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PrintRemembering Leon Miles
On Saturday 3rd November 2007 Leon Miles, who worked as a water and sanitation engineer with Oxfam Australia, died in hospital from injuries sustained in a car accident. His closest colleague, Jane Bean, reflects the way most of us at Oxfam feel about his life in this tribute.
I don't think any of us who worked with Leon or knew him are surprised by how much we miss him. Leon had an enormous and positive impact on all of us here today.
Leon was my field partner, my colleague and my friend. He was also a dear mate to me. I will treasure my memories of Leon. I enjoyed the time I spent with him in the field, in the communities with our partners and field staff, on trains, inside rickshaws and taxis, waiting in hospital in Kwa Zulu Natal after he had the now famous soccer accident, on endless flights and in way too many airports. On the chiefs' platform in PNG which was his natural medium, on the beaches in POM and Kwa Zulu Natal - most of all doubled up with laughter at the sheer hilarity and absurdity of what life threw at us.
Leon was an enormously talented and creative engineer and person. He responded effortlessly and methodically to the challenge of water during droughts, floods, HIV and Aids, climate change, mining operations, tsunamis and conflicts.
Leon had many fine and enduring qualities that remained constant throughout. He always listened first before asking questions. He was patient, endlessly kind, considered, thoughtful and discreet. His timing was flawless and he dealt with tensions and conflict with his trademark concerned and kind gaze. Leon was oh so quietly determined and really impossible to resist. He was a truly good person. He was also one of the funniest people I knew.
We both shared the belief that the solutions to the challenges in the field began and ended with the communities. And as Leon often put it "it is recommended that the community participates in all the water and hygiene activities and decision making through out the program cycle".
Leon and I worked together on everything watery and public healthy at the office here and in the field. To our way of thinking, water and hygiene promotion are inseparable. All of the water supply solutions that Leon devised - the rainwater tanks, the wells, the boreholes, the solar powered distillation plants - went hand in hand with hygiene promotion. That way we knew that the clean water supply would improve the health of the users by reducing water and hygiene related diseases.
Leon was a strong advocate of appropriate technologies. For Leon this term referred to technologies that are founded in the communities' usual practices and that use locally available materials. These are technologies that can be easily explained to, implemented and managed by the all the community members - technologies that the community owns.
Leon shared his knowledge with all of us in his usual generous and understated way. He made difficult concepts easy to understand and exciting. I learnt a lot from Leon over the last couple of years. I now know that there are lenses of freshwater lying under the tiniest of pacific atolls. These safe water sources are often protected from rising sea levels. A Leon fact that I find very reassuring.
Leon's philosophy in life was to look at the glass as half full and not as half empty. Not always easy to do but life-changing if we adopt it.
Leon, my dear friend, thank you for the gifts that you gave to us all. We solemnly promise to use them wisely.