Perinbam, Lewis, 1925- : Lewis Perinbam was born in 1925 in Johore Bahru, Malaysia. His parents were Mary and Dr. Joseph Perinbam. When he was nine years old, Perinbam's father sent him to his uncle in Edinburgh, Scotland to receive a British education. Unfortunately, Lewis Perinbam never saw his father after he was executed by the Japanese in 1942 for hiding Chinese and British as mental patients in a hospital. Lewis Perinbam, who was then studying engineering at the University of Glasgow, went back to Malaysia and never finished his degree. He returned to Britain in 1947 after working as a general manager for a trading company.
While working at the Indian High Commission he was recruited by the World University Service (WUS) of Britain as the Director of the Student Refugee Program to integrate European immigrants into British society in their respective positions. This included identifying professionals eligible for university courses to upgrade their skills to U.K. standards. Lewis Perinbam was also appointed to the International Scholarship Fund Committee established by UNESCO to manage the educational needs of student refugees on a world-wide basis, and served as a member of the British Council for Aid to Refugees. In 1953 Lewis Perinbam was invited by World University Service of Canada (WUSC), to become its General Secretary in Toronto. Under his governance, WUSC became a major influence nationally and internationally. During his numerous tours to Japan, India, Germany and Ghana, Lewis Perinbam met many future politicians such as Joe Clark, Pierre E. Trudeau and Olaf Palme. In 1958 he assisted the establishment in Canada of AIESEC which is the world's largest organization based in Belgium that provides leadership experiences to students. Lewis Perinbam also represented WUSC on the Canadian National Commission for UNESCO and in 1959 he accepted the invitation of the Canada Council to join its agency in Ottawa, the Canadian National Commission for UNESCO as Associate Secretary, responsible for program development and promotion. In 1962 he became its first full-time General Secretary. Under his direction it gained stature and world recognition for Canada. Meanwhile, convinced that Canadian youth needed a developing-country work experience to better serve the cause of international cooperation and development, he helped set up the Canadian University Service Overseas (CUSO) in 1961 and acted as its first Executive Secretary.
In 1964, Lewis Perinbam moved to Washington D.C. when the World Bank chose him as its first representative to improve and extend its cooperation to the United Nations and its specialized agencies in New York and Europe. Committed to a people-to-people approach through nongovernmental organizations, he spoke of the Bank's work to groups around the world to inspire them to create organizations and programs and to work with their counterparts to achieve the goals of developing countries.
In 1969, Lewis Perinbam accepted the invitation of Maurice Strong, president of the Canadian International Development Agency, to be its first Director General and the architect of CIDA'S Non-Governmental Organizations Program (NGO). He created the first program where the government gave support to private voluntary organizations, a radical idea that allowed independent use of taxpayer funds for NGOs' overseas development projects. During his 22 years with CIDA, 18 as Vice-President, he built CIDA's fast growing array of programs. He launched numerous endeavours and seven major initiatives including Industrial Cooperation, Global Education, and Management for Change, Africa 2000, Youth Initiatives and Centre of Excellence Programs. He retired from CIDA in 1991, moved to Vancouver at the request of the President of the Commonwealth of Learning (COL) and began working as a Special Advisor until 2003 when members of the Commonwealth voted him in as chairman of the Board of Governors of COL where he remained until his death on December 12th 2007. COL is an international development agency created by the Commonwealth Heads of Government to widen access to learning through distance learning and new communications technologies.
Lewis Perinbam received six honorary doctorates: from York University and the University of Calgary in 1984, l'Université du Québec in 1988, Brock University and St. Mary's University in 2005 and the University of Victoria in 2006. In addition, he received the International Cooperation Year Medal in 1964, The Queen's Canadian Silver Jubilee Medal in 1977 and the Special Award of the International Council for Adult Education in 1985. In 1991, he was the second person to receive the APEX Leadership Award for Professional Leadership in the Public Service of Canada and to the Community. On October 23, 1997 he was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada. He also received the Sir Edmund Hillary Humanitarian Award, The Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal in 2002 and finally he was inducted into the AIESEC Hall of Fame. In 1986 for the 30th anniversary of his arrival in Canada, friends of WUSC and colleagues past and present created the Lewis Perinbam Award administered by WUSC to recognize individuals who make volunteer contributions to international development, help to improve life in developing countries and expand awareness of those countries among the Canadian public.
Lewis Perinbam is the author of North and South: Towards a New Interdependence of Nations with a foreword by the former Prime Minister of Canada, the Honourable Pierre Elliot Trudeau, published by Dalhousie University in 1983. He wrote the foreword to Women, Religion and Development in the Third World written by Theodora Foster Carroll, published by Praeger in New York. He contributed to One World, One Future: New International Strategies for Development published by Praeger in New York (1985), and wrote numerous articles and papers.
