Rachel Trovi

Rachel Trovi started working in Manila, Philippines 20 years ago, alone without any supporting organization. On her first visit, Rachel walked alone among the poor of Smokey Mountain, known also as "trash mountain." With the widow pension and a bag filled with plaster and gauze, she visited slum areas; purchased and distributed food, medicines and clothes; and plastered and bandaged rat bites on children.

Home in Norway, she traveled and gave lectures about poverty in Manila. The activities became so great that an organization was necessary and Ma'Ma Children Center of Norway (MMCCN) was founded, led now by 80 year old Rachel Trovi.

MMCCN aims to "help people help themselves" by giving the poor in the Philippines an education so that they can become financially independent. MMCCN's work began with children and single mothers, but have now come to include older people, children prisoners, and families of the slum areas. After 21 years of work, MMCCN has set up and runs six pre-schools, three orphanages, a center for single mothers and sexually abused girls, a sewing school for single women, a home for the elderly, a drop-in center for families in slum areas, and a church/community center. They work with street children, children prisoners, and have paid for the education for 26, 000 children. I am happy to nominate Rachel Trovi for her extaordinary compassion, commitment, and service to the weakest of the week and the poorest of the poor of the Philippines.