Noble Dream

Nobody can tell Christina Noble, "You don't know how it feels." By the time she reached 30, the Dubliner had survived tuberculosis, hunger, homelessness, beatings, molestation by relatives, institutionalization and a gang rape that produced a son named Thomas, taken from her when he was three months old. Her survival, she says, is a testimony to resilience — not only hers, but that of every human being. "We have an incredible capacity to get through an awful lot," says Noble, now 58, crediting a failed suicide attempt, therapy and her "will to fight back" with her turnaround.

"But sometimes it's good to have a helping hand." So she started the Christina Noble Children's Foundation, which has worked to help young people fight their way out of poverty in Vietnam since 1989 and in Mongolia since 1997. Why Vietnam? "It sounds crazy, but I had a dream," she says, meaning a real, sleeping dream, in 1971. "I didn't really know where it was. Someone told me, 'It's in China, love. They're killing themselves there.'" Nearly two decades later, having escaped an abusive marriage and saved money, she began her work in Vietnam.

Today, in the country where she is lovingly known as Mama Tina, Noble's foundation has nearly 50 projects dealing with virtually every aspect of child development, from education to supplying clean water. In 1997, the work expanded to Mongolia after that name, too, popped into her head, leading her to a land mired in postcommunist poverty and ripe for the kind of work she'd done in Vietnam. In both nations, her strategy is to kick start initiatives, then turn them over to locals. "We're tools. We help a little," Noble says. "You don't need brains or brawn to do that." You just need the heart of a survivor.