Yvonne Trueman is well known in Bahrain, mainly for her many charity involvements. Having lived here for more than 25 years she has been a regular worshipper at St. Christopher’s and it was a great pleasure for us all to see her honoured by Queen Elizabeth with the award of M.B.E. (Member of the Order of the British Empire). This is a very high honour indeed and was awarded to her in recognition of all the charity work that she has done.

Many people will recognise Yvonne from seeing her at charity stalls at Bahrain events where she sells Guatemalan artefacts for the Wildtracks charity. This 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 his work for him and visits Belize regularly.

Yvonne 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.

Another aspect of her charity work is her involvement in the Dreamflight project, which takes seriously ill children on a 10-day journey-of-a-lifetime to 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 holidays, joining hundreds of other seriously ill youngsters from the UK and Hong Kong, supported by British Airways.

Mrs. Trueman who is also a pilot, encourages flight training among nationals and residents of the Gulf states. She earned her own 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.

Many Congratulations Yvonne.