2026 NSW Australian of the Year Dr Alison Thompson OAM

Australian Community Media

It started on September 11, 2001, when as an investment banker, Alison rushed to New York’s World Trade Centre with her first aid kit. She stayed nine months, offering disaster relief arm-in-arm with ordinary, like-minded people.

Transcript

00:00so in 2001 I was living in New York City and I was doing investment banking I was

00:07doing some filmmaking different sorts of things and then September 11th happened

00:12I lost 64 friends that day and they were in the buildings so I just knew something

00:19inside of me I knew that I could do something you know I just grabbed my

00:22little medical kit and raced eight miles downtown on my rollerblades and as I

00:27arrived at the World Trade Center it really was something unbelievable nothing

00:32else made sense after that so that's when I knew I had to do something

00:36different in my life and and then it all everything else went on from there I am

00:42the founder of third wave volunteers we respond to all the major disasters around

00:46the world we've been to every major natural and main my man-made disasters in

00:51the last 25 years and the mission is everyone's needed and we respond we get

00:55in there respond fast we're usually the first people in we do search and rescue

00:59we do medical we give them solar lights and we do water filtration third wave

01:04volunteers also runs very large field hospitals and refugee camps around the

01:08world and we stay long-term many many years for long-term recovery what we've

01:15really learned in disasters is it really works from the grassroots up you know

01:19tapping into all the early NGOs and nonprofits that are already established all

01:24the small businesses and all the church groups interfaith groups and we try to

01:28connect everyone you know there's not enough firemen and policemen to respond

01:32after a large disaster so we go into communities and we have free training we

01:38train everyday citizens and it's really working and we've grown to 30,000 plus

01:43volunteers and we're growing because people really want to know how to help but

01:47they don't know that first step of doing it personally I am motivated by love I

01:53have this heart full of swelling love and I just there's so much suffering around

01:57the world and I see it front lines so much suffering the core of it is I just

02:02know deep inside that I can land I can look people in the eye and I can just do

02:07something the one message I'd like people to take away from our platform really is

02:13that everyone is needed service to others it'll change your life

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