Felicity

Epilepsy can be with us from birth and plague us from the innocence of childhood all the way through.

Felicity bravely suffers it with few complaints, but, like the many others who share her fate, would rather have done without the thrice daily chore of the medicine box; the inability to ever be allowed to drive; and the ever constant fear of a seizure, subdued but not removed by her current medicines. She, like many others who patiently carry the burden, would revel in the freedom enjoyed by her peers, if we can better understand and control this disease.

Stephanie

As we came to dominate life on earth, the bones of three billion years of past lives continue to wash down our rivers to nourish our land, but now we are mining and burning the fossilised carbon like never before and we are squeezing the diverse life still all around us into ever smaller, disconnected niches, even as we ourselves are providing a larger and ever more fertile and connected habitat for viruses and bacteria to thrive in.

In 1903 the FFI became the first organisation to recognise the value of “nature” and the need to protect what we hold so dear before it is gone for ever. They focus on protecting the diversity of life on Earth, which is critical for the life-support systems that humans rely on.

Stephanie is committed to caring for the natural world and communicating the beauty and diversity we risk losing if we don’t take care.

Isabelle

As medical research helps us survive the ravages of youth to reach a ripe old age, the diseases of the brain are increasingly the first to come knocking, seeking to take our memories and dignity, when we are alone and distant from families, flung far to find work, and less able to be around to care.

Alzheimer’s is one of the most devastating diseases of the brain. It took my mum from my dad, who exhausted the end of his ninth decade caring for her. And it took one of my best friends in the prime of his life.

Isabelle nursed patients like these and is now dedicated to research to find better treatments or perhaps even a cure.