Meeting Alison Thompson

There have been many amazing experiences this week, however a highlight for me was meeting a fellow Australian in a makeshift ER on the top of a hill in Port Au Prince. The extraordinary thing is that we were born 24 hours apart in the same city - yet we meet 43 years later in Haiti.

Alison is a dedicated, experienced and selfless person and I plan to now follow her volunteer experience for the rest of 2010. She is working for the Jenkins Penn organization and is directing the medical program. Working with a rotating shift of volunteers every 14 days, running a 24/7 facility, living on rice and beans and sleeping in a tent, life is not easy. Yet she spends most of her day smiling and somehow manages to work through all the logistics of running the medical program and making sure the best of care is available to the camp residents who rely on the medical services she co-ordinates.

I am in awe.

Helen