Saintly Survivor: The Dublin Woman whose own torrid experiences inspired her to help others,
Dublin Daily, Ireland,
5 May 2003

'AS LONG AS I LIVE, I'LL NEVER COME TO TERMS WITH THE SUFFERING OF CHILDREN'.

She grew up in institutions, was gang raped when she ran away and suffered a mental breakdown, but Christina Noble has since helped save 140,000 children in Vietnam and Mongolia.

By the time she was 30, Christina Noble had survived a sequence of tragedies and personal horror stories that would have broken the spirit and will to live in most mortals.

Her childhood and teenage years in the Liberties during the 1950s and ‘60s saw her repeatedly fall prey to the dark side of Irish life.

Her mother died when she was 10. When her alcoholic father deserted the family, Christina nad her two younger brothers and sister were separated and placed in various institutions.

In her autobiography, Bridge Across My Sorrows, Christina describes in harrowing detail how she survived aas a teenager on the streets before being sent to an institution in the west of Ireland.

When she managed to escaped and return to Dublin, she found herself alone and homeless.

At one stage she lived in a hold in the ground in the Phoenix Park. It was during that time that she was gang-raped and became pregnant. When the child was born, she was forced to give it up for adoption against her will.

Aged 18, Christina, ran away to England, where shed married and had three children – but the cycle of abuse continued. Her husband was a violent man. She was regularly beaten, suffered a miscarriage and was later forced to undertake shock treatment for a mental breakdown and depression.

Survival

Before she reached 30, Christina Noble had experienced homelessness, molestation by relatives, gang rape, teenage pregnancy, tuberculosis, abject poverty, abandonment, severe physical and mental abuse and a complete nervous breakdown.

If she had done nothing but survive, it would be enough to justify the Time magazine Hero Award, but Christina has achieved much more than mere survival.

Remarkably, she has used her own experiences of childhood abuse and homelessness as the inspiration for her work with deprived children in Vietnam and, in recent years, Mongolia. And in helping others, Christina has also exorcised the demons from her own past.

'It all started back in 1971,' she says. 'I count that time as one of my lowest points. I had a dream then that I visited Vietnam'.

'I was living in England at the time and had never been in Vietnam in my life but in the dream I went there and saved street children from dying. I know it sounds a bit crazy but I firmly believe it was more than a dream, it was a vision.

In 1989 Christina put that vision into action. She left England and arrived in Ho Chi Minh City with no money. Undaunted, she began the work that has since seen her charitable foundation transform the lives of 140,000 street children in Vietnam and Mongolia.

She has nagged and persuaded, cajoled and implored for the cause that is so close to her heart. There is no one who Christina fears in her fight to save lives. Along the way she has shamed and persuaded all kinds of people into helping her.

Having established a base in Vietnam, she now devotes much of her energies to helping deprived and homeless children in Mongolia.

'I first visited the country in 1997 and couldn't believe the conditions that people were living in,' Christina recalls . 'This is vast country with a population of 2.7 million people, and yet thousands are merely surviving.

'We have built a village for the street children in the desert. It is comprised of small huts that are painted blue and red. It's lovely.

'The children have beds and chairs and tables in their homes and they go to school. At the moment, we have 42 street children in the school and 120 in the kindergarten.

'We also run an educational programme for up to 1,200 children in Mongolia.

'We work in the children's prisons, in the women's prison and we have a clinic in the Mother and Child hospital.

'We have saved hundreds of children from prostitution, which is a very real problem over here. We have done a lot but we have so much more to do.

'We are appealing to the public to help us in Mongolia. Whole families there are there are starving to death. There are no jobs and there is no hope for these people. Most of them walk around like skeletons with a look of utter despair in their eyes. It would tear the heart out of you'.

Extreme Deprivation

'We have a staff of about 40 people but we need more, we need people with expertise and we need money'.

Such is her passion for the Christina Noble Children's Foundation, she doesn't find much time to talk about herself.

'I'm a happy person,' she laughs. 'I never fail to be shocked, however, by what I see. Every day I witness extreme deprivation'.

'As long as I live, I cannot come to terms with the suffering and, therefore, I intend to keep working until I drop. Retirement is not in my plans'.

'When I do come back to Dublin I find it very difficult to adjust. The world that I live in now is so different to the city I left behind. Dublin seems extremely ostentatious to me now', she says. 'At the same time, I am a realistic and practical woman and I realise that everything is relative.

'I do get tired, of course. I'm only human and I have bad days like everyone else,' she says. 'But ultimately I am happy to do what I do.

'I get so much love back from people especially the children and that keeps me going. I don't need material possessions.

'I have the clothes on my back and my flat shoes that I run around in. I have the joy I get from a child's smiling face. I am wealthy'.