THE INSPIRATIONAL CHARITY WORKER
VIP Magazine, Ireland,
August 2003

Christina Noble, in the company of her daughter and grandson, reveals the source of her tireless energy, and determination to give children a happier upbringing than the harrowing childhood she experienced.

As founder and driving force behind the Christina Noble Children?s Foundation, Christina Noble was awarded the OBE by Prince Charles in February of this year. It抯 truly a cosmic distance from her existence in a ground hole in the Phoenix Park, to a royal validation in Buckingham Palace. Directed by a compelling dream, she went to Vietnam in 1989 and against all odds has helped 140,000 needy children there and in Mongolia. To date she抯 received 22 national and international awards in recognition for this great work. Her Foundation is an International Partnership of people dedicated to serving the medical and educational needs of destitute children. It seeks to maximise the potential of each child as an individual with love and respect, and whenever possible within the context of the family and the community. Something she never had as a child.

Her passion for children抯 rights is rooted in her own horrendous upbringing. Born Christina Byrne into dire poverty in the Liberties slums of Dublin in the 1940s, she knows what it抯 like to be young, homeless and desperate.

Her childhood was one of pain and betrayal. Her beloved mother raised her and her three siblings, while her father, a former bare-knuckled fighter, frittered away what little money they had on drink. Her mother抯 death when she was 10 broke up the family and the four children were sent to different orphanages. Christina spent four desperate years in an institution in Clifden believing all her brothers and sisters were dead. She eventually escaped back to Dublin and lived in a hole she抯 dug in the Phoenix Park. It was during this time she was gang raped and became pregnant. She gave birth to a baby son and was forced to give him up for adoption.

Aged 18, she ran away to England and didn抰 return to Ireland properly for 38 years ?the memories being too traumatic. There she met and married her first husband, a Greek Cypriot, with whom she had three children. Helenita, the eldest, is her PA; Androula is a psychotherapist in England and expecting her second child, and Nicholas, who runs her Foundation in Vietnam. She抯 hugely proud of her three children and their impressive academic qualifications.

But unfortunately the cycle of abuse continue in her marriage, as her husband was an adulterer and very violent. She was regularly beaten, suffered a miscarriage and was later forced to undertake shock treatment for a mental breakdown and depression.

It was during this low ebb in her life in 1971 that she had the dream. A vivid dream showing naked children fleeing flames with `Vietnam?written above them in a shining halo. That dream no only changed her life forever, but also the lives of thousands of needy children there and in Mongolia who抳e been rescued by her Foundation.

Despite the horrific childhood, today Christina works harder than ever in the underbelly of mankind. Amazingly, she appears bitter-free, forgiving and non-cynical with a smashing sense of humour and ready to burst into song at any excuse! Which is a real treat, given she抯 blessed with a terrific voice and performer抯 panache. Encouraged by her mother, she once had childhood dreams of a showbiz careers, but her life was destined otherwise.