Cork Woman Maureen Forrest International Person of the Year Award Winner

People of the Year Award winner 2007: She has witnessed the desperate suffering of Civil War refugees from Mozambique; she has dodged the bullets from gunfights on the streets of war-torn Somalia; and she has prayed at the mass graves of genocide victims in Rwanda.

For the last two decades Maureen Forrest has brought hope to places where humanity is most helpless, dedicating her life to people the rest of the world has either forgotten, or didn’t care much about to begin with.

It all began for Maureen in the late 1980’s when she and husband Dick visited refugee centres in Swaziland. There, they witnessed the horrific suffering of the victims of the civil war in Mozambique. During that visit Maureen decided to make a commitment to the poor. She was soon volunteering in war-torn Somalia, working in a centre for 2,000 children.

Shootings, starvation, death and illness became part of Maureen’s everyday experience and she herself braved a hail of bullets during a gun battle over food-stores outside the centre where she worked.

Maureen’s dedication to helping those caught in the fiercest of horrors took her to Rwanda. There, she worked in a centre flooded with 350,000 refugees from the genocide. In the grim aftermath of the brutal slaughter of over a million people, Maureen prayed by mass graves where thousands of decomposing bodies were buried daily.

A second life-changing journey occurred when Maureen and her daughter Louise visited Calcutta in 1999. Witnessing first-hand the abject poverty, hopelessness and exploitation of the street children had a profound effect on her. Maureen pledged to help the children of the city and did so by creating the HOPE Foundation.

HOPE battles against child labour and child trafficking to highlight the unimaginable suffering the estimated 200,000 street children have to endure.

Since 1999, HOPE has achieved considerable success. Five homes, a HIV/AIDS hospice, and a drugs rehabilitation centre have all been established. Through their preparatory education and crèche centres, vocational training, medical clinics and their child-watch programmes, HOPE reaches out to tens of thousands of exploited and vulnerable children. This year, with the help of the Irish Government and Irish donors, HOPE is setting up a primary health care project and hospital. This will be a life-saving resource in a city whose hospitals will not treat impoverished children.

HOPE and its 15 Indian NGO partners’ main objective is to continue to help abused and abandoned children and improve their quality of life. HOPE is now the largest and most recognised NGO in Calcutta.

On her first visit to India in 1999 Maureen worked in Maharastra where many thousands died in an earthquake. In more recent years Maureen and HOPE have responded to two further disasters, the earthquake in Gujarat and the tsunami in Tamil Nadu. HOPE firstly responded by taking care of initial needs, and then worked in the longer term to re-build livelihoods and homes. Maureen has a fond memory of the joy of the Tamil Nadu fishermen when HOPE workers handed over new boats to the men. She joined the fishermen on their first trip back to sea after the tsunami.

Maureen is always quick to insist that the achievements she has engineered would not be possible without the hard-working and dedicated HOPE team. She also never forgets the phenomenal generosity of the people in Ireland.

Despite her modesty however, Maureen’s outstanding contribution to the street children of Calcutta was recognised in June this year when her HOPE Foundation was awarded the prestigious Bharat Nirman Award.

Previous recipients of the award include Mother Teresa and the Dalai Lama. HOPE is the first organisation from outside India to be presented with this honour.

The Bharat Nirman Award recognises people who have made a considerable contribution to life in India. It is a fitting tribute to a woman who has dedicated most of her adult life to helping underprivileged people throughout India and Africa.

Maureen is a unique individual. Her allegiance to the poor and underprivileged has proven to be absolute. For at least three months every year she leaves her family and her home in Cork to visit and work at all the HOPE projects. She is selflessly devoted to helping the most vulnerable and helpless, and her commitment is proving to be both loyal and life-long.

For her contribution in war-torn areas of Africa, and her work with the abandoned, abused and exploited children of Calcutta, for her selfless dedication to the weak, the neglected and the voiceless, Maureen Forrest is awarded the International Person of the Year Award.