Dr Basant Raj Sharma: Recipient of the APO Distinguished Service Award 2009

'Dr Basant' is one of the longest serving members of Rose Charities being in at the beginning at its foundation in Cambodia in 1998. He was a founder of the precursor Project IRIS program in that he brought the expertise to Cambodian from Nepal to organize the first of the IRIS Eye Camps in 1996, which brought the whole IRIS program into being. Basant then stayed with the IRIS program organizing many subsequent camps and running and providing expertise for many other aspects of the program before moving on into Rose Charities (which evolved from Project IRIS).
Dr Basant is a Consultant at the renowned Lumbini Eye Institute where he has worked for many years. His experience is international, with expertise from developing country field programs to high tech. He established the Oculuplastic Department following a fellowship visit to Vancouver. He also founded the National Nepal Phaco(emulsification) Training Program, as Consultant and Master Trainer in collaboration with Nepal Netra Jyoti Sangh, AOCA Japan and JICA.
In 2009 Dr Basant was awarded the coveted Distinguished Service Award from the Asia Pacific Academy of Ophthalmology.

Dr Basant is currently (October 09) Vice Chairman of the Rose Charities International Board

Dr Nous Sarom. Rehabilitation Surgeon, Charity Rose Award winner 2007 and founder of Operation FIRST

Dr Nous Sarom has been with Rose Charities since its founding in Cambodia (originally as a divison Project IRIS) in 1998. His medical training was in Phnom Penh, followed by further surgical training with MSF, Operation Unis and with Rose Charities itself. He has undertaken further training periods in Hongkong, Thailand and Canada. Dr Sarom founded Operation FIRST together with Rose Charities at Chea Chumneas hospital in order to transfer Rose Charities surgical facilities to a proper Ministry of Health Hospital (previously it had been working out of medically inappropriate buildings of another ministry). Dr Sarom is Cambodias leading maxillo-facial and rehabilitative surgeon operating on land-mine injuries to burns to cleft lip and palate, and noma cases.

Operation FIRST is a gateway center for a number of international groups which conduct training and operative missions to its center and/or use its staff. Apart from Rose Charities, it is a SMILETRAIN, Operation Rainbow and IMPACT center and a focus for teaching for the Chinese University of Hong Kong

In 2008 Dr Sarom was awarded the 2007 Charity Rose Award for outstanding humanitarian service at the Rose Charities International Meeting in Penang

Liese Groot Alberts. Grief, Trauma, and Hope Counselor

Liese Groot Alberts is one of very few specialist grief and trauma counselors working with Rose Charities (and others) see www.LieseGrootAlberts.com . She has considerable international experience in Europe, Asia, Australia and her home New Zealand (Auckland) She trained initially with Dr Elizabeth Kubler Ross. For many years she was pivotal in the 'Starfish' program of introducing palliative care into hospitals in the Philippines, an area very much neglected in the majority of developing (and many developed) countries. She has conducted seminars and trained counsellors in Malaysia, Hongkong and India. At the time of writing (October 09) she is in post tsunami Samoa, carrying out training of local counselors, assisting victims directly and conducting workshops.

Dr.Yoga Yogendran: Director of Canadian Advanced Technology Programs

Yoga came to Canada from Sri Lanka. In Canada he completed his PhD in engineering in Alberta and worked as a consultant for the energy sector for four years. He moved to BC in 1991 to work for BC Hydro's Powertech labs and became the Director responsible for the Clean and Renewable energy programs. In 1996 he completed an executive MBA program at SFU after which he shifted from science to management of technology development and commercialization. In 2004 he moved to National Research Council as a Director of Technology Deployment and Commercialization at the Fuel Cell Innovation Institute and is focused on technologies to mitigate climate change and improve the environment. Since the Tsunami in 2005 he has been involved with Rose Charities and worked with Sri Lankan and Vancouver groups to implement a number of projects.

Josephine de Freitas: From Mineral Technology to Microcredit (with other careers in between !)

Ms. Josephine de Freitas has a BSc in Mining Engineering (Imperial College, London,1974) She spent 25 years in international development starting with a war widows cooperative in Zimbabwe in 1978. In 1994 she volunteered at the BC Children’s Hospital to create their International Health Programs and initiated projects in South Africa and Guyana. In 1996 she assisted UBC to develop the Centre for International Health and organized “Bridging the Pacific” APEC conference on distance education. In 2004 she managed the CIDA funded project in Guyana “Strengthening Public Health in Guyana” a $5 million CIDA funded project on HIV/AIDS and TB. She is a member of the board of Rose Charities Canada.

Josephine is probably the most pivotal person in Rose Charities. After she joined forces with the, then small, organization in 2004, numerous initiatives, programs and linkages evolved which has increased its scope and size many times. In addition she has organized several major fundraisers both in Canada and the USA. She was one of the founder members of Rose Charities USA in New York in 2004. Josephine is the mother of three daughters with her first husband, one of whom is Noot Seear (see this site)

Amanda Yogendran, co-founder of the Rose Charities Sri Lanka University Scholarship Program

Amanda Yogendran

Amanda and he friend Chais together founded the Rose Charities Sri Lanka University sponsorship program Originally named 'UniversiTEA' to incorporate sponsorship from some of the Sri Lanka tea companies, the girls saw how pivotally important it was for young people to be able to achieve higher education. They saw that a degree or diploma will lift the recipient, their families and children (then or future) out of poverty and dependency , probably forever.

In addition Amanda and Chais realized that graduates have the power to influence their communities and inspire their own generation to greater achievement and education levels for a greater quality of life for all. The sad fact was however that many highly talented students, even having been offered places at university (where tuition is free), were still not able to attend, simply because they could not afford he living costs. Such costs include, accommodation, food, books and study materials, transport etc.

Amanda and Chais project has been in operation now for 4 years with Rose Charities Sri Lanka and over 60 students have been assisted or have qualified since then. It is one of the most popular of all the Rose Charities programs.

Mike Webber (N.Z. Order of Merit)

Mike Webber has spent a liftime in optometry and is one of New Zealands most distinguisted experts with considerable international experience. He is a trustee of Rose Charities New Zealand His work with the Rose Charities Cambodia Eye Clinic has helped lift it to one of the foremost eye projects for the poor in that country and he continues to assist, advise and implement programs for Rose Charities eye programs and involvments in Cambodia, Vietnam, Nepal and Sri Lanka

In 2006 he was awared the New Zealand Order of Merit

The short film below shows Mike carrying out refraction training in Camboida

Prof. Elizabeth Hillman (Order of Canada)

Elizabeth Hillman grew up in Northern Ontario where she lived in and attended School in School Car no.1 (a railway car converted into a school and home) for Fred Sloman, her father, who taught children in the northlands for forty years, where there were no schools or roads She was admitted to Medical School at UWO and graduated in 1951. My postgraduate training in paediatrics was at UWO, McGill, Great Ormond St. Hospital in London, England; Harvard, and the Liverpool School of Tropical Health. She became Director of Ambulatory Paediatrics including Emergency, management of Child Abuse, and the Poison Control Centre at McGill's Montreal Childrens' Hospital for 20 years including 4 years in Kenya with the McGill - Kenya CIDA funded Project to develop a Paediatric program at the University of Nairobi. Elizabeth and her husband Don moved to Newfoundland where Don was Chair of Paediatrics and subsequently taught for three years at the University of Sains Malaysia, McMaster, and many other international assignments together in medical education in Bhutan, Laos, Viet Nam, South Africa, Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda etc.

In 1994 Dean Seely at U d'Ottawa asked Don and Elizabeth to come as faculty Professors to help develop international health undergraduate and postgraduate learning at U d'O. They were both cross-appointed in Paediatrics and Epidemiology and Community Health. Elizaberh was the first woman President of the Medical Council of Canada and both she and Don were both active in the Canadian Paediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics where they were both consultants to the Executive Committee of the AAP Section on International Child Health.

Elizabeth and Don were were both awarded the Order of Canada in 1994, and awards from the Royal College . Don My husband died in July 2006 and Elizabeth and her family founded the Hillman Medical Education Fund (HMEF) , entrusting it to be administered through Rose Charities Canada

Prof. Elizabeth and Don Hillman's work for Canada and the world of pediatrics, medical and health worker training, and almost every aspect of child, mother and family medicine has been massive. Rose Charities is truly honoured to be be associated with Elizabeth and her late husband and to help administer the Hillman Medical Education Fund ( click to contact )

Professors Don and Elizabeth Hillman

Trish Gribben: Acclaimed NZ Childrens Book Author

Mrs Trish Gribben. Chair. Rose Charities New Zealand.

Trish is an aclaimed author of many bestselling childrens books an international traveller, sailor and adventurer. She joined Rose Charities NZ in 2006 and took up the Chair a year later. Trish has traveled extensively to all parts of the world and a long and distinguished career in writing which continues to this day.

Noot Seear, Rose Charities USA founder, (' Rose Charity ') is Heidi in New Moon

Rose Charities USA Founder, Supermodel Noot Seear, is playing Heidi in New Moon. Noot was born in Vancouver B.C. but lives in New York. She started her modeling career at the age of 15 . Rose Charities USA supports projects in Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and in the USA in sight restoration, land-mine and general rehabilitation surgery and youth training. Noots talents not only lie in modelling and acting but also in sport, competing at Provincial and National levels in Fencing and Riding (Noots great uncle William Grut of Sweden was the 1948 Olympic gold medalist in modern pentathlon). Noots charity work has taken her from orphanages in Vietnam to surgical projects in Cambodia.

Dr Collin Yong (Canada) awarded ASEAN-Canada Association 'ASEAN Hero' Award 2009

Dr Collin Yong, of Rose Charities and AMDA Canada, Chair of Vancouer Chinatown Rotay Club, Consultant Paediatrician and active team member of many Rotaplast international teams has been awarded the ASEAN-Canada Society 'ASEAN Hero' award for his humanitarian services to mankind. Here seen duing the Rose Charities Emergency mission to Kalmunai Sri Lanka Feb 2005.

Dr Yong writes.." would like to take this opportunity thank all members of ASEAN Canada who have nominated me for this prestigous and honourable award. This is indeed a great honour not only to myself but to all the team members of the many organizations which made the overseas missions possible. In particular I would like to thank Rosecharities Canada for the effortless strive to ensure that all missions are well organized and logistically sound. I am very proud to witness the incredible numbers of Canadians who have taken their own initiative to make changes in the lives of many overseas. This is indeed a testament of the giving and humanitarian nature of the Canadian people. It is hope that these will be footsteps for our children and generations to follow."

Short film below shows Dr Yong being interviewed during the Sichuan Eathquake emergency 2008