FACING DEATH: Moira Kelly's Mission to Save Lives

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Yeah, you just never realize the world could sometimes be so cruel.
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And how can little children, you know, little children are not meant to suffer Catherine.
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And sometimes I felt that the world, they know what's going on over here.
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These little kids are just as precious as children with Australian passports, you know?
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So you just realize how precious life in is.
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You have an opportunity to fix a little kid up.
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That's one little child you've saved.
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Welcome to Don't Be Caught Dead.
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A podcast encouraging open conversations about dying and the death of a loved one.
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I'm your host, Catherine Ashton, founder of Critical Info, and I'm helping to bring your stories of death back to life because while you may not be ready to die.
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At least you can be prepared.
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Don't be caught dead.
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Acknowledges the lands of the Kulin Nations and recognizes their connection to land, sea, and community.
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We pay our respects to their elders past, present, and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nation peoples around the globe.
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Today I'm speaking with Moira Kelly.
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Moira Kelly is a celebrated Australian humanitarian who helped bring co-joined twins, Krishna and Trishna from Bangladesh to Melbourne for their separation surgery.
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In 2009, when teenager Krishna went into end stage kidney failure during the COVID Pandemic in 2021, Moira became a living donor for her donating her kidney.
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Krishna's life has again been transformed as a result of Moira's gift.
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Thank you so much for being with us today, Moira.
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Lovely to be here, Catherine.
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Thank you.
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And I have to say that that is a very abridged version of a bio for you.
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Um, and I am sure more of your story will evolve, but perhaps if you can set the scene, you are the best one to do this.
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Most people will remember you as bringing the girls over from Bangladesh, but.
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You have had a long history of supporting people and creating a charity.
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Firstly with Children First Foundation.
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Yeah.
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Children First Foundation in 1999, and now you have the Moira Kelly Foundation.
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Can you tell me what got you started in this work?
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Moira.
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The second organization's called the Moira Kelly Foundation.
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But just as a child when I grew up, I just heard about stories about Mother Theresa and the work that she was doing, and I just never really believed someone like that existed in the world.
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So I was just totally fascinated and I just thought she was the most wonderful thing I'd ever heard about in my life.
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So.
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So I all used to sell my family.
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I was gonna go work with her one day.
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They go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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So the day I sold my car and saved up my money from my airfare and headed to the airport, I don't think anyone really believed it was happening.
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So yeah, so my dream was to go work in Calcutta with Mother Teresa, and I suppose that's where the journey started.
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But before that, the year before, I had gone and spent a year with aboriginals in Western Australia.
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In a mission out there and yeah, made my way back to Melbourne and saved up my money and sold my car and headed to Calcutta and worked with the person that I dreamed of.
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All my life was Mother Teresa.
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Two things like that is amazing, but the fact that you even had the ability to travel to Western Australia and live in a community that is phenomenal.
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Yeah, it was with an organization at the time called the Palatines.
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It was a fantastic year, and they had a mission in Perth and also one in Tarda, which is about three hours in land from Geraldton or four hours.
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So yeah, it was a fabulous time and I met some friends and one of my friends from school, we went together and then we met lots of other lame missionaries and we just had a great, we had to great fun.
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It was just fabulous year.
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This seems so long ago now, but it was just, I was young and carefree and the world was my oyster, I suppose.
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And and what age were you when you were, were you were there Moira?
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About 19 or 20, I think.
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19 or 20.
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Yeah, I think I was about that age.
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I think.
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Something like that.
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Yeah.
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And then you found yourself in Calcutta.
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Well, then I came back and saved my money and went to Calcutta.
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Yep.
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And I remember getting at the airport and my brothers were there, my sister and mom and dad would drop me off and they were all there at the airport.
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And my brother started saying, you're not really gonna let go.
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And I'm thinking, what do they not get?
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And you always think as a kid you're, you know, carers are gonna stop you or something.
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And I just turned around and I said, look mom, I've got a great place to stay and I've got a great place to work and all these wonderful people are gonna meet me at the airplane.
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But of course, none of that was true.
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But what she didn't know didn't hurt her.
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So I knew Mother Theresa was famous, so I'll meet her when I get there.
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Oh my goodness.
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So what were your plans?
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Oh, I just knew Mother Theresa as famous.
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I asked someone when I got there, but I just didn't want anyone stopping me.
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And I mean, who do you write to?
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Mother Theresa at Hell Cutter?
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I don't know.
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I just went and I just had the address where there's no Google those days, you know, there was no Google, no, this would've been when telegrams was still a, a form of probably communication envelopes.
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Yeah, all those things.
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Those days.
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Yeah, that's what you did, those envelopes and Yeah, but I knew she was famous, so Calcutta can't be that big.
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I figured.
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So that's, yeah, I did.
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And I suppose I would never let my kids do it.
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Put that way, Catherine.
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Oh, that.
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I know the irony, isn't it?
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And so tell me, what was it like when you first got off the airplane and you weren't metered by all of those people you promised?
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Mom?
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I just had to be sort of toughen up a bit and say, okay, more.
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This is your dream come true.
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And I, I was a bit idealistic.
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I kept thinking, well, mother's now closer than she's ever been before.
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So once I worked out, which taxi driver wasn't gonna rip me off.
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I ended up then going to a hostel in the city, and then once I settled into there, I stuck to old maps.
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There's no Google as I said those.
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Yeah.
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And I'd asked people the street, which is the mother house, mother Teresa.
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So yeah, so that's, that's really how I got around.
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Did you eventually find Mother Teresa?
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I did the, I was very naive and I just had this great thing in the world that Mother Teresa was gonna be so excited when she met me.
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I didn't realize there were lots of more Kellys in the world who had the same vision to meet Mother Teresa.
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So I remember knocking on her door in the Laneway and the big door, the mother house, and I took a big breath, think, oh my God, all my dreams are coming.
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True.
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I thought, and I knocked on this door.
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The door finally opened and I was more shocked that Mother Teresa didn't answer.
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I just was so naive.
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I'm thinking, who on earth is this to myself?
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And I said, oh, hello.
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Is mother not here?
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And they go, well, come in.
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Come in.
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And it was a mother house.
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So they have a lot of novitiates there.
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People trained to be nuns.
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And I said, I've come from Australia.
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Tell I'm more a Kelly.
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I must have written a few letters.
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I don't remember.
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But I said, did she get my letters?
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She probably got hundreds of s of people.
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So I just thought they were waiting and so excited to meet me.
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So after a while when I sat in this office and.
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This nun who was looking after volunteers, came down and spoke to me, and then I was sitting there and she sort of calmed me down and then this big bell went off.
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I always remember this big bell coming off, and I remember looking out the window and I, that's when I realized it was a novitiate.
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There were hundreds of mother Theresa walking from one classroom to another, all learning to be nuns.
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I'm thinking, this is like something out of a nightmare.
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There's hundreds, and where am I gonna find her in this, in this?
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It was just one of those funny little moments in my life.
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I remember looking back on that bit.
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Then when I found out, when I finally worked out where I was gonna work at the Home for Dying, destitute men and boys, and then also a place called for the Dying and B, which means at Children's Orphanage.
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So I was so excited about that.
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I just happened to ask before I left, you know, is Mother not here?
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And then they had to break the terrible news to me that Mother Theresa, it was actually not the country at the time, so I was just couldn't believe Mother Teresa wasn't there when I looked.
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' cause I think for, for people who may She was so highly revered, so, so popular around the world.
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Yes.
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And was one of the leading peacekeepers.
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And like I remember as a child, I, I just looked up to her and thought she was amazing.
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A to be a woman in this amazing role and be so, so much of a leader in on the world stage.
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She was an icon.
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I mean, there's not a person in the world who doesn't know who she's, and I can.
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I always say that she goes past generations.
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I can guarantee the children I speak in a school to tomorrow.
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Your grandparents will know who she's and your grandchildren will know.
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So yeah, she's probably the world's most famous social worker really.
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She really is.
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Some dreams come true.
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I think that's really beautiful.
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But I, I do, I do find that it's rather funny that you had the moment where you realized that there was more than one mother Theresa, and how were you gonna find her in amongst all of the habits.
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Yeah.
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So talk me through, how long were you there with Mother Teresa?
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It's probably just on two years in Calcutta, and she has, as I said, so many homes in Calcutta.
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So there's so many places.
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But I ended up working every morning with the brothers of Mother Therea for a home for dying, destitute men and boys.
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And then the afternoons I'd go into, which is in.
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Another part of Calcutta for the main home of Mother Thereas for the dying, destitute men and women.
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And I used to work in the Isha of Vans, which is the orphanages sometimes in the afternoons and things like that.
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So yeah, they were wonderful days and sort of everything you'd dreamed of doing in Calcutta really came true.
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You met lots of other wonderful like-minded people from all over the world.
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And so yeah, it was just fantastic place to start Your missionary work really, I think.
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Yeah, it was fabulous.
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It was just a dream come true.
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And when you left there, what did you aspire to do?
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What were your hopes and dreams from there?
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I remember meeting this lady from Norway.
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Her name was Doreen, and she was an older woman, very glamorous and just a beautiful woman.
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And she'd worked in Africa and somewhere else, and I was so inspired by her stories and what she was doing with her life.
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I thought, oh yeah.
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So I don't know.
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I just was really taken by her and.
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I remember I used to get the Newsweek magazine every week.
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Got that all over the world actually.
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Wherever I was, I got that delivered to me and I saw an article once in America on children with crack and AIDS problems and I thought, wow, that's a really interesting area to go into it.
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Wouldn't you love to do something like that in America and work with the homeless?
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So my goal then was to come back to Australia, work like crazy, to earn the money to go overseas, and I had to keep going outta money.
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So I thought I'd pop into Africa for a year, which I did.
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And then I went to the Bronx for two years and spent two years in the Bronx.
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So really what inspired me was the stories of other people and what they were doing in their life.
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And I thought, yeah, India wasn't enough for me, I just wanted to go somewhere else as well.
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And those days we always thought the Far East, but now there was so much mission that can be done in the Western world as well.
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You know, you hadn't thought of at the time, you know, mother Theresa always said, you know, go home, go back and look after your lonely and the people in your community as well.
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So.
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Yeah, she was a great, great one on their own communities as well.
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And she's got homes here in Melbourne, Victoria as well.
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She looks after people in Australia, so she's got two houses here in Victoria in Melbourne itself.
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Oh really?
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I didn't, I wasn't aware of that.
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Yeah, she's got a, a soup kitchen in Gore Street, Victoria and she's got a woman's shelter for homeless women and children also here in Fitzroy and other, another health.
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So people get a bit of shock when they hear we have mother Theresa.
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Looking after people in Australia as well.
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'cause sometimes we think of India, but she's all over the world.
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I think the only country she never got to, and one of her dreams before she died, she would always get to China, but she could never get there.
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That was one of her goals was to set up a house in China.
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That's amazing.
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Yeah.
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And so tell me what motivated you to, you know, start children first in 1999?
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I actually did it when I lived in Albania.
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I had the children first foundation in Albania because I'd gone from Albania, from Bosnia.
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So I lived in Eastern Europe for nine years and I'd gone from the war zone four and a half years in Bosnia to Albania.
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I was gonna go set up a soup kitchen'cause they hadn't got a soup kitchen.
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They had a terrible situation of homelessness in in Albania.
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That was the plan from friends in Ireland.
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We were gonna send trucks out and they sort of encouraged me and so they were gonna help me set up over there.
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So I went over on my own.
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I actually set up the Children First Foundation in Albania, and I remember I was working with sister's Mother Teresa there one day and I remember there was a turning point in my life.
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I was very determined not to do operations for kids anymore.
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I'd done so many of that in Bosnia.
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I just wanted to go back to, you know, doing other aid work and not all this one facility.
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Taking kids from one country to another and, 'cause there was so much sat in Bosnia.
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So this nun asked me one day, so Moira, what are you doing in Bosnia?
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I said, oh sister, I took lots of kids to Australia, but lot more to America and to Ireland, to Austria, to Belfast for operations.
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And I said, oh really?
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Mo?
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And she asked what the problems were and, oh, more there's children in Albania that need this there.
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You know, Albania was the only third world country in Europe at the time.
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And I said, oh, well sister, you know.
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I don't do that anymore.
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I've cleansed the old soul.
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I said, but you know, you are very experienced.
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Your sisters are Mother Teresa and you've got houses all over the world and you have the finance.
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I said, you know, if your sisters wanna do it, I'm happy to tell you how to do it.
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So about two days later, I was going to the sister's house and it was distribution day every Monday.
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And I remember at the front of the gate, it was all hundreds of people lined up with their token and I slipped at the front of the gate to get in to get my apron.
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And I had a very important job that day.
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Catherine, I was gonna distribute cooking oil.
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My table was the cooking oil.
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And so they usually go from one table to another.
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So as I walked in the gate this day.
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I saw three children and they were to the side of the sisters there in the entrance there, just below the foyer, and they were very disfigured.
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And I went, I was so aghast.
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I was so shocked because I wasn't expecting to see it.
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And I yelled out to sister, I said, sister, sister, have you seen these three children down here?
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I said, oh my God.
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I said, what's going on with these three children?
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And she was mopping the floor up, up on the balcony.
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Couldn't see her, but I could hear her and as she was mopping she yelled, oh, good morning Moira, you've arrived.
00:13:34.590 --> 00:13:37.350
I thought you'd might like to meet these three children today while you are here.
00:13:38.909 --> 00:13:43.950
So, ah, so that was the sort of, but I needed to, maybe I'm meant to be doing that.
00:13:43.950 --> 00:13:48.990
So that sort of started the role with these children starting operations for kids in Albania as well.
00:13:48.990 --> 00:13:51.299
So then it sort of hasn't stopped since then.
00:13:51.299 --> 00:13:57.809
So I never did get the mobile soup fan started, but I certainly did lots of other things in Cal, you know, in Teran and, but actually.
00:13:58.740 --> 00:14:01.110
Albania Toronto is their birthplace of Mother Teresa.
00:14:01.110 --> 00:14:01.409
Of course.
00:14:01.409 --> 00:14:06.210
She's a ethnic Albanian from Beto in Macedonia, so she's an Albanian.
00:14:06.210 --> 00:14:08.549
So yes, that was a nice place to continue the work.
00:14:09.059 --> 00:14:09.629
Yeah.
00:14:09.929 --> 00:14:15.570
And tell me, when you say that you were doing operations, can you talk us through about what that was involving?
00:14:15.570 --> 00:14:19.254
Because obviously that's been coming consistent throughout all your life.
00:14:20.250 --> 00:14:21.509
I lived in Bosnia.
00:14:21.600 --> 00:14:28.649
People kept arriving with sick kids, and once you took one child to America or to Ireland, then other people would hear about it.
00:14:28.649 --> 00:14:28.919
So.
00:14:29.565 --> 00:14:34.394
I just started getting documents and paperwork on children that arrive at my refugee camp from all over Bosnia.
00:14:34.394 --> 00:14:35.684
It wasn't necessarily from my area.
00:14:36.254 --> 00:14:41.774
And then I'd sent off to people in Ireland and that time I wasn't doing it in Australia and to America.
00:14:41.774 --> 00:14:45.284
And I remember one stage in moa, I was up there at the Container Hospital.
00:14:45.615 --> 00:14:46.785
'cause on the East MOA was all.
00:14:47.484 --> 00:14:51.894
These containers set up by the South Africans, because Mossa was a divided city.
00:14:51.894 --> 00:14:54.924
So one side was a Croatian, the other side was the Bosnian Muslims.
00:14:54.924 --> 00:15:00.654
And so the hospitals were socially on the west side, so the Muslims didn't have really hospitals, so they had container hospitals.
00:15:00.654 --> 00:15:05.364
And I remember I walked in there one day and said, did you have any case of kids?
00:15:05.364 --> 00:15:09.745
And basically they gave me a list of, um, these three pages and it was like 30 kids on it.
00:15:09.745 --> 00:15:13.313
And I went, oh my goodness, I, maybe I've backed more than I could chew, you know?
00:15:13.313 --> 00:15:13.854
But then.
00:15:14.460 --> 00:15:16.710
He said to me, so when you've gone through that, Ms.
00:15:16.710 --> 00:15:20.940
Kelly, no doubt, come back and we'll give you the other a hundred pages we have here.
00:15:21.299 --> 00:15:29.759
So he thought he'd never see me again because I was a bit shocked when he had that many, 'cause at the stage I'd done a few children, but I just thought I'd reach out to Mo to see if I could help some kids there.
00:15:29.759 --> 00:15:37.679
And so to make a long story short, I ended up getting the registrar for pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital would come out and spend a week with me.
00:15:38.563 --> 00:15:48.914
In Master and she went through all that list of paperwork of those children and some others, and she chose about, I think we had about 15 kids who were candidates to come to America.
00:15:49.364 --> 00:15:54.164
And there was a group called Nobody's Children that I hooked up with there who were doing fabulous work in Romania and also in.
00:15:54.659 --> 00:15:56.369
Just outside Boston in New Hampshire.
00:15:56.370 --> 00:16:03.809
And so we ended up about six months later with I think about 20 of those kids in, in Boston, we galvanized all the hospitals in Boston.
00:16:03.809 --> 00:16:04.649
They were phenomenal.
00:16:04.649 --> 00:16:09.480
So yeah, it was one of those magic moments and that's where it all started when I started taking big groups of kids like that.
00:16:09.480 --> 00:16:16.629
So I. Yeah, sometimes it's a wing and a prayer you go by, but sometimes I think in life, you know, Catherine, if you think about things too much, you never get anything done.
00:16:16.989 --> 00:16:19.448
So sometimes you just gotta do it.
00:16:19.509 --> 00:16:21.068
I had that saying long before Nike.
00:16:21.309 --> 00:16:26.438
So everything in life, if you think too much about anything, we'll all be, you know, put off with these things.
00:16:26.438 --> 00:16:27.609
So sometimes you just have to do it.
00:16:28.169 --> 00:16:30.479
What point did you move back to Australia?
00:16:30.479 --> 00:16:32.789
Moira, I've never really felt that I finished in Albania.
00:16:32.789 --> 00:16:35.879
I'd like to have stayed there longer, but there was a few things that changed.
00:16:35.879 --> 00:16:39.539
That was one little girl from Albania who had a really bad heart condition.
00:16:39.539 --> 00:16:44.729
I took her to Belfast and she was operable, but they asked for lots and lots of money.
00:16:44.729 --> 00:16:46.679
They asked for like 60,000 pounds, and of course.
00:16:47.404 --> 00:16:55.894
I'm an A worker, but one with no money, you know, empty pockets, and I just never thought it was the first time in my life I came across a place where people would say, unless you've got the money, we can't do it.
00:16:55.894 --> 00:16:59.134
I just never thought that would happen when a child's in front of your face, you know?
00:16:59.764 --> 00:16:59.884
Yeah.
00:16:59.914 --> 00:17:02.313
So, yeah, it was a really hard time for me.
00:17:02.313 --> 00:17:02.674
So.
00:17:02.745 --> 00:17:08.654
They did a cardiac catheter, which was for free, was worth a few thousand pounds anyway, that could sort of work out what was wrong with her heart.
00:17:08.654 --> 00:17:11.835
And she was a little Albanian, the cutest little thing you've ever seen in your life.
00:17:11.835 --> 00:17:14.924
Her little name was Vera and it was such a long journey that time.
00:17:14.924 --> 00:17:18.285
You know, I lived with other kids, but she was my last one to see if I could get done.
00:17:18.285 --> 00:17:21.118
But it just didn't work out and, and they said, look.
00:17:21.809 --> 00:17:24.210
If you wanna bring her back here, I says you can.
00:17:24.210 --> 00:17:28.109
But they said Mo, she's opera, but she won't be operable within six months.
00:17:28.769 --> 00:17:29.730
And I said, what does that mean?
00:17:29.730 --> 00:17:34.109
I says, mean we can fix her now, but if you don't operate within six months, she won't be operable.
00:17:34.109 --> 00:17:39.029
She'll probably have a, a short life, probably lived about 12 or 14, 15 years of age.
00:17:39.660 --> 00:17:41.265
And I'd never even heard those words before.
00:17:41.400 --> 00:17:44.762
'cause sometimes if you bring a sick kid to a doctor and a surgeon, you think they're gonna fix them.
00:17:45.039 --> 00:17:45.700
Just an expression.
00:17:45.700 --> 00:17:49.660
I have an innocent ignorance, which is a lovely place to be in life sometimes and not accept the world for what it is.
00:17:49.660 --> 00:17:55.900
And so then, you know, after a lot of tears, and I dunno, how do you take her back to obey you and say, look, I know what's wrong with it.
00:17:55.960 --> 00:17:57.849
They could have fixed it, but I just didn't have the money.
00:17:57.878 --> 00:18:00.250
'cause they just think everyone the west has.
00:18:00.684 --> 00:18:01.585
Deep pockets, you know?
00:18:01.825 --> 00:18:01.914
Mm-hmm.
00:18:02.214 --> 00:18:04.644
So that's when we found out, I rang some friends in Melbourne.
00:18:04.644 --> 00:18:13.315
They told me about they do operate and they've seen kids on the news who go to Melbourne Children's and they came from New Guinea and that, and they found out that we could get a hard operation done for 10 a half thousand dollars.
00:18:13.914 --> 00:18:16.253
So suddenly that didn't sound so much anymore.
00:18:16.464 --> 00:18:16.674
Yeah.
00:18:16.674 --> 00:18:18.565
Compared to the 60,000 pounds.
00:18:18.894 --> 00:18:19.075
Yeah.
00:18:19.585 --> 00:18:24.039
So lo and behold, my friend Louise Warden raised the money here in Melbourne and then.
00:18:24.835 --> 00:18:29.845
I had two boys that I, I'd heard about, it was two years trying to get them out of Iraq.
00:18:29.845 --> 00:18:30.654
It was a long story.
00:18:30.654 --> 00:18:36.144
It was little boys called Ahed Emmanuel, and I meant had to bring them forward as well, which was very complicated at the time.
00:18:36.144 --> 00:18:42.835
But I ended up having to get them out of Iraq and leave them in Jordan with the sister of Mother Teresa and I had to leave Albania earlier.
00:18:43.355 --> 00:18:50.134
Head to Australia with those two boys from Iraq and these other children, all because of Pan Vera's life, because otherwise she wouldn't have been operable.
00:18:50.134 --> 00:18:53.164
That was a terrible, terrible burden to have on your back of your head.
00:18:53.164 --> 00:18:55.144
So I left Albania sort of a little bit earlier.
00:18:55.144 --> 00:19:02.285
The boys came a bit earlier and they ended up in Les and, and then Yeah, and Pan Vera got operated and got saved and it was phenomenal.
00:19:02.285 --> 00:19:03.454
She was a very blue child.
00:19:03.454 --> 00:19:04.204
She was a very.
00:19:04.490 --> 00:19:07.190
Very sick little girl and she had a major heart operation.
00:19:07.190 --> 00:19:10.910
She had a transposition of the greater arteries, which is a operation called a switch.
00:19:11.329 --> 00:19:11.660
Yeah.
00:19:11.660 --> 00:19:15.230
So that little girl's life because of Belfast and because of Melbourne.
00:19:15.230 --> 00:19:17.900
So, and she's back in Albania living a normal life now.
00:19:17.900 --> 00:19:21.859
So that's how I ended up back in also quickly because a little child's life sort of dictated it.
00:19:21.859 --> 00:19:24.920
So, and there's not a listener out there that wouldn't have done the same thing.
00:19:24.920 --> 00:19:25.279
So.
00:19:25.829 --> 00:19:30.690
Sometimes the universe tells you what you have to do and little kids faces are the answers to all that you know?
00:19:31.140 --> 00:19:31.230
Yeah.
00:19:31.230 --> 00:19:50.099
And some are probably the most famous little kids faces that we know that are associated with you, your adopted daughters, Krishna and Trishna, who we mentioned in the intro that you brought them here to Australia, to specifically Melbourne and the Royal Children's for operation in 2009.
00:19:50.609 --> 00:19:51.960
How did you first meet them?
00:19:52.378 --> 00:19:57.869
Well, I'm actually their legal guardian alongside their biological mother, who lives probably about 10 minutes from here.
00:19:57.869 --> 00:19:58.589
So I brought her at this day.
00:19:59.549 --> 00:20:00.599
She lives there two far.
00:20:01.170 --> 00:20:01.710
That's all.
00:20:01.710 --> 00:20:02.849
A lot of people always say that.
00:20:02.849 --> 00:20:06.450
They call them cs, they call them adopted, so it doesn't matter.
00:20:06.450 --> 00:20:07.559
It's all pretty innocent.
00:20:07.920 --> 00:20:09.509
But we heard about them when I was in Melbourne.
00:20:09.509 --> 00:20:13.650
Actually, a plastic surgeon in Melbourne called me who wasn't involved with the children's.
00:20:13.650 --> 00:20:15.690
And then I rang up a plastic surgeon.
00:20:15.690 --> 00:20:23.700
I knew very well Tony Holmes, who was notorious for his fabulous work and had done lots of kids with me in the past, especially from little girl from Pakistan.
00:20:23.700 --> 00:20:27.119
It was a huge case one day, and I told 'em about these kids.
00:20:27.119 --> 00:20:29.099
I didn't know much about them, so we just.
00:20:29.753 --> 00:20:31.375
I basically went over to Bangladesh.
00:20:31.375 --> 00:20:32.125
He said, bring them over.
00:20:32.125 --> 00:20:33.894
We'll see what's gonna happen and what we need to do.
00:20:33.894 --> 00:20:36.414
And we thought at the time they had a heart problem.
00:20:36.414 --> 00:20:38.513
So I was dealing with the cardiologist here at Melbourne.
00:20:38.513 --> 00:20:44.394
We didn't think it was a head problem whether they were joined, but we thought it was a, it was an issue with their cardiac issue, which they didn't have.
00:20:44.394 --> 00:20:45.865
That wasn't the primary problem.
00:20:46.494 --> 00:20:53.335
So yeah, I just remember meeting them in the private hospital in Bangladesh, and they were the tiniest little people, little fish now, the healthy one.
00:20:53.335 --> 00:20:56.125
She was chubby and healthy and cute as ever.
00:20:56.759 --> 00:21:02.789
Then you had little Krishy who was the tiny skinny, you could see her ribs and her, you could actually see her heart beating to her chest.
00:21:02.849 --> 00:21:03.119
Yeah.
00:21:03.119 --> 00:21:05.069
It was a bit confronting and Wow.
00:21:05.069 --> 00:21:09.420
So I spent the time in the hospital with them just to try and get used to looking after them before I flew them here.
00:21:09.420 --> 00:21:15.119
So yeah, that I always remember the little one sitting there in this little hot together one.
00:21:15.125 --> 00:21:20.505
I. Naso tubes and the other one was at a bottle and she just bumping and laughing and smiling to see you.
00:21:20.505 --> 00:21:23.984
And I had no idea the journey that was gonna unfold in that moment.
00:21:23.984 --> 00:21:24.375
I met them.
00:21:24.375 --> 00:21:25.154
I had no idea.
00:21:25.845 --> 00:21:34.934
But yeah, that was the special day in my life, really meeting them there, sort of couldn't wait to get them back to Australia so that someone else could take the responsibility of the medical side of them, you know?
00:21:34.934 --> 00:21:36.075
So yeah.
00:21:36.079 --> 00:21:38.444
So that was where the journey all began with Trishna and Krishna.
00:21:38.894 --> 00:21:46.694
And I have to say, I don't think I was the only person who waited with bated breath waiting to see the outcome when they were separated.
00:21:46.694 --> 00:21:51.015
And that was, that was like 38, 40 something hours, wasn't it?
00:21:51.019 --> 00:21:52.244
It was a long time.
00:21:52.244 --> 00:21:52.394
It was.
00:21:53.085 --> 00:21:53.865
It was crazy.
00:21:54.194 --> 00:21:55.424
And that was their last surgery.
00:21:55.424 --> 00:22:03.525
But they had many operations before that, and some of the operations before that were just as dangerous, if not more, because the two neurosurgeons were separating them inside.
00:22:03.595 --> 00:22:07.285
Before the last lot was outside was the cranial stuff.
00:22:07.285 --> 00:22:11.845
So yeah, that was a ter I wouldn't, I would never wanna do it again and I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
00:22:11.845 --> 00:22:19.194
And look, if it wasn't for the bravery and the dedication and the charisma of these surgeons and the people that said yes to the girls, they wouldn't be here.
00:22:19.194 --> 00:22:21.265
So it certainly wasn't just about me.
00:22:21.265 --> 00:22:27.714
It was a big team of the children's and those brave people who took it on, and the wonderful support crew I had around me and the girls as well.
00:22:27.714 --> 00:22:29.545
So there were a lot of lonely nights.
00:22:29.545 --> 00:22:31.434
I will tell you that you are on your own at night with them.
00:22:31.650 --> 00:22:33.630
Long nights, and they were very hard nights.
00:22:34.440 --> 00:22:36.809
You just hope they'd be awake every morning you woke up.
00:22:36.809 --> 00:22:40.589
There was a few times you'd think like that, but yeah, it was a very difficult time.
00:22:40.589 --> 00:22:41.970
But you don't regret a thing.
00:22:41.970 --> 00:22:44.130
You never would, and you just had to always keep focus.
00:22:44.130 --> 00:22:46.470
And when something bad happened, you'd just go, okay, what do we do?
00:22:46.470 --> 00:22:46.769
What do we do now?
00:22:46.769 --> 00:22:51.359
And so, yeah, it was a bit of a journey and they've made a documentary, but I've never seen the whole of it.
00:22:51.480 --> 00:22:51.690
Never.
00:22:51.869 --> 00:22:55.170
I couldn't watch, I've only watched half of it, the documentary that was out on Channel seven, but.
00:22:55.724 --> 00:22:56.744
I just can't watch it.
00:22:56.744 --> 00:22:58.664
'cause it sort of relives everything you went through.
00:22:58.784 --> 00:22:59.684
'cause it was too real.
00:22:59.984 --> 00:23:00.375
Yeah.
00:23:00.375 --> 00:23:02.894
And you were there for the first, for the first round.
00:23:02.894 --> 00:23:04.334
You don't need to see the replay.
00:23:04.664 --> 00:23:05.023
Yeah.
00:23:05.023 --> 00:23:06.434
A bit too raw for me, I'm afraid.
00:23:06.439 --> 00:23:06.609
Yeah.
00:23:06.763 --> 00:23:07.184
Yeah.
00:23:07.214 --> 00:23:07.694
I can.
00:23:07.694 --> 00:23:08.924
I can appreciate that.
00:23:08.984 --> 00:23:12.523
And so the girls are now 18 years of age now.
00:23:12.674 --> 00:23:12.855
Yeah.
00:23:13.273 --> 00:23:13.994
Unbelievable.
00:23:13.994 --> 00:23:18.434
But yeah, people don't realize that I've tried to keep them at the press to them to have a normal life as well, you know?
00:23:18.434 --> 00:23:20.654
So it's their decision now to do their story.
00:23:20.654 --> 00:23:24.375
So Trish, she has just done a story actually with current affair.
00:23:24.950 --> 00:23:25.819
She's 18 now.
00:23:25.849 --> 00:23:28.430
'cause they've asked a few times and said, look, I'm not doing that.
00:23:28.430 --> 00:23:31.519
I just want the girls have a normal life, but when they're their age, they can do what they like.
00:23:31.519 --> 00:23:43.009
So fishy has just done a story is gonna air probably pretty soon, and she just wanted to have this opportunity to thank Australia for what they did for her and all the prayers and the doctors who never gave up on her and the people who are around me and the team.
00:23:43.529 --> 00:23:47.159
So it was her story of just saying thank you and look because of the decisions you made.
00:23:47.159 --> 00:23:47.579
Look at me.
00:23:47.579 --> 00:23:49.259
And she spoke on behalf of her sister.
00:23:49.589 --> 00:23:52.049
So it's something that she wanted to do, and it was her choice.
00:23:52.049 --> 00:24:00.990
And so, yes, she's a beautiful, charismatic, outgoing, funny young lady, and she's very, very protective of her beautiful sister.
00:24:01.515 --> 00:24:03.105
And tell me about your story.
00:24:03.105 --> 00:24:12.825
So from the age of three to the age of 18, have you always been their legal guardian and have they actually resided with you here in Australia?
00:24:12.914 --> 00:24:13.095
Yes.
00:24:13.305 --> 00:24:16.545
They came out when they were about six months actually, when they came to Australia.
00:24:16.545 --> 00:24:16.724
Yeah.
00:24:16.755 --> 00:24:17.775
So from the start, yeah.
00:24:18.194 --> 00:24:20.380
So from the moment they landed in Australia, it was.
00:24:20.795 --> 00:24:21.990
I slept with 'em every single night.
00:24:22.769 --> 00:24:25.049
So, yes, they've, um, always been my care.
00:24:25.049 --> 00:24:31.769
And look, they were really very sick little girls and they had a lot of medical needs at home, you know, so most of those kids would be left in hospital.
00:24:31.769 --> 00:24:37.710
But anyway, I think a good thing, a lot of people on our side and the good lord kept them healthy and.
00:24:38.174 --> 00:24:39.164
Kept us vigilant.
00:24:39.164 --> 00:24:43.994
So yeah, they were, it was, you know, they had trackies, they had blood pressures going at nighttime.
00:24:43.994 --> 00:24:46.005
They had feeding tubes, they had injections.
00:24:46.214 --> 00:24:49.575
It was just sometimes it looked like a mini, I see.
00:24:49.575 --> 00:24:50.654
U in my lounge room, really?
00:24:50.954 --> 00:24:54.464
But those are just memories that go back so far now.
00:24:55.125 --> 00:24:57.494
And now they're just sort me, young ladies, really, you know?
00:24:57.959 --> 00:24:59.669
And their mother Lovely.
00:24:59.669 --> 00:25:03.719
Has always been involved as, as much as she can from my understanding.
00:25:03.719 --> 00:25:04.349
Is that right?
00:25:48.858 --> 00:26:03.348
Well, she's, she went back for a couple of years to her family and then came back again and, well, the girls are older now, so she doesn't see them as much, but Trisha pops over there probably a couple times a month for a nice curry and she's got two younger children now, so she's sort of busy with them and the girls have moved on.
00:26:03.348 --> 00:26:12.930
So they certainly saw Lovely, a fair bit, and we've just become friends now, so it's more like a. An adult relationship and she catches up with them when she does, but she's got a little newborn baby.
00:26:12.930 --> 00:26:17.640
She's is only a year old now and a 10-year-old boy, so she's a busy mum with that.
00:26:17.640 --> 00:26:18.930
So she's just happy.
00:26:18.930 --> 00:26:24.779
Her kids are okay and done well, and yeah, so she's not far from here and yeah, so she's sort of a family friend.
00:26:25.355 --> 00:26:32.495
That's great to have that context for us and something that only, you know, obviously like came out very openly.
00:26:32.795 --> 00:26:46.325
Much to, I think your surprise last year when you're on the, the radio interview with Neil Mitchell on three A was the fact that you had had gone through the process of organ donation with Krishna during COVID.
00:26:46.355 --> 00:26:49.924
So I'm sure that wasn't like her.
00:26:50.348 --> 00:26:58.345
End stage kidney failure issues, was that something that had been building or something that you were aware of after the original operation or no.
00:26:59.134 --> 00:27:06.904
When the girls were joined, one girl had high blood pressure, the other one had low blood pressure, so the one that had low blood pressure had low profusion to the kidneys.
00:27:07.235 --> 00:27:13.055
So of course they were underdeveloped, but no one really thought that she'd have a problem until she became to adulthood.
00:27:13.625 --> 00:27:19.319
But they always say any child with a chronic illness, they can either sell through puberty or would hit them really hard.
00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:23.870
And it just hit Krishna so hard unexpectedly to all of the team at the kids.
00:27:23.870 --> 00:27:25.970
And yeah, she became a very sick little girl.
00:27:25.970 --> 00:27:33.079
So those stories you heard on the television that people waiting for ambulances like for three or two hours, that was me here.
00:27:33.079 --> 00:27:35.660
And sometimes Krishy was having seizures.
00:27:35.990 --> 00:27:37.039
It was very rude and.
00:27:37.414 --> 00:27:38.463
Waiting for ambulances to come.
00:27:38.463 --> 00:27:44.555
And it wasn't epilepsy, it was kidney related, and they were just horrific times and we got canceled three times.
00:27:44.555 --> 00:27:47.644
And yeah, it was just a, a very horrific thing.
00:27:47.650 --> 00:27:51.723
And, and see, Krishy's got special needs too, but she always knows the world's a beautiful place.
00:27:51.723 --> 00:27:56.015
And she, like all six children, they always look at their mom's, moms are gonna fix everything up.
00:27:56.015 --> 00:27:59.194
So when the time came and they said, you know, she was gonna have to have.
00:27:59.335 --> 00:28:01.345
Kidney transplant straight away said, well, can I do that?
00:28:01.345 --> 00:28:01.914
Can I do that?
00:28:02.515 --> 00:28:03.170
Because I never knew how.
00:28:03.289 --> 00:28:03.835
I knew nothing.
00:28:03.835 --> 00:28:06.085
I only ever heard about donors who had died.
00:28:06.085 --> 00:28:07.225
I'd never heard about live donors.
00:28:07.225 --> 00:28:10.225
I mean, you might have heard about it, but I didn't really take it on board.
00:28:10.225 --> 00:28:12.235
And so now I'm just so passionate.
00:28:12.235 --> 00:28:16.134
I just wish I had another spare kidney because it was such an easy thing to do and it's such a good thing to do.
00:28:16.134 --> 00:28:19.795
And I look at Krishy and I just sometimes can't believe that, you know.
00:28:19.900 --> 00:28:20.380
Wow.
00:28:20.470 --> 00:28:22.269
There's something I've really done to save her life.
00:28:22.269 --> 00:28:22.450
You know?
00:28:22.450 --> 00:28:23.049
That's how I feel.
00:28:23.049 --> 00:28:26.230
Anyway, but then I found out there's like 14,000 Australians.
00:28:26.230 --> 00:28:43.000
People, moms and dads and uncles and aunties and cousins and sisters out there, brothers who are wanting kidneys, and I'm thinking, God, if everyone in Australia knew that someone like me can do to Krishna, she's a Bangladeshi origin, and I'm just an Aussie girl from Melbourne, and I've got the same kidney function I had before I gave my kidney away.
00:28:43.360 --> 00:28:45.039
So everything's back to normal to me.
00:28:45.039 --> 00:28:46.480
You wouldn't even know I had one kidney.
00:28:46.809 --> 00:28:47.980
I'm just so excited that I did it.
00:28:48.315 --> 00:28:50.444
And I was so excited that they said I could do it.
00:28:50.444 --> 00:28:58.394
And I passed the medical, and I remember this great nurse telling me once when I was a bit upset, when I heard Chrisy was so sick, and he caught me in the downstairs of the children.
00:28:58.394 --> 00:28:59.235
He said, Mo, you're okay?
00:28:59.235 --> 00:28:59.985
And his name is Brenda.
00:28:59.985 --> 00:29:03.644
I said, oh, he knew me from years ago from all my heart kids on the heart ward.
00:29:04.184 --> 00:29:05.414
And I said, oh, you won't believe it.
00:29:05.684 --> 00:29:07.335
Josh has just said Chrisy needs a kidney.
00:29:07.950 --> 00:29:10.170
He must be crazy 'cause I was so shocked.
00:29:10.470 --> 00:29:16.950
Josh was the specialist and he started talk telling me about it's not more, you know, it's not as bad as it sounds and you know more if you don't pass, you're gonna get a great medical.
00:29:16.950 --> 00:29:21.930
It's all for nothing, you know, and you'll find there's anything else wrong with they, so you gonna, you get a medical that no Australian will ever have.
00:29:22.200 --> 00:29:31.559
So that was, was selling car, I think, I don't know because the most important thing was that Krishy would get a kidney and, you know, you'd get over this really quickly and yeah, she'd do so well, she'd never have to go on dialysis.
00:29:31.559 --> 00:29:33.000
And so sort of.
00:29:33.105 --> 00:29:35.595
Probably with that reassurance I need to hear, 'cause I thought they were crazy.
00:29:36.105 --> 00:29:36.287
What did they do?
00:29:36.287 --> 00:29:37.184
Why did you wanna give Chrisy a kidney?
00:29:37.184 --> 00:29:37.995
She just got a new head.
00:29:37.995 --> 00:29:40.664
Why She couldn't understand.
00:29:41.075 --> 00:29:46.055
How the world could be so cool, but Well, what a miracle we had was, um, yeah, it was so easy too.
00:29:46.055 --> 00:29:47.285
You know, it was amazing.
00:29:47.585 --> 00:29:52.295
The team at the oted, they did the kidney transplants for the parents, for the children's and they were amazing.
00:29:52.325 --> 00:29:58.505
It's very, very private and very separate and you go through rigorous medicals and I'm not really going into, I can let other people have it, but myself.
00:29:58.505 --> 00:29:59.315
So it was a bit challenging.
00:29:59.525 --> 00:30:00.049
But yeah.
00:30:00.095 --> 00:30:02.164
You found out I ticked all the boxes.
00:30:02.164 --> 00:30:03.605
'cause not everyone can be a donor.
00:30:03.829 --> 00:30:05.059
Because you don't pass the medical.
00:30:05.059 --> 00:30:08.659
So I realized I was in that lucky group of, you know, one in a hundred that could be a donor.
00:30:08.659 --> 00:30:14.480
So I was just so excited and kept looking at Chrisy, had lots of tears and, and you know, it was a very special moment for my best friend.
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:19.069
Louise came along too, and me, and, and Lovely would come to some of my appointments and lovely.
00:30:19.069 --> 00:30:19.399
Couldn't.
00:30:19.765 --> 00:30:20.454
Be a donor.
00:30:20.454 --> 00:30:23.995
'cause she had diabetes, so she was there for some of my appointments and things like that as well.
00:30:23.995 --> 00:30:29.664
So she was certainly a part of that journey as well as my close friends, you know, because you can't do without support around you.
00:30:29.664 --> 00:30:30.414
You need that as well.
00:30:30.414 --> 00:30:36.765
You know, the only hard thing for me really was the fact that it was the first time in my life I couldn't be in the hospital with Krishy.
00:30:37.075 --> 00:30:38.245
'cause I had to be at the Austin.
00:30:38.664 --> 00:30:38.755
Yeah.
00:30:38.755 --> 00:30:41.634
And I remember Josh saying my, if that's hard, some parents find that too hard.
00:30:41.694 --> 00:30:42.235
Don't do it.
00:30:42.600 --> 00:30:42.941
No, no, no.
00:30:42.941 --> 00:30:43.460
I'll do it.
00:30:43.460 --> 00:30:43.825
I'll do it, I'll do it.
00:30:44.454 --> 00:30:46.434
I couldn't believe it was that easy to say no.
00:30:46.434 --> 00:30:46.765
I said, no, no, no.
00:30:46.765 --> 00:30:47.605
I wanna do the kidneys.
00:30:48.005 --> 00:30:51.634
I couldn't believe it was that Krishy would have to learn to live with that.
00:30:51.634 --> 00:31:02.045
So Marilyn, who lives in Whittlesea, and she stayed with Krishy in hospital during the day, and I had someone at night, so someone who knew Krishy really well, but Marilyn stayed with her 24 hours.
00:31:02.134 --> 00:31:02.404
Really?
00:31:02.404 --> 00:31:02.555
Well.
00:31:02.555 --> 00:31:05.700
I was in the Austin hospital, so that was the only tough thing, but you know.
00:31:06.470 --> 00:31:07.309
She was unconscious.
00:31:07.309 --> 00:31:07.880
A lot of it too.
00:31:07.880 --> 00:31:18.289
So, and tell me, what was it for you, a woman who has spent really her entire life, ensuring that people can get the medical treatment that they need.
00:31:18.650 --> 00:31:22.069
How was it for the tables to be turned when you became the patient?
00:31:22.430 --> 00:31:26.269
What was the, some of the things that you learned, you know, through that process?
00:31:26.660 --> 00:31:33.470
Well, I'll be honest with you, I was really nervous, so I hadn't thought about it until probably a month before I kept, I was so focused on Krishna.
00:31:33.575 --> 00:31:34.654
And what was going on.
00:31:34.654 --> 00:31:37.384
Then suddenly, um, I um, started thinking, oh good.
00:31:37.384 --> 00:31:40.595
I said, I remember my good friend sister fr I said, God, I better work out what's gonna happen with me.
00:31:40.595 --> 00:31:43.715
So I started googling and thinking, oh, oh, okay.
00:31:44.555 --> 00:31:45.305
Even thought about it.
00:31:45.634 --> 00:31:47.644
Myra, don't they, haven't you heard that one?
00:31:47.644 --> 00:31:48.815
Don't Google it.
00:31:49.140 --> 00:31:51.500
I, I heard, don't, I have learned that a lot of things now, but.
00:31:52.220 --> 00:31:57.620
I remember I was quite nervous then thinking, oh God, you know,'cause the only time I ever had any operation was in Calcutta.
00:31:57.620 --> 00:32:00.529
I had my appendix taken out by Mother Teresa's surgeon.
00:32:00.529 --> 00:32:01.850
Actually, that's another story for the book.
00:32:01.850 --> 00:32:02.210
One day.
00:32:02.210 --> 00:32:03.470
I think that was wow.
00:32:03.470 --> 00:32:03.829
Crazy night.
00:32:04.130 --> 00:32:05.960
But anyway, and I remember one day.
00:32:06.588 --> 00:32:07.579
The turning point for me.
00:32:07.610 --> 00:32:09.259
'cause I started getting very nervous and Oh God.
00:32:09.259 --> 00:32:11.569
You know, and just wanted to be knocked out.
00:32:11.569 --> 00:32:23.838
But there was one day I came into the children's hospital, Trisha was taken again by ambulance and she was really sick and we're in the Resus room and then they focus us into the treatment room to put a line in to Krishna because when the girls would join, they lost all their lines.
00:32:23.870 --> 00:32:24.315
'cause they had so many.
00:32:25.025 --> 00:32:25.775
My Vs in.
00:32:25.775 --> 00:32:31.684
And so they had to go into this room and Trish's always very traumatized by the hospital and she's very good these days.
00:32:31.894 --> 00:32:34.924
And I just remember, 'cause Trisha has got special needs, little things.
00:32:35.315 --> 00:32:35.975
Oh we understand.
00:32:35.975 --> 00:32:36.634
But she doesn't say.
00:32:36.634 --> 00:32:39.605
But I just remember she turned to me this day, uh, and I just had tears.
00:32:39.605 --> 00:32:40.865
I still bring tears in my eyes now.
00:32:40.865 --> 00:32:43.265
She said to me, mommy, enough enough.
00:32:43.494 --> 00:32:44.213
I said, Krishy, what?
00:32:44.213 --> 00:32:46.045
And this doctor, and these two nurses are busy.
00:32:46.105 --> 00:32:47.125
They didn't know what was going on.
00:32:47.125 --> 00:32:49.105
They wouldn't have realized this is something Krishy doesn't say.
00:32:49.555 --> 00:32:50.875
She says, mommy, enough, enough.
00:32:50.875 --> 00:32:51.295
Finish.
00:32:51.295 --> 00:32:51.654
Finish.
00:32:51.684 --> 00:32:52.075
Enough.
00:32:52.075 --> 00:32:52.434
Enough.
00:32:52.434 --> 00:32:53.454
Like she had enough.
00:32:53.454 --> 00:32:54.384
She doesn't want this anymore.
00:32:55.144 --> 00:32:55.954
So, you know what?
00:32:56.194 --> 00:33:01.265
I just pulled my eyes out, I think all that night in the hospital, and I just knew, she was trying to tell me she couldn't do this anymore.
00:33:01.684 --> 00:33:02.795
I'm sick of being rushed to hospital.
00:33:02.795 --> 00:33:03.785
I'm sick of feeling like this.
00:33:03.785 --> 00:33:05.585
And so I rang up the next day.
00:33:05.585 --> 00:33:06.605
I said, can we just do this operation?
00:33:06.605 --> 00:33:07.204
Can we get this done?
00:33:07.204 --> 00:33:07.900
Krishy needs this done.
00:33:07.960 --> 00:33:10.654
I'm worried it doesn't work if this, we just wait till we get a date again.
00:33:10.654 --> 00:33:17.779
And I remember the day I went in the theater, the theater nurse at the Austin, the renal nurse at the Austin came down to the room before I went in.
00:33:18.269 --> 00:33:19.588
Geez Mo, you are pretty good, aren't you?
00:33:19.619 --> 00:33:21.450
I said, um, geez, I just thought you'd be nervous.
00:33:21.450 --> 00:33:23.909
I'd come in specifically to see you go to sleep and whatever.
00:33:23.909 --> 00:33:25.289
I said, no, no, I just want done.
00:33:25.289 --> 00:33:25.710
Take it out.
00:33:25.710 --> 00:33:26.098
I'm fine.
00:33:26.098 --> 00:33:26.669
I'm great.
00:33:26.789 --> 00:33:28.769
Just get this thing outta me and take it to the children.
00:33:28.845 --> 00:33:32.039
So I said, because I just knew where Krishy was coming from.
00:33:32.039 --> 00:33:36.029
So sometimes it takes a child to remind you, not that I need, I was gonna do it anyway.
00:33:36.029 --> 00:33:42.598
But I wasn't saying nervous or nothing after I saw, because kids like Trisha and people like that sometimes they just have enough.
00:33:43.713 --> 00:33:44.434
They wanna give up.
00:33:44.434 --> 00:33:46.535
So they need people like us not to give up on them.
00:33:47.075 --> 00:33:47.434
Yeah.
00:33:47.463 --> 00:33:48.184
To see your kids.
00:33:48.245 --> 00:33:49.414
People suffer like that, you know?
00:33:49.414 --> 00:33:50.134
And someone you love.
00:33:50.765 --> 00:33:51.845
It doesn't have to be someone you love.
00:33:51.845 --> 00:33:53.194
It could be somewhere stranger as well.
00:33:53.765 --> 00:33:59.674
We have an opportunity to do something good and I just want this done then I was just couldn't wait to get it outta my body into hers.
00:34:00.634 --> 00:34:01.115
Yes.
00:34:01.204 --> 00:34:04.745
Well, I just, with little note there, sometimes wisdom doesn't always come in suits.
00:34:05.299 --> 00:34:14.838
Sometimes young people and children have a lot to teach us, but the recovery for her, when we were in a hospital, I, I got out to six days and I went to the Children's for a couple of days with her, and then we came home.
00:34:15.348 --> 00:34:20.989
So I'd be on the couch going, oh, oh, oh, just for a couple of days and she'd be hopping around the house with them.
00:34:21.289 --> 00:34:24.170
I'd had a dance and singing, so I used to laugh, thinking.
00:34:24.844 --> 00:34:27.784
It's either you are in a really good way or my kid is doing a great job.
00:34:28.235 --> 00:34:29.224
We just had a lot of jokes.
00:34:29.224 --> 00:34:35.525
So yeah, I was back to normal in a couple of weeks and it's great 'cause you get sport and people start looking after you for a change, which is unusual.
00:34:35.525 --> 00:34:39.784
So yeah, so there was a lot of highs and lows, but most of it was positive.
00:34:39.784 --> 00:34:44.045
And to see this, and you know, the amazing thing is Catherine Trish's learning better now.
00:34:44.045 --> 00:34:46.025
She's walking, she's talking, she's happier.
00:34:46.190 --> 00:34:47.599
I couldn't work out what it was.
00:34:47.599 --> 00:34:54.110
And I just said to Mythologist last year, the kids, I said, we've worked out what it was is because she's never felt so well in her life and she couldn't tell us.
00:34:54.110 --> 00:34:58.610
And she's just come on leaps and bounds and sometimes we look, oh wow, what did you say then?
00:34:58.610 --> 00:35:01.099
So she's the happiest human being on the plate here.
00:35:01.340 --> 00:35:02.929
She's the most beautiful thing on two legs.
00:35:02.929 --> 00:35:07.429
So she runs the house and we just love her and we wouldn't change for quid.
00:35:07.429 --> 00:35:07.789
So.
00:35:08.284 --> 00:35:12.155
Just having think that we've done a kidney in that little girl is just even a bonus.
00:35:12.155 --> 00:35:14.929
But sometimes when she's doing it, I'll say, listen, Krishy, behave yourself.
00:35:14.929 --> 00:35:16.204
I'm giving you my kidney behavior.
00:35:16.204 --> 00:35:18.795
Look after my kidney in there and comes in.
00:35:18.795 --> 00:35:19.595
Anyone where Krishy is?
00:35:19.595 --> 00:35:22.264
Oh yeah, she's in the backyard with my kidney in the other room.
00:35:22.684 --> 00:35:24.664
So many people can say those things.
00:35:24.664 --> 00:35:26.329
So not many people can.
00:35:27.590 --> 00:35:28.530
No, they can't.
00:35:28.530 --> 00:35:29.010
Exactly.
00:35:29.110 --> 00:35:29.329
No.
00:35:30.030 --> 00:35:30.250
Yes.
00:35:30.994 --> 00:35:32.884
See, my mom only had one kidney all her life.
00:35:32.974 --> 00:35:35.554
She didn't even know that until she was having babies.
00:35:35.554 --> 00:35:39.184
So a lot of people when have one kid not realizing, so my mom lived to the late eighties.
00:35:39.184 --> 00:35:41.440
So yeah, you can survive on one kidney for sure.
00:35:42.094 --> 00:35:59.494
It's interesting you're saying that that very big difference between someone who has gone through the process of managing their health through a chronic illness and then all of a sudden they have a new organ which allows them to thrive in a way that they never have been able to.
00:35:59.824 --> 00:36:01.355
Yeah, she's just a different person.
00:36:01.713 --> 00:36:08.045
And now I've heard it from other people too, but I didn't put two and two together and we've just seen a little person evolve into this.
00:36:08.554 --> 00:36:12.454
Beautiful young girl with lots of energy and happiness and yeah, it was just amazing.
00:36:12.485 --> 00:36:17.525
We became sort of a norm for her before and now we realize what the potential was.
00:36:17.525 --> 00:36:25.445
So, yeah, I often say we all have a spare, so you know, we all have one there if we wanna do something altruistic in our life and you know, something for someone else.
00:36:25.445 --> 00:36:32.284
And so, yeah, that's why I'm really passionate about it now, realizing, wow, I wish I'd known this sooner, but if I had,'cause he might not have got my kidney.
00:36:32.284 --> 00:36:35.135
So, and you know, my son Emmanuel, the first thing he said was, mum.
00:36:35.599 --> 00:36:36.980
Put me on the list to donate.
00:36:36.980 --> 00:36:38.659
I said, well, I'll put you on the list right there.
00:36:39.019 --> 00:36:43.579
So he was amazed at how many people have um, said, oh gee, I would like to do something like that as well on Inquire.
00:36:43.579 --> 00:36:46.880
And so until you start talking about it, you don't realize people don't know.
00:36:46.880 --> 00:36:50.090
So, and then just one of my volunteers here today.
00:36:51.034 --> 00:36:52.025
She's a Scottish girl.
00:36:52.025 --> 00:36:56.824
She heard I was doing this podcast and she says, Mo, I just want you to know it took me one minute, but I've just registered.
00:36:56.824 --> 00:36:58.835
I can't believe I, I've just registered as a donor.
00:36:59.074 --> 00:37:00.215
Oh, that's fantastic.
00:37:01.204 --> 00:37:01.355
Yeah.
00:37:01.355 --> 00:37:06.545
She just told me an hour before this podcast, I said, oh, what makes you, I was fully embarrassed.
00:37:06.545 --> 00:37:07.684
I couldn't believe I hadn't done it.
00:37:08.284 --> 00:37:11.135
And she just registered just an hour ago before this podcast.
00:37:11.135 --> 00:37:18.635
So if someone gets one person out there with these beautiful sympathetic ears, listens today, they might think just, you know, plant the seed.
00:37:18.815 --> 00:37:19.894
I figure plant the seed.
00:37:20.764 --> 00:37:28.175
There's like donors, but there's also donors out there who like what Yasmina's just done, my good friend who works here full-time as a volunteer, so Wow.
00:37:28.474 --> 00:37:29.135
Hadn't done that.
00:37:29.135 --> 00:37:29.764
She hadn't done it.
00:37:30.065 --> 00:37:47.164
And that's the thing I think that a lot of people I know when I went for my license many years ago, it was part of the process that with your license, whereas now it's just a matter of going onto the website and you can check whether you're registered and then also you can actually register as well.
00:37:47.164 --> 00:37:50.016
So as you said, it was very simple for your friend to.
00:37:50.195 --> 00:37:52.534
And it is, it's a really simple process.
00:37:52.865 --> 00:37:59.554
I didn't realize that one donor, deceased donor can provide seven organs, save seven people's lives, which I didn't realize that either was.
00:37:59.554 --> 00:38:00.065
I was shocked.
00:38:00.065 --> 00:38:03.934
You know, you always think of the kidney of the heart and it can save seven people's lives.
00:38:04.144 --> 00:38:06.005
I was amazed at that as well, so, wow.
00:38:06.664 --> 00:38:06.934
Phenomenal.
00:38:06.934 --> 00:38:07.925
It's phenomenal, isn't it?
00:38:07.925 --> 00:38:20.105
And something that people ask me quite a lot when I, I speak to sort of probus groups and those sorts of community organizations, people are always concerned that there might be a use by date on their organs.
00:38:20.375 --> 00:38:29.615
And something that I found out when I did a podcast with Donate Life last year was the fact that corneas are still something that.
00:38:29.934 --> 00:38:33.804
Don't age, which I'm like corneas of all things.
00:38:33.804 --> 00:38:34.045
You know?
00:38:35.275 --> 00:38:35.994
I heard that once too.
00:38:35.994 --> 00:38:38.815
Yes, I did hear that 90 year olds can donate to corneas.
00:38:39.085 --> 00:38:39.355
Yeah.
00:38:39.594 --> 00:38:41.275
To give people a second chance.
00:38:41.275 --> 00:38:42.775
So yeah, we all can be donors.
00:38:42.775 --> 00:38:48.445
And I suppose the important thing too is having a conversation without selling too cliche, but also.
00:38:48.753 --> 00:38:51.003
Like letting family members know you really wanna do this.
00:38:51.003 --> 00:38:53.644
So Yasmina, that's why she got embarrassed more.
00:38:53.644 --> 00:38:54.364
I'm just embarrassed.
00:38:54.364 --> 00:38:57.994
I've been with you for how long and I hadn't realized until today that I hadn't registered.
00:38:58.173 --> 00:38:59.733
It's just one of these things we're always gonna do.
00:38:59.943 --> 00:39:02.824
So it's also probably promoting the fact that we are gonna do it.
00:39:03.034 --> 00:39:03.753
Have you done it?
00:39:03.903 --> 00:39:04.295
You know?
00:39:04.295 --> 00:39:07.384
So that's probably a good way Get out this podcast today is Yes.
00:39:07.384 --> 00:39:08.315
It's something I'm thinking about.
00:39:08.494 --> 00:39:09.454
I'm thinking about have you done it?
00:39:09.454 --> 00:39:10.503
So yeah.
00:39:10.534 --> 00:39:12.934
So that's what taught me just by Yasmina saying that.
00:39:13.025 --> 00:39:13.534
So, yeah.
00:39:13.534 --> 00:39:14.224
Amazing.
00:39:14.970 --> 00:39:16.710
Yeah, it just shows you, but you don't have to wait till you die.
00:39:16.710 --> 00:39:19.679
You can give a kidney now there's 14,000 Australians wait on dialysis.
00:39:19.679 --> 00:39:23.579
So yeah, we need more good Australians just out there helping other Australians.
00:39:24.179 --> 00:39:30.210
And tell me with, given the fact that you've gone through that, that process and you've weighed it up in your own.
00:39:31.115 --> 00:39:36.755
Head about what you had to go through and what you were facing because it is still major surgery that you had to go through yourself.
00:39:37.144 --> 00:39:42.947
What would you say to someone who has come out the other side and then seen the difference that it's made with Krishy?
00:39:42.947 --> 00:39:50.074
What would you say to people who might be a little bit afraid, but do wanna actually help someone who might be near them that's suffering?
00:39:50.519 --> 00:39:51.275
Well, you know what?
00:39:51.485 --> 00:39:59.494
Probably the team that the children's work specifically with their child, and whether it's an adult at the world, Melbourne or Austin, they have a team that are so.
00:40:00.019 --> 00:40:05.990
So kind and so caring and take you through all the whole process at the Austin and they really look after their donors.
00:40:05.990 --> 00:40:09.409
That's one thing I realized and they said, I'm worried, yeah, we get the room here.
00:40:09.409 --> 00:40:13.280
I said, oh, I don't wanna have a room my own just as long enough with a fellow, but give it the old people.
00:40:13.280 --> 00:40:19.610
So I'm worried we will, but we always look after our donors and whenever you're unwell or whatever, you always have a priority 'cause they have such respect for the donors.
00:40:19.610 --> 00:40:19.670
So.
00:40:20.264 --> 00:40:29.025
All the journey through from the specialist to the test, to every, once they know you're a donor, you've gotta, because they put you on a priority list for all the scans because they need to get you done quickly.
00:40:29.414 --> 00:40:32.384
'cause you've got a sick person waiting for you everywhere you go.
00:40:32.384 --> 00:40:36.704
People treat with such kindness and goodness and they're just so grateful and they go, oh wow, you're a donor.
00:40:36.704 --> 00:40:37.335
They still have that.
00:40:37.335 --> 00:40:40.510
Even though they see them, they get a.
00:40:37.335 --> 00:40:40.510
Oh, I see on your paper you were diving.
00:40:40.510 --> 00:40:41.170
Oh, well done.
00:40:41.619 --> 00:40:42.429
How'd you get into that?
00:40:42.429 --> 00:40:43.990
So even hospital staff ask you that.
00:40:43.990 --> 00:40:45.099
So yeah, I don't know.
00:40:45.099 --> 00:40:46.449
You're supported so beautifully.
00:40:46.449 --> 00:40:50.619
And even after you get outta hospital, the team look after you for the rest of your life.
00:40:50.619 --> 00:40:53.170
Like you see them every year or every six months, you hear from them.
00:40:53.170 --> 00:40:55.210
So the donors have really looked after.
00:40:55.210 --> 00:40:58.900
If you ever got unwell and you needed a donor, you'd be on the top of the list as well.
00:40:58.900 --> 00:41:01.869
So donors are absolutely treated like.
00:41:02.329 --> 00:41:05.119
The gold, the gold platter, basically in a beautiful way as well.
00:41:05.360 --> 00:41:11.780
There's only one funny thing that happened to me once was because it's during COVID, some of the appointments I couldn't go in for, so you had to also have a mental health check.
00:41:12.500 --> 00:41:20.954
So there was this psychologist or psychiatrist, I think she was a registrar at the Austin and, and so I knew I had this appointment, so I was quickly cooked in and I came out here and I went.
00:41:21.394 --> 00:41:21.934
On the zoom.
00:41:21.934 --> 00:41:23.974
And so I had something on the stove as well, right?
00:41:23.974 --> 00:41:29.733
So I do this questionnaire and she's asking me these questions and I have to laugh sometimes'cause my father's an Irishman.
00:41:29.733 --> 00:41:31.835
I went to school and I, so I'm a very fast talker, right?
00:41:31.835 --> 00:41:34.894
So in the middle of these questions, she's asking me about questions.
00:41:34.894 --> 00:41:37.505
She says, Moira, I just need to ask you a question.
00:41:37.505 --> 00:41:37.954
I says, yeah, yeah.
00:41:37.954 --> 00:41:38.224
What's that?
00:41:38.224 --> 00:41:39.724
I do you like shopping?
00:41:40.909 --> 00:41:42.769
I said, do I like, what do I like shopping?
00:41:42.769 --> 00:41:44.659
I says, um, well actually tell the truth.
00:41:44.690 --> 00:41:45.829
No, I can't stand shopping.
00:41:45.889 --> 00:41:46.610
It does my heady.
00:41:46.610 --> 00:41:48.829
I said, I can't understand why people wanna browse and look at things.
00:41:48.829 --> 00:41:50.269
It would, I don't have people have the time.
00:41:50.269 --> 00:41:51.260
I says, um, I thought, no.
00:41:51.260 --> 00:41:52.190
A stupid question.
00:41:52.190 --> 00:41:53.510
I says, back, back up a bit.
00:41:53.510 --> 00:41:57.889
Now do you ask me the question for, we're talking about donation of kidney here, if I'm okay with this.
00:41:58.684 --> 00:41:59.375
Oh no, Moira.
00:41:59.375 --> 00:42:01.864
I'm just trying to work out if you are bipolar or something.
00:42:01.894 --> 00:42:03.693
'cause you talk very fast and fast.
00:42:03.693 --> 00:42:06.213
People often, are they bipolar or schizophrenia else?
00:42:06.213 --> 00:42:07.653
I says, are you for real?
00:42:07.653 --> 00:42:09.454
So if I was, do you think I was gonna tell you anyway?
00:42:10.355 --> 00:42:13.114
There's always some funny things that come out during this journey, you know?
00:42:13.114 --> 00:42:14.105
So, oh, that's funny.
00:42:14.105 --> 00:42:14.313
I told the.
00:42:15.034 --> 00:42:15.094
Yeah.
00:42:16.144 --> 00:42:20.884
So don't like shopping and don't talk too fast, or you have a, I had to laugh for the team of the children.
00:42:20.884 --> 00:42:21.753
They all knew me for years.
00:42:21.753 --> 00:42:22.355
They were laughing.
00:42:22.355 --> 00:42:24.454
I says, well, they must have got you on a slowdown.
00:42:24.454 --> 00:42:25.594
I says, yeah, I had something on the oven.
00:42:25.594 --> 00:42:28.173
So I was this preoccupied equipment.
00:42:28.384 --> 00:42:32.193
Yeah, so, so they cover every base, you know, they tick all the boxes.
00:42:32.193 --> 00:42:33.153
So, yeah.
00:42:33.184 --> 00:42:34.653
So I passed the mental health check Anyway.
00:42:34.713 --> 00:42:36.094
That's always good to know.
00:42:37.054 --> 00:42:39.934
And tell me more, like, you've gotta have a sense of humor with all this.
00:42:39.934 --> 00:42:41.403
You can't take it all too serious.
00:42:41.929 --> 00:42:58.668
You do, and I think with everything that you have witnessed in your life and the areas that you work in have always had some element of crisis or trauma or unrest in the spaces that you've been, what has that taught you about life itself?
00:42:59.300 --> 00:43:00.740
Probably how precious it is.
00:43:00.740 --> 00:43:04.369
Like I lived in Romania for about a year and a half, nearly two years.
00:43:04.369 --> 00:43:13.610
I was in charge of an Irish organization for kids with aids, and we lost, you know, over 20 something children and they were died in threes and they died at different times.
00:43:13.610 --> 00:43:17.720
And yeah, you just never realize the world could sometimes be so cruel and.
00:43:18.039 --> 00:43:24.280
How can little children, you know, little children are not meant to suffer Catherine, and sometimes I felt that the world, they know what's going on over here.
00:43:24.280 --> 00:43:27.670
These little kids are just as precious as children with Australian passports, you know?
00:43:27.670 --> 00:43:30.429
So you just realize how precious life is.
00:43:30.429 --> 00:43:34.360
If you have an opportunity to fix a little kid up, that's one little child you've saved.
00:43:34.630 --> 00:43:40.625
I can't imagine all these doctors, especially these surgeons and doctors who must line a soft pillow at night knowing that.
00:43:41.074 --> 00:43:44.735
They go to home at night thinking they've made someone well and they've saved someone's life.
00:43:44.735 --> 00:43:46.594
And so don't you wanna be a part of that?
00:43:46.594 --> 00:43:49.144
Like something really good like that, that you really made a difference.
00:43:49.144 --> 00:43:53.045
So, I mean, don't want anybody be a part of something good that really makes a different in people's lives.
00:43:53.045 --> 00:43:58.534
And I mean, they do this every day just to get a taste of this for a couple of weeks in your whole life or once a year.
00:43:58.534 --> 00:44:00.634
I mean, don't you order wanna be part of something good?
00:44:00.634 --> 00:44:00.965
You know?
00:44:00.965 --> 00:44:07.235
So you can't help but when you get a kid fixed and you think, oh, Charles, and you hear another child, of course you wanna help them.
00:44:07.235 --> 00:44:08.789
And I think as humans, we all.
00:44:09.295 --> 00:44:14.784
Empathetic and we all good people, we all wanna help others and we wanna have a chance to help others and sometimes we just don't know how.
00:44:15.204 --> 00:44:18.445
So yeah, I always remember this great surgeon at the World Children's.
00:44:18.505 --> 00:44:23.485
He was run out of a function one night and I saw him, I ran after him and I just said, oh listen, he's a heart surgeon at the kids.
00:44:23.485 --> 00:44:25.375
And I said, listen, thank you so much for coming tonight.
00:44:25.375 --> 00:44:26.545
I can't believe you found the time.
00:44:27.114 --> 00:44:28.014
He goes, oh, no problems.
00:44:28.105 --> 00:44:32.275
I said to him that night, I said, you must lay on a soft pillar every night for all those little children who operate.
00:44:32.275 --> 00:44:34.675
You've done like 30 of my kids hard operations.
00:44:34.675 --> 00:44:36.115
I, you know, you must just.
00:44:36.605 --> 00:44:37.744
Be the happiest man on earth.
00:44:37.744 --> 00:44:41.795
He says, Moira, he said, always remember, I, I live by this motto, Catherine.
00:44:41.795 --> 00:44:45.570
Always remember one child is still one life and rather look at the big numbers.
00:44:46.684 --> 00:44:49.025
So try that Life in front of you is so important.
00:44:49.025 --> 00:44:53.704
So whether you're a donor for an adult or a child or whatever, it's still one life.
00:44:53.704 --> 00:44:58.594
So don't underestimate the enormity of that and don't look at the big numbers.
00:44:58.594 --> 00:45:04.565
Just look what's in front of you, how precious life is, and you just wanna be around something that's good and, and warm and fuzzy, and.
00:45:05.184 --> 00:45:05.905
Full of goodness.
00:45:05.905 --> 00:45:09.295
It's only good things can be around something when you're helping someone else like this.
00:45:09.295 --> 00:45:15.204
So yeah, I look at them and I just, I suppose in life, Catherine, we always see the good in others before we see the good in ourselves as well.
00:45:15.204 --> 00:45:21.025
But we all wanna be, know that we are good people, but we've also good for others, you know, and create goodness in the world.
00:45:21.025 --> 00:45:23.784
You know, it's interesting that you say that because.
00:45:24.425 --> 00:45:38.795
The people that you're talking about are skilled professionals and, and they are doing their role, but you've gone a little bit beyond that, haven't you, Moira, with actually donating your own kidney to save someone's life?
00:45:39.425 --> 00:45:40.744
Not everyone can do that.
00:45:41.989 --> 00:45:44.599
See, I don't think, I don't really think they're like that.
00:45:44.599 --> 00:45:46.820
I just think it was, wasn't even a second thought in my head.
00:45:46.820 --> 00:45:50.239
There's not a mother and a father out there that probably wouldn't think twice about it.
00:45:50.869 --> 00:45:54.710
It's funny 'cause my dad's an Irish man and I said to dad one day because he says, oh, I'm worried I know what you're doing.
00:45:54.710 --> 00:45:56.150
You know, you, you know, you sure you're doing this?
00:45:56.150 --> 00:45:57.769
I said, dad, put it this way.
00:45:57.798 --> 00:46:00.364
'cause my dad's an Irishman, so you've gotta appreciate the, the sense of humor.
00:46:00.949 --> 00:46:04.009
I said, dad, if I need a kidney, for God's sake, I know you gimme a kidney.
00:46:04.219 --> 00:46:05.630
I bloody would not give you one more.
00:46:06.230 --> 00:46:06.739
He says.
00:46:07.110 --> 00:46:09.809
I'm sure we probably would, but he was just wanting, get my reaction.
00:46:09.809 --> 00:46:13.230
But you gotta have a sense of humor because even through the journey, there's ups and downs.
00:46:13.230 --> 00:46:16.320
But for the terrible times at Krishy, there'd been lots of fun as well.
00:46:16.740 --> 00:46:25.110
And even during the journey with the doctors, the, the doctors, you, your bears, the nurses, there's jokes and there's talks and you know, there's miracles and there's, there's all that.
00:46:25.110 --> 00:46:25.110
There's.
00:46:25.744 --> 00:46:33.065
Highs and those often say these buildings of hospitals are wonderful structures of, of miracles, performing those doors every day.
00:46:33.065 --> 00:46:34.534
But there is also great sadness.
00:46:34.985 --> 00:46:43.085
It's like when, I suppose when you're a deceased donor, you look in one room, it's full of joy that someone's got this wonderful hope, and yet there's so sadness somewhere else.
00:46:43.085 --> 00:46:49.355
So yeah, those buildings of hope have got lots of incredible moments of people's highs and lows in life that.
00:46:49.789 --> 00:46:55.789
Sometimes we're a part of, or sometimes we're outside, we don't know, but everyone's got a journey and mine was this one.
00:46:55.789 --> 00:46:56.778
Mine was a no brainer.
00:46:56.898 --> 00:46:58.820
It was something I was so excited to do.
00:46:59.704 --> 00:47:03.095
And when we, we are talking there about hope.
00:47:03.815 --> 00:47:15.755
Can we talk a little bit about a project that we both just chatted about before we came on air that involves the architect from the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, Andrew Laidlaw, and that's the piece guard Mayor.
00:47:16.650 --> 00:47:16.980
Yes.
00:47:16.980 --> 00:47:18.179
It's a global peace.
00:47:18.179 --> 00:47:18.690
That's right.
00:47:18.869 --> 00:47:19.260
Yeah.
00:47:19.260 --> 00:47:23.639
So Andrews came out to Gaza me a couple of times because Build Children's Garden.
00:47:23.670 --> 00:47:26.880
'cause I bought a lot of kids out from Gaza for surgery as well, from all over the world.
00:47:26.880 --> 00:47:30.360
And having said that, lots of kids also get operated in Israel as well.
00:47:30.360 --> 00:47:34.139
During that time there was some kids that needed to come to us and, and Andrew came out there.
00:47:34.139 --> 00:47:39.599
I just told, when I came back from Gaza, one of my trips, I was given the contact with Andrew and he's, he's a bit out there as well.
00:47:39.599 --> 00:47:44.340
So he's in for a bit of an adventure and something different and the Palestinian.
00:47:44.420 --> 00:47:47.269
Government at the time had given me land, which is unheard of.
00:47:47.269 --> 00:47:47.929
It's a long story.
00:47:47.929 --> 00:47:48.710
I won't go in today.
00:47:48.710 --> 00:47:52.039
And because I told them I'd build them a garden, I didn't think it was gonna be that difficult.
00:47:52.039 --> 00:47:52.460
I'm sure.
00:47:53.134 --> 00:47:58.204
People in Australia could build us a gardening Gaza, and if you give us land, I'm sure the Australian people would do that for you.
00:47:58.204 --> 00:48:03.394
So anyway, about six months later, I got this titled Land in My Name and Make a long story short.
00:48:03.394 --> 00:48:04.713
And I thought, oh God, this is getting a bit real.
00:48:05.344 --> 00:48:06.605
They're gonna come back with land.
00:48:07.114 --> 00:48:10.474
And Andrew came on, he's been on few, few trips with me, and yeah, we were.
00:48:10.539 --> 00:48:15.460
After so many years, we finally had the tender out and two weeks before this particular war started.
00:48:15.460 --> 00:48:19.150
Um, yeah, we just didn't go ahead, but Andrew's gone ahead with the foundation.
00:48:19.150 --> 00:48:21.340
I've sort of been busy these days, but I'm just the patron.
00:48:21.340 --> 00:48:28.840
But there's gardens being built all over vulnerable communities here in Melbourne and in Victoria that Andrews spearheaded with the Global Gardens of Peace.
00:48:29.230 --> 00:48:31.630
They have their meetings at, at the um, gardens.
00:48:31.630 --> 00:48:32.199
And so that's.
00:48:33.699 --> 00:48:38.918
The, the sea that came outta Gaza, all these beautiful gardens here in Melbourne, in vulnerable communities.
00:48:38.918 --> 00:48:40.869
So that's still continuing, but what a small world.
00:48:40.869 --> 00:48:43.719
You worked with Andrew there and we just had to discussed the same person we knew.
00:48:44.079 --> 00:48:46.929
A mutual, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful human being.
00:48:47.139 --> 00:48:48.460
Yeah, he's very special.
00:48:48.460 --> 00:48:55.688
He's got a great sense of humor and I always saw Elli in a different way, in a constructive size, and I just saw my working humanitarian.
00:48:56.003 --> 00:48:56.483
Bit different.
00:48:56.483 --> 00:49:05.963
When I met Andrew, I just saw the same values as humanitarian and spiritualizing Andrew, and I just thought, wow, artists, people are very similar to humanitarian people.
00:49:06.324 --> 00:49:15.659
And I had never put that across, never seen that until I met Andrew, that I realized the spiritual connection that artists people have with humanitarians, because he's a definitely a.
00:49:16.389 --> 00:49:17.320
Very artistic.
00:49:17.710 --> 00:49:17.980
Yeah.
00:49:17.980 --> 00:49:27.460
I, I don't quite know how Andrew's brain works, but he's got this incredible gift to be able to design and picture something in, in these unique places and what he is put together in different places now.
00:49:27.460 --> 00:49:36.099
But he is made me realize the connection that humanitarians have, that these artists people have on a real humanitarian level to another level that was phenomenal.
00:49:36.099 --> 00:49:39.519
So to see how he sees things and how it's gonna help people.
00:49:40.429 --> 00:49:41.780
Really look at the core of people.
00:49:41.780 --> 00:49:46.159
I was, yeah, he taught me a lot, Andrew, just, just by listening and, and observing him.
00:49:46.159 --> 00:49:50.720
So yeah, humanitarian and artist people have lot, lot, lot, lots of gel with each other.
00:49:50.720 --> 00:49:51.800
We are very similar people.
00:49:51.800 --> 00:49:54.170
So yeah, he taught me a lot about that.
00:49:54.170 --> 00:49:56.240
So that will still happen one day, Catherine.
00:49:56.240 --> 00:50:02.355
But the moment, global Garden of Peace, he's very passionate about building these beautiful green spaces in vulnerable community in Melbourne.
00:50:02.389 --> 00:50:03.559
So yeah.
00:50:03.559 --> 00:50:05.690
So what a small world it is.
00:50:05.809 --> 00:50:09.349
And tell me what do you think the connection is and, and.
00:50:09.625 --> 00:50:16.434
In relation to spirituality and where does your spirituality sit now given everything that you've seen?
00:50:16.494 --> 00:50:18.144
Do you still have a strong faith?
00:50:18.144 --> 00:50:19.735
Is it of a particular religion?
00:50:20.065 --> 00:50:21.804
How has it evolved over time?
00:50:22.849 --> 00:50:34.010
Well, I suppose one thing I've also learned as I've gone along my way,'cause I've lived in a lot of countries overseas for like 15 years in different religions and, and I think all religion represents something good.
00:50:34.400 --> 00:50:40.010
And I think if all of us as the followers of religion, if we all listen to our leaders of faith.
00:50:40.443 --> 00:50:45.693
They all practice the same, exactly the same sermons, but sometimes we get misconstrued, you know?
00:50:46.114 --> 00:50:50.914
But they all talk about kindness and empathy and giving and charity and forgiveness.
00:50:50.974 --> 00:50:56.824
Everyone talks about that doesn't matter what religion you are, but we always, it's the followers who sometimes misinterpret that.
00:50:57.215 --> 00:51:03.934
I'm a conventional old Catholic nic coming from a Catholic traditional family, but my kids come from different religions and an Irish family.
00:51:04.309 --> 00:51:05.179
Exactly.
00:51:05.989 --> 00:51:10.940
Then I have volunteers and people I've met on my journey who are spiritual by going to a park and a beach.
00:51:10.940 --> 00:51:14.601
And so sometimes we all connect in our own way, so it may not be.
00:51:15.320 --> 00:51:22.159
Something like me, that's a very, a very Catholic sort of background, but spirituality can be shared in different ways.
00:51:22.159 --> 00:51:24.199
So I respect and sort of accept them all.
00:51:24.199 --> 00:51:26.179
And look, you never know we duck up there.
00:51:26.179 --> 00:51:29.480
It could be Jehovah, it could be my hubba, could be Lord, who knows when we get upstairs.
00:51:29.929 --> 00:51:31.670
But we all, as long as we've had a good life.
00:51:32.134 --> 00:51:35.375
And we remember to do kind to others, you know?
00:51:35.375 --> 00:51:38.195
And don't underestimate the good that you can do for others too.
00:51:38.195 --> 00:51:39.364
It's not about the world here.
00:51:39.364 --> 00:51:41.224
We live in that we just do things for ourself.
00:51:41.224 --> 00:51:42.155
We have a bigger community.
00:51:42.155 --> 00:51:44.134
We are all born in this world right now forever.
00:51:44.134 --> 00:51:48.875
Like one of the reasons I went to Bosnia was, look, I wasn't around for World War II and I can't look at world movies.
00:51:48.875 --> 00:51:50.675
I just couldn't because I felt so frustrated.
00:51:51.125 --> 00:51:55.534
But I know in years to come, you know, kids will go back and say, well, what did you do in the Bosnian war?
00:51:55.534 --> 00:51:56.614
What did you do at the Gaza War?
00:51:56.614 --> 00:51:57.949
What did you do in the World War ii?
00:51:58.025 --> 00:52:00.605
I said, well, I wasn't here for World War ii, but I was here for the Bosnian War.
00:52:00.605 --> 00:52:01.295
I was alive.
00:52:02.019 --> 00:52:02.679
I could do something.
00:52:02.679 --> 00:52:10.960
Not everyone has to pull their sleeves up and go to Bosnia, but there's things you can do to support the communities here in Melbourne and the Ukraines and the the people.
00:52:10.960 --> 00:52:13.750
Just because we're Australian doesn't mean these things are not our problems.
00:52:14.380 --> 00:52:15.849
And it's a funny world we live in.
00:52:15.909 --> 00:52:18.340
It depends on what passport you own is whether you live or die.
00:52:18.340 --> 00:52:25.900
So sometimes we complain about our governments and our countries, but the three most important things in your life besides your health and family are your passport or your Medicare card.
00:52:26.380 --> 00:52:27.670
And people still complain about that.
00:52:28.574 --> 00:52:40.423
So until you go to places where unfortunately the children I meet, they just own the wrong passport and they're just not, they're not entitled to the same healthcare as children Australia, which is, to me, I never knew that existed until I lived overseas.
00:52:40.423 --> 00:52:45.614
So that's probably what drives me a lot, Catherine, you know, is rather than complain about it, do something about it.
00:52:47.025 --> 00:52:48.014
And looking forward.
00:52:48.403 --> 00:52:52.244
Moira, what do you think that the next five, 10 years will, will look like for you?
00:52:52.244 --> 00:52:54.045
What projects are you currently working on?
00:52:54.650 --> 00:53:09.710
Well, we've got some other kids arriving from overseas pretty soon and I'd like to get another house in Melbourne and we do the foundation, are hoping to get some land not far from Melbourne, closer to the city where we're gonna put some cottages on for carers and for women at risk.
00:53:09.710 --> 00:53:14.059
'cause we also have our home here in Melbourne and we've got another one set up now is also apart from the sick kids.
00:53:14.059 --> 00:53:19.159
We also have women who either pregnant, who have children who are homeless for some reason, and there goes obvious.
00:53:19.159 --> 00:53:20.570
They've got their drug and alcohol problems.
00:53:20.570 --> 00:53:21.590
We move them in here as well.
00:53:21.590 --> 00:53:24.170
So we'd like to set up a, a sort of a place.
00:53:24.170 --> 00:53:25.880
So that, not a refuge but a home for them.
00:53:26.179 --> 00:53:33.920
We take sort of women on long term, so lot of our women come through the Sisters of Mother there, here in Fitzroy 'cause they know that, that he's sorted in our home.
00:53:33.920 --> 00:53:36.619
But we'd like to set up a place not far outta Melbourne.
00:53:37.204 --> 00:53:47.764
Where we could have women and families who just can't afford to go on holidays, like carers and single moms and, and still also offer sort of a sanctuary for women who are going through terrible ordeals apart from our sick kids.
00:53:47.764 --> 00:53:50.224
So that's something we wanna grow and have a legacy there as well.
00:53:50.224 --> 00:53:50.974
So, yeah.
00:53:51.005 --> 00:53:54.514
So there's always something beautiful to be done in this beautiful world of ours, you know?
00:53:55.175 --> 00:53:57.545
And what does that word legacy mean to you?
00:53:57.545 --> 00:53:59.014
Moira, I suppose.
00:53:59.795 --> 00:54:03.574
You wanna be able to look back and, and think that you did something good in your life.
00:54:03.635 --> 00:54:09.095
And maybe like, look, I look at Mother Theresa, she's not with us now, but her legacy lives on in me.
00:54:09.095 --> 00:54:14.974
When people talk about, I tell her funny stories and the, the crack mother Theresa had, she was great fun.
00:54:14.974 --> 00:54:21.394
So that's a legacy that's sometimes not all necessarily holy and thou, it's, she was a fun woman from Albany.
00:54:21.394 --> 00:54:22.385
She had a great sense of humor.
00:54:22.715 --> 00:54:24.065
And look what she's done to the world.
00:54:24.184 --> 00:54:25.835
There's people they still talk about to the day.
00:54:26.829 --> 00:54:30.034
To, to our own grandparents and the next grandparents don't survive.
00:54:30.034 --> 00:54:40.474
So I look at her legacy and I think no one can hit that high, but to be able to know that you've been a good person and you've made a difference in the world and there's some life has come from your life.
00:54:40.474 --> 00:54:53.375
So like I'd love Catherine is to come, is to go around and travel some of the countries in the world and find some of the kids I took to America or to Ireland or here and see not how they are, but the life that's come from that life.
00:54:54.215 --> 00:55:03.800
Like, you know, often thinking Bosnia, the first two boys I brought to Australia, they may not remember Moira Kelly, and they may not remember Melbourne, but they know people in Australia were there when they needed them.
00:55:04.759 --> 00:55:05.599
That's what life's about.
00:55:05.599 --> 00:55:11.719
It's not about leaving your own name and moving monuments, but it's about knowing that people cared for them in their darkest hours.
00:55:11.719 --> 00:55:13.789
And just because we're Australian didn't mean it wasn't our problem.
00:55:13.789 --> 00:55:14.509
It is our problem.
00:55:14.509 --> 00:55:15.858
So they know people.
00:55:15.858 --> 00:55:16.849
They'll talk to their grandparents.
00:55:16.849 --> 00:55:21.528
Oh yeah, those children, you know, we had people went to Australia, Australian people looked after kids in Bosnia.
00:55:22.009 --> 00:55:26.358
I mean, that's a great legacy for our culture and for our people because we are a caring nation.
00:55:26.358 --> 00:55:29.148
So it's not about, it's not about the Moira Kelly.
00:55:29.148 --> 00:55:32.148
It's about us as a community and that people did care about them.
00:55:32.389 --> 00:55:33.559
It's how those people felt.
00:55:34.684 --> 00:55:42.034
So, yeah, I think that's what's more important is that the, the mark you've left on the people's lives, you know, that they, they, they meant something.
00:55:42.784 --> 00:55:46.684
And Moura, I'd have to say that would make an amazing documentary that I'd definitely watch.
00:55:47.255 --> 00:55:49.025
Okay, thank you.
00:55:49.653 --> 00:55:56.463
There's a couple of us, a friend Maria Louis wanna travel when we do that, just to find out where they are and I don't even know where to go.
00:55:56.463 --> 00:55:59.525
I know exactly where to go and find the life that's come from their life.
00:55:59.525 --> 00:56:04.565
I think that says a lot about, you know, that old saying, the doctor said, don't forget one child is still one life.
00:56:05.119 --> 00:56:06.650
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:56:06.860 --> 00:56:10.039
And the ripple effect of that would be amazing.
00:56:10.400 --> 00:56:15.829
And also Catherine, the generations of people in those communities will always know that Country Australia, they took some people from here.
00:56:16.250 --> 00:56:19.159
I mean, the goodwill there, you know, that people care just because we're in Australia.
00:56:19.490 --> 00:56:19.760
Wow.
00:56:19.760 --> 00:56:20.809
They took people from here.
00:56:21.380 --> 00:56:21.710
Yeah.
00:56:21.740 --> 00:56:24.470
There's a child years ago to Australia and got fixed.
00:56:24.470 --> 00:56:26.720
I mean, that's what the world's about, you know?
00:56:27.155 --> 00:56:30.539
Yeah, breaking down barriers and really, you know, we are not as big.
00:56:30.539 --> 00:56:31.985
We're not as far away as we are.
00:56:32.615 --> 00:56:33.425
We care about you.
00:56:33.425 --> 00:56:34.534
You know, so yeah.
00:56:34.835 --> 00:56:37.655
Their life is as precious as well have the wrong passport.
00:56:37.655 --> 00:56:38.945
But your life is precious.
00:56:39.514 --> 00:56:39.724
Yeah.
00:56:39.724 --> 00:56:42.485
We do care and we don't want any money, want any rewards.
00:56:42.485 --> 00:56:45.095
We don't want payment, we don't want presence.
00:56:45.304 --> 00:56:46.804
We did it because of the right thing to do.
00:56:48.514 --> 00:56:48.875
Mm-hmm.
00:56:49.295 --> 00:56:54.875
Laura, I think that is a beautiful ideology and a version of legacy that I'd really like to see.
00:56:55.909 --> 00:56:56.595
Oh, thank you.
00:56:57.485 --> 00:56:57.954
Thank you.
00:56:58.280 --> 00:57:01.369
Yeah, thank you so much for spending time with us today.
00:57:01.940 --> 00:57:02.659
Good on you, Catherine.
00:57:02.659 --> 00:57:05.449
You've been a wonderful interviewer too, by the way, so thanks for having me.
00:57:06.110 --> 00:57:09.889
And I hope you and I today, we could have, we have, could have performed a miracle.
00:57:09.889 --> 00:57:12.440
There could be a couple of people there today that says, yeah, I wanna be a live donor.
00:57:12.440 --> 00:57:13.130
So cheers.
00:57:13.130 --> 00:57:16.355
Hoping, Hey, we'll have the link in the show notes, people.
00:57:16.519 --> 00:57:24.079
So jump online, check with what your status is, and if you're not an organ donor and you feel comfortable to do so, sign up.
00:57:25.235 --> 00:57:30.514
Also just look at Donate Life for all that sort of information, because they're the experts on this and they live this every day.
00:57:30.514 --> 00:57:35.405
So they get those wonderful phone calls to tell a family that someone's been saved.
00:57:35.405 --> 00:57:36.514
They also get the hard ones.
00:57:36.514 --> 00:57:39.994
So yeah, that's, they're pretty magic people in there.
00:57:40.505 --> 00:57:40.925
Yeah.
00:57:41.735 --> 00:57:42.815
Thanks so much, Mara.
00:57:43.204 --> 00:57:43.534
Good on you.
00:57:43.534 --> 00:57:46.655
God bless Catherine, and good luck to everyone and have a great year, guys.
00:57:46.655 --> 00:57:50.494
And just keep an eye out for the Donate Life Program and just even spread the word.
00:57:51.034 --> 00:57:51.695
Good on you, Catherine.
00:57:51.695 --> 00:57:52.115
Thank you.
00:57:54.980 --> 00:58:00.470
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