Valerie Mulcare-Tivey began her medical career in 1981, with a mixture of nursing and first aid. Some of her work was in a voluntary capacity, the rest agency and freelance.

Several years in the Ambulance Service proved to be vital in the scheme of things and air ambulance repatriation was a natural progression from that. With further experience gained abroad in America, Valerie realised that achievement is within with hard work.

In 1995 it seemed logical for Valerie to add First Aid Instructor to her steadily growing list of qualifications, motivated by the need to nurture and share.

A planned trip to Mumbai in 1998 and events during that trip gave birth to the idea of further helping vulnerable children and youths, facilitated through her particular skill areas. Hence she qualified as an advanced instructor in 1998, seeking more ways in which to help the children.

It became a mission to learn as much medically and holistically as possible, so Valerie attended college during 2000 and 2001 to gain an initial qualification for therapeutic body massage. By 2004 she had completed courses in Indian head massage, healing, sports massage, reflexology, ear candling and cardio care. In autumn 2005 Valerie completed her final exams in clinical hypnotherapy which also covers in depth psychoanalysis.

For personal growth, she is involved with the Essex Ambulance Service First Response scheme on a voluntary basis. Not only keeping her skills updated but allows those particular skills to help in the training and assessment of other members. Their joint skills can be called upon for emergency situations like cardiac arrest.

This long path of constant studying and exams has enabled Valerie to fulfil her dream of teaching the thousands of Mumbai children in her care. Skills like first aid and aseptic techniques for wound dressings plus basic hygiene, to help each other when I am not around and for them to pass on to others. Those skills have allowed her to complete traumatic amputations at the side of the railway lines where people have fallen from crowded trains, and deliver babies into abject poverty under plastic sheet roof covering in roadside slums under diabolical conditions.

Valerie knows that by educating the children we can shape the world in a more positive way and that children who do not grow up in an environment where education is assured have a thirst for knowledge, therefore are a joy to teach.