughnessy says it was nothing new to the people of Guam.
The night before they left the island, Shaughnessy-Rowe told her mother when she went to sleep that she didn’t know if she would wake up to see another day.
Shaughnessy said she was awakened by a blast of thunder and at first, thought it was a bomb.
The decision to leave Guam was made by the people Shaughnessy came to help. She says they knew the Canadians’ families would be worried about them and they should go.
She added that while the workshops were cut short, the people who they helped with ongoing issues of addiction and violence were most grateful.
“A lady said to us, ‘Fifty years from now, the people of Guam will know a mother and daughter came here to help us heal.”