Finnish doctor on Time’s heroes list

Time Magazine places Finnish pediatrician and aid program project leader, Leena Kaartinen, on its European Heroes 2005 list. She was appropriately found working in Afghanistan.


Stephanie Sinclair / Corbis for Time

In her October 10 Time Europe Magazine story, "Exceptional Healing," journalist Lydia Itoi marvels at Kaartinen’s courage and ‘sisu’ – the famous Finnish word for determination.

- Since 1971, pediatrician Kaartinen, 63, has been the walking definition of sisu in places where creativity is as necessary as courage to survive, let alone to save other people’s lives, says Itoi.

Itoi briefly describes Kaartinen’s Lutheran upbringing and medical studies in Germany. She stresses the Finn’s over 30 years of dedication working as a part of the International Assistance Mission, Oxfam and many other aid groups.

According to Itoi, Kaartinen’s work has put her in numerous life-threatening situations, often having to decide whether to stay put and help others or run for cover. For Kaartinen, the answer has always been obvious.

- I’m never scared for myself. I’m confident that my fate is not in the hands of the Taliban or the warlords or the rockets, she says.

Itoi appreciates Kaartinen’s main agenda at the moment - helping Afghan women to become health workers in their own communities. There are not enough foreign female doctors in the isolated Hazara tribal villages in the mountainous Lal-wa-Sarejangal district of central Afghanistan.

- Training local workers, particularly ladies, is top priority, Kaartinen explains. Itoi sees that despite the major challenges, Kaartinen is still committed to helping - with sisu.

Kaartinen is one of the select four who have been named Helping Heroes on Time’s list. Other significant helpers are former Australian Prime Minister and a present-day global crisis group leader, Gareth Evans, and British brothers, Jake and Aleksis Zarins, who participated in the rescue measures in Thailand during the deadly tsunami.

Other fields acknowledged by Time this year include ecology, activism, courage, innovation and crime fighting.