So, my next chosen hero is one who has done a huge amount for humanity in her life. She is not a household name, and in fact, until I read an article about her recently, I didn't know her name. But I knew her, and in fact everyone in the UK who is 45 or older will know her, even if they didn't realise it.....
23 October 1984: as ever, millions tune into the BBC evening news (remember, there were only 4 channels back then). On top of all the normal death and destruction to be reported on, this particular bulletin had a report that resonated perhaps more than any other in living memory.
It was the time we saw Michael Buerk standing in a camp in Tigray province, Ethiopia. He was surrounded by the impoverished, by malnourished children, by desolation and drought, and a seeming total lack of hope. This was the report that inspired Bob Geldof to create Band Aid, and then Live Aid, and all the other off-shoots (USA for Africa etc.) that would go on to raise awareness and money for this drought-stricken zone.
But the lady standing next to Buerk, well that was Claire Bertschinger. Working as a nurse for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at the time, she recalls, "having to choose who to feed broke my heart. It was a harrowing experience, and the post-traumatic stress is something I have to live with every day." She could only feed 70 children at a time. There were literally thousands who really needed her help. "I felt like a Nazi commandant, deciding who would live and who would die. Playing God broke my heart." She didn't think much of the reporting team at the time, seeing them as arrogant and asking things that seemed irrelevant to her.
Geldof said of her, "in her was vested the power of life and death," but as the Band Aid phenomenom started to take hold, Bertschinger was somewhat detached from it all. She could here the record on the radio, but didn't really get it, and couldn't see how a bunch of musicians thousands of miles away could make much of a difference to all of these people needing her help. "And then the Hercules planes started arriving with all this food - it was wonderful." That was when she learnt the value of media.
Early life and career:
Bertschinger was born in 1953, daughter of a Swiss father and British mother, she grew up in Bishop's Stortford. She struggled with dyslexia, and could barely read or write before the age of 14. But she became inspired by the character Gladys Aylward (played by Ingrid Bergman), who was an English Missionary in China, in the film 'Inn of the 6th Happiness.'
After qualifying as a nurse, she set off on Operation Drake in 1978. This was a 2 year around the world expedition by the Scientific Exploration Society, which was led by Lt. Colonel John Blashford-Snell. She travelled as the team medic, and they spent time in Panama, Papua New Guinea and Sulawesi (Indonesia).
As well as looking after the team, she also had duties to teach the local populations about health care, including basic home nursing. She found that many of the local girls she taught couldn't read the booklets she would leave for them, so she used pictures instead.
ICRC and beyond:
Because of her dual Swiss-British nationality, Bertschinger was allowed to join the ICRC and travel to war zones that were harder for others to get to. As well as Ethiopia, she would also go on to spend time in Afghanistan, Kenya, Lebanon, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast and Liberia.
"There are no winners in war, and a lot more attention should be put on soft power.... making humanity our highest priority in life."She said that transitory populations caused by war, are one of the biggest structural problems facing these countries, along with increasing resistance to antibiotics and a lack of trained medical personnel.
Bertschinger believes that education is the key for Africa, "they love education and want to help themselves." The failure of many charities is that they don't try and solve the underlying infrastructure problems that these countries face.
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| Claire Bertschinger in Ethiopia (Blogs.BritishRedCross.org.uk) |
A-CET:
This issue is what drives the African Children's Educational Trust (A-CET), of which Bertschinger is the Patron. She points out that, "You need to empower local indigenous professionals and support people - everything I try to do is about empowerment." This at the heart of what A-CET does, and you will never see a picture of a malnourished child in one of their photos, as it is all about positivity, so it is much more likely that you will see a happy schoolgirl clutching a text book.
In 2004 Bertschinger returned to Tigray with Michael Buerk, twenty years on from that famous first news report. "Education is the key to the future for resource-poor settings. It opens doors and it radically improves people's health, particularly for women."
Honours:
In 2010, Bertschinger was awarded a Damehood for 'Services to Nursing and International Humanitarian Aid.' She has been awarded Honorary Degrees from at least five different universities, and received the Florence Nightingale Medal from the ICRC in 1991.
She is also the Patron of Promise Nepal, and a regular volunteer with Age UK. She has also been made Director for the 'Professional Diploma in Tropical Nursing' at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
I will leave the last word to Dame Claire Bertschinger:
"I think we all have to dare to believe that we can stand up and make a difference - and go for our dreams."Research:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Bertschinger
https://raleighinternational.org/stories/claire-bertschinger-operation-drake-1978/
Transform Magazine (IEMA) - May 2019 issue
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