Claire Bertschinger
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Claire Bertschinger is a Swiss advocate for the third world people. She was working as an International Red Cross nurse in Ethiopia during the famine of 1984. She was the central figure of a BBC news report, sent by Michael Buerk and broadcasted on 23 October 1984, which inspired Bob Geldof to put together the Band Aid charity recording.
During those years she ran two feeding centers which could only take in 60 to 70 new children at a time whilst thousands more were in need of food. As a young nurse, she had to decide who would be the lucky enough to receive food. Those she couldn't help had little hope of survival.
Before Ethiopia she worked in Lebanon, Panama Papua New Guinea and Sulawesi. Later on, she moved to Uganda, Kenya, Sudan, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and other countries in West Africa. She lectures and runs the Diploma in Tropical Nursing at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Her experiences of the suffering she witnessed and lived in the war zones that she worked in made her look for a philosophy in life which answered her question of Why? Why should some people have plenty and others none. She wrote a book about her experiences, Moving Mountains, and the spiritual motivation which led her in her to Buddhism. Part of the money from the book went to African Children’s Educational Trust, a small British charity. A controversial aspect was the passage describing her having an affair in Afghanistan.
Claire Bertschinger has received a series of awards for her work, including the BISH medal from the Scientific Exploration Society in 1986, Florence Nightingale Medal in 1991, the Women of the Year Award 2005 Window to the World Award on a ceremony which also honored Margaret Thatcher and Tina Turner. In 2007 she received the Human Rights in Nursing Award from the International Centre for Human Rights and Nursing Ethics.
[edit] External links
[*http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2092-1678326_2,00.htm]Interview with Deidre Fernand
- [2] Woman of the Year Award 2005
- [3] Radio4 Woman's Hour interview
- Poster advertising her talk at King's College London
- Review of her book by The Times
Before going to Ethiopia, Clare Bertschinger was nurse on "Operation Drake" a round the world scientific expedition led by the famous British explorer John Blashford-Snell
