Queen honours volunteer Yvonne
Published: March 20, 2005
A long-time Bahrain resident is to be honoured with an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for her social work in Bahrain and abroad. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth is expected to present Yvonne Trueman with the award in a ceremony to held at Buckingham Palace, in London, UK, this summer. The Briton has been greatly involved in fund-raising in Bahrain and helping orphans in Belize, for more than 25 years. Mrs Trueman, who has been a resident of Bahrain for more than 25 years, found out she was on the honours list when she received a phone call from the UK.
“The list has been made public in the UK but not in Bahrain,” said Mrs Trueman, who last month returned to Bahrain from charity work in Belize.
The award is for her work for a variety of charities over the years.
Many people will recognise Mrs Trueman from charity stalls at Bahrain events, where she sells Guatemalan artefacts for the Wildtracks charity.
It is a project she committed herself to more than 10 years ago, following the death of her son Captain Julian Pooley, a helicopter pilot in the British Army.
It was only after his death in a road accident while stationed in Belize in 1994 that she learned how much he had been doing for the children of an orphanage in Belize City, so she decided to carry on for him.
Wildtracks is a volunteer, non-profit organisation located on the north-eastern coast of Belize, which focuses on conservation and environmental education. Mrs Trueman’s fund-raising not only helps support the orphans at the Dorothy Menzies Child Care Home, but also to send some of the children for weekends at Wildtracks.
Mrs Trueman was already a veteran charity worker long before getting involved with the Belize orphanage, having started running to raise funds for the Muharraq Geriatric Hospital 20 years ago.
Thousands of dinars were raised over the course of the many kilometres she covered in four London marathons, two New York marathons and half a dozen local half marathons.
Mrs Trueman’s charity work also includes her involvement in the Dreamflight project, which takes seriously ill children on a 10-day journey-of-a-lifetime in Disney World, Orlando, Florida, US.
She has been Dreamflight Bahrain’s chief fund-raiser for the last five years, but has been involved in Dreamflight since her brother Derek Pereira founded it in 1986.
Every year, since 2001, Bahrain has been able to send two children on Dreamflight as ambassadors of the kingdom, joining hundreds of other seriously ill youngsters from the UK and Hong Kong on the holiday, which is supported by British Airways.
Mrs Trueman is also a pilot, who is encouraging flight training among nationals and residents of the Gulf states. She earned her private pilot’s licence following months of training in the UK more than 30 years ago.
Subsequently, she joined the family aviation business and travelled the world engaged in sales and marketing.
She also compiled several flight guides for private pilots and worked as a correspondent in Switzerland.
Finally, she worked as an aircraft broker (selling aircraft to the uninitiated), and it was in this capacity that she first came to Bahrain in the late 70s.
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