Super gran on a mission to change the world
For 15 years, AGNES VAN DER VELDE has dedicated her life to helping people in some of the most dangerous places on Earth
EARLIER this month Agnes van der Velde, a 58-year-old grandmother from Yorkshire, tucked into Christmas lunch with her family. “We had enough food to feed us for a week,” says Agnes. “We put up a tree and I gave my grandchildren presents.”
Christmas came early for Agnes because on December 25, she will be 5,000 miles away in povertystricken Yemen, where famine and civil war have ravaged the country.
Agnes is a charity worker for the International Rescue Committee, an emergency aid organisation.
Her role is to help provide water and sanitation to those in need.
Over the past 15 years she has traversed the globe to work in refugee camps and places where deadly infectious diseases such as lassa fever, ebola and cholera have broken out.
It’s a far cry from life in the quiet village of Wixley, where she lives alone, spends her time growing vegetables and enjoying the company of her son Sam, 37, and grandchildren, Isaac, 13, Joseph, 10, and five-year-old Susie. “It’s like leading a double life,” she says.
Agnes started working in the aid sector aged 40, after closing the business she ran as a management development coach.
“I’d always been interested in humanitarian work. I felt it was very unjust that some people seem to have so much and others have virtually nothing,” she says.
“By the time I was 40, my son
Sam had left home and I had the chance to start a new career.” She applied to various aid organisations and was offered a job working in logistics for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).
It would mean leaving her family and home for months or years at a time but Agnes was keen to do it.
“My family was supportive because they knew it was what I wanted to do,” she says.
For her first mission, Agnes was flown to Turkmenistan to help MSF provide children with better access to healthcare. “It was a baptism of fire,” she recalls.
“I was the first to arrive from the charity, so I had to hire all the staff and find where we would live.
“I organised the medical stores where we kept all the drugs, I arranged the transport, whether it was for medical supplies, sacks of concrete, or people.”
And Agnes had to do all this without speaking the local language – Russian. “I’m used to hearing Dutch and French because that’s what my parents spoke but Russian sounded like people were speaking backwards. It was overwhelming,” she says.
Yet despite the difficulties, Agnes loved her job: “After a while you do get the hang of it and it’s very satisfying.”
Agnes was in Turkmenistan for 18 months, with just one three-week break to visit home.
“My son came out to visit me at one point and all the staff made a big fuss of him,” she says.
And the charity set up a satellite which meant she could call her family on Sunday mornings.
Over the next five years Agnes helped contain a cholera outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe, provide emergency support after the earthquake in Haiti and give vital healthcare to remote tribes in India. In 2010, she trained as a specialist water, sanitation and hygiene co-ordinator.
SINCE then, she has helped MSF contain a lassa fever outbreak in Sierra Leone, stop the spread of the ebola virus in Guinea, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and improve cholera treatment in Mozambique.
She has also helped the charity to bring clean water and sanitation to refugee camps in South Sudan, Greece and Bangladesh. Her work has led her to some of the most remote and dangerous parts of the world.
“When I was in the Democratic Republic of Congo, I was flying to different areas doing water and sanitation in hospitals.
“I was on a very small plane and when I looked out of the window for the runway, there wasn’t one.
“They had to close the road so we could land then we all got out and had to push the plane around so it could take off again.”
And Agnes has been in some of the most challenging conditions on the planet. “I was in South Sudan and when I arrived it was 50C which was unbearable at first.
“MSF don’t waste money on accommodation or air con, so we lived in tents. The first few days I was there, I almost ended up with heat stroke. But eventually I learnt to cope with it by getting up at 5am when it was cool and not moving too fast.
“I kept a bottle of water in the freezer so that when I went out during the day, it melted, and I could sip the cold water to keep my body temperature down.”
As a sanitation specialist, Agnes has the difficult job of ensuring bodies are dealt with properly during an ebola outbreak.
“The first time it was of a young girl who was eight or nine years old. She had died from ebola in Guinea. She was around the same age as my grandchildren and her family wanted her prized Barbie doll to be buried with her.”
Agnes admits that the emotional impact of what she has seen can be tough.
“When you’re working it’s so full-on and intense but you just have to get on and do your job.
“It was only when I was at home it struck me that that little girl’s doll would have been the most precious and expensive thing she had in her whole life. I found that very sad. I spend a lot of time in the garden when I’m at home and when I got back from Guinea
I would find myself crying. I hadn’t realised it had affected me so deeply,” she says.
Even after she returned to the UK, Agnes experienced tough times. “People didn’t want to visit me because I’d been dealing with the ebola virus and everyone knew it was very infectious.
“My daughter-in-law was worried that if people knew my grandchildren had seen me, they wouldn’t be allowed to play with their friends at school.”
To date Agnes has spent many a Christmas away from her family.
“One year in the Congo we got a turkey. But unfortunately it had too many air miles and was as tough as old boots,” she says.
But despite the hardships, she’s determined to continue her work.
“Having clean water and latrines helps so many thousands of people. It brings dignity to their lives as well,” she says.
“I’m proud of the work I’ve done. It’s very rewarding and I do not intend to stop any time soon.”
This Christmas to give clean water, a year of schooling, or an emergency kit to someone in need visit rescuegiftsuk.org