2001 – Tim Aline Rebeaud

Tim Aline Rebeaud
Tim Aline Rebeaud

Born on April 11, 1972, a painter and world traveler, her timeless journey brought her to Vietnam. With neither fanfare nor grand media attention, she does what it occurs to her quite naturally to do: improve the living conditions of the forgotten orphans and handicaps from chemical warfare in Vietnam.

Tim Aline Rebeaud is of Swiss nationality.  More than twenty years ago, she created Maison Chance in Hô Chi Minh City, which today is home to about seventy disabled people and orphans. This center, aptly named by its inhabitants, is neither a shelter nor a hospital, but a simple dwelling that is equipped to provide medical care, first and foremost, but also to provide education and training for citizens who-professionally creditable despite their handicaps -live in a country that provides them with no social welfare.

Today, more than 60 disabled people and disadvantaged youth are provided vocational training and jobs at the Take wing center opened in 2006, more than 250 disadvantaged children are offered free schooling and about 48 families are living in adapted apartments at the Village Chance inaugurated in 2011. She continues helping out ethnic minorities, the poorest people in the highlands of Dak Nong province by setting a new

complex project. This new social center’s purpose is to ensure the continuity of the care for quadriplegic beneficiaries of Maison Chance (whose reintegration is difficult) and also plans to assist the mentally disabled.

Her actions are not affiliated with any religious community; in order for her to be officially admitted and recognized by the Vietnamese government, she has had to secure a partnership with a Vietnamese priest who is also engaged in humanitarian action.

If it were possible for the philanthropist Henry Dunant to meet her, he would immediately recognize her as a contemporary humanitarian in a country suffering- even today -from the after-effects of long years of war.

For this reason the Prix Henry Dunant was awarded to her on April 27, 2002, in Hô Chi Minh City, in the company of her “family,” representatives from the Foundation, as well as Swiss and Vietnamese authorities.

The sum awarded with the Prix Henry Dunant allowed Maison Chance to purchase its first group transport vehicle.

 

Website: www.maison-chance.org