A Noble way to spread sunshine among Viet street children,
The State Times
2 October 1995

They are dirty, dressed in rags and have fleas, lice and open sores. To the Vietnamese, street children are "bui doi" or "dust of life." But to Christina Noble, they are her sunshine children.

The 51-year-old Irish woman has been working with these children since 1989. She arrived in Ho Chih Minh City not knowing any Vietnamese and with little money. She went with only a dream she had in 1971-to help these social rejects.

"Every child has the basic human right to education, health care, love and a little roof over their heads. It's everyone's responsibility to ensure they have this right," said Ms. Noble, or "Mama Tina" as the children call her.

Ms. Noble set up the Children's Medical and Social Centre in 1991. She also started the Sunshine School, which provided classes and a hot meal for the children. Last December, a children's shelter, the "Sunshine Nest", was opened. She found the funds for these projects herself. Among her sponsors are UNESCO, the European Union and British Gas.

To date the medical centre has seen over 60,000 people. About 400 children and adults go to the centre each month.

She was in Singapore recently to talk about the plight of children in Vietnam and other developing countries. She spoke to seven groups, including the Catholic Church, the Singapore Association of Women's Organisations, and the Canadian International School. She left for Hong Kong on the same mission on Wednesday.

She said that she identified with the suffering and the homelessness because she herself had lived through it. Born into a poor family, with an alcoholic father, she had watched her mother die of tuberculosis. She was separated from her siblings when they were put into different institutions. She ran away and fended for herself on the streets of Dublin. She was gang-raped and became pregnant. The child was taken away from her. Later, she married an abusive man and almost became insane. These events are recorded in her book "Bridge Across My Sorrows."

Having crossed that bridge, she does not want to dwell on them anymore. She said, "I had to deal with them so that I can do this work, but who wants to dwell on problems, when there is so much hope around.?"

She was proud to say that some of the children now have dreams: "One boy wants to be the number one, best engineer in the world, for Lamorghini! I don't know how he knew of the racing car, but it is his dream...."