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"In her was vested the power of life and death", that's how Bob Geldof memorably described the impossible situation in which Peter Baker's guest in this week's "All Things Considered" (Sunday 15 August) once found herself.

Claire Bertschinger was the Red Cross nurse featured in Michael Buerk's iconic report from the food distribution camp of famine ravaged Ethiopia in 1984. It was that media moment which was eventually to give the world Band Aid and then Live Aid but which also launched a young nurse on a twenty year spiritual journey. Her book 'Moving Mountains' reflects upon her frontline existence and the struggle to make sense of life as she cared for the sick, injured and dying in the poverty stricken and war torn countries of Uganda, Sierra Leone, Lebanon and Afghanistan.

Now, Director of Nursing at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and a Trustee for the African Children's Educational Trust, Claire Bertschinger was made a Dame in the New Year's Honours List. In this candid interview she talks about her struggle with dyslexia, the questions raised by the impact of working in Ethiopia at the height of the famine and how she found hope and meaning through Buddhism.

[This programme was first broadcast in January 2010]

Related info & links:

'Moving Mountains' by Claire Bertschinger, published by Doubleday.
ISBN 0385 65801X.

Children's Educational Trust

The International Committee of the Red Cross

Soka Gakkai International