Pearl is honouring the memory of her mother through The Thembi Fund

Pearl was always destined to become a nurse, growing up in South Africa where her mother Thembi worked in nursing.

“When I was a kid I thought everybody’s mum was a nurse” remembers Pearl “It’s just part of my DNA, I didn’t know any different!”

After moving to the UK as a young girl with her sister and her mother, Pearl studied at King’s College London, School of Nursing trained and worked as a nurse in London at Guys & St Thomas’s Trust and Lewisham Hospital.

“I worked in various settings like maternity, mental health, respiratory, cardiac and older adult wards” remembers Pearl “I love having the ability to walk somebody through a difficult time and come out the other end.

“It was always a celebration when you’re able to discharge the patient, they’re all packed and ready to go home with their family, it’s just so rewarding.”

Pearl’s dream was to eventually set up Medi Trip, a company specialising in volunteer programmes for healthcare professionals and individuals from all over the world passionate about making a real difference.

Pearl got her chance in 2015 after she won a Scholarship Award in Leadership from Cavell, the charity supporting the nursing and midwifery family through tough times. Pearl used the money from her award to fund a trip to Tanzania which confirmed to her that Medi Trip was the way forward.

Medi Trip has been running the volunteer programmes for over a decade since 2014, with some volunteers sharing their expertise and making lasting impacts in the communities they serve and students gaining cultural bridging experience in global health and global development. Areas include nursing, midwifery, medicine, psychology, law, accounting, engineering, maasai women’s development and FGM awareness, children’s education and more.

“I love welcoming the new intern students” explains Pearl “And preparing them for clinical placements in local teams and hospitals in Tanzania and other parts of Africa.

“As many communities are changing and becoming more multicultural, it’s to everybody’s benefit to learn about other people’s cultures in order to facilitate more high-quality care to be given by these healthcare professionals of the future.”

Pearl’s mother Thembi has always been a big presence in her life and inspired Pearl to enter nursing. Thembi’s early life was tough and she grew up in poverty due to the power struggles in South Africa at the time. Thembi was sent to live at a convent with nuns and her Christian background gave her the inspiration to take up nursing. Thembi credited nursing with saving her life because it gave her a vocation and she realised that it was something she could do anywhere in the world. She worked hard and developed her nursing career to become a midwife and tutor, lecturing in high dependency nursing.

Thembi moved to the UK in the 1990s with her two young daughters, Pearl and her sister, following a recruitment drive by the NHS, and took up a nursing role at a hospital in London.

“I remember how hard it was when we first arrived in the UK, our first few months were really tough” says Pearl “My mother and all the other nurses from South Africa were coming from good backgrounds, successful careers.”

These internationally educated nurses were inspired by the opportunity to work for the NHS, for how much it gives back to the population with free healthcare, but they had to make sacrifices and compromises in order to make it work.

“Circumstances changed and people fell on hard times” says Pearl “And I remember my mum helping dozens of nursing colleagues from South Africa and Nigeria who were struggling. She even housed some of them until they could get back on their feet.”

Pearl also remembers the kindness that people showed to this mother far from home with her two children.

“My memories are of the neighbours who helped us” says Pearl “Strangers making that bit of effort to make a huge difference. They recognised we were in a new country and struggling a bit. They’d bring over some food, or invite us in for a cup of tea and a chat.”

Thembi developed her nursing career in the UK mainly in acute medical settings working at King’s College and Lewisham Hospitals as well as in nursing homes looking after elderly patients. All through her career she looked out for her colleagues and ensured they were cared for too.

“Sadly, my mother became ill and died at the age of 53” explains Pearl “At her funeral there were more than 100 nurses in uniform who walked her coffin to the cemetery. It was a jaw-dropping and beautiful show of honour for someone who supported so many people’s lives.”

The Thembi Fund

Ten years after Pearl received her Scholarship Award from Cavell, she’s keen to give something back to the charity. Pearl is donating £2,000 to set up The Thembi Fund in memory of her mother.

This special fund will support registered nurses and midwives working in the UK on a skilled workers’ visa and have no recourse to public funds, who are experiencing hardship or crisis. Grants will be made for a number of reasons including struggling to meet basic needs or being financially disadvantaged as a result of ill-health or domestic abuse.

Pearl explains her desire to set up the fund.

“I know what it feels like as a little girl whose mum was a nurse starting a new life in a strange place” she says “We were on our own. Just me, my sister and mum.

“But we got support from other nurses in the same position as my mum. I’ll never forget that kindness, so I feel compelled to do this for those professionals working in the UK on skilled workers’ visas who have nowhere else to turn when they are struggling.”

The Thembi Fund is open to donations to ensure this support continues into the future. Pearl is encouraging people to consider donating.

“When you donate to The Thembi Fund, it’s for something bigger than that nurse who needs help. The more we’re able to keep internationally educated nurses in their jobs, doing the thing they are passionate about, the thing they’ve made sacrifices for and travelled thousands of miles to do, the more we’re helping the rest of our society.

“Having healthy, happy and secure nurses caring for the UK, surely that’s what we all want?”

Donate to The Thembi Fund