Alison Thompson(I)
- Director
- Producer
Alison was born and raised a preacher's daughter in the Australian
bush. She is a former Mathematics school teacher and medic. In 1990
Alison moved to New York City and became an Investment Banker on Wall
Street, later enrolling at NYU film school studying film making. On
Sept 11th, 2001 Alison roller bladed to Ground Zero and became a
volunteer rescue worker and stayed on to volunteer for 9 months. She is
the Founder and Director of CTEC which she created after the 2004 Asian
disaster. CTEC is the first and only Tsunami Early-warning Center in
Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka she also ran a busy field hospital and helped
rebuild a village for 3000 people. Since 2001 Alison has been a full
time volunteer humanitarian and is fondly known in Sri Lanka as the
'Angel of Galle.' In 2008 Alison's documentary film called 'The Third
Wave'premiered in the Cannes film festival hosted by Sean Penn and
Bono. In January 2010, Alison flew to Haiti with actor Sean Penn and
ten doctors to help with the earthquake aftermath. There the volunteers
managed an 'Internally Displaced Peoples' camp and field hospital with
over 65,000 people. Alison then founded 'We Advance' with Actress Maria
Bello which deals with gender based violence in Haiti. Her new book is
called 'The Third Wave- a volunteer story' published by Random
House-available world wide. In 2010, Alison was awarded the Order of
Australia, the highest civilian medal awarded by Queen Elizabeth the
2nd of England for her volunteer work and her contribution to mankind.
She was also awarded the 'Medal of Excellence' by General Trombitas and
the USA Army 82nd Airborne elite. In July of 2012 Alison was appointed
the first Ambassador to the Haiti Ministry of the Environment where she
is involved with a campaign to help combat reforestation and hunger
through the planting of one billion trees for Haiti. She also continues
to work at her We Advance clinic in the Cite Soliel slums. Her hobbies
include Argentine tango, fencing, surfing, soccer, cricket, camping,
volunteering, piano, chess, poetry, baseball, elephant polo and
laughing. Her favorite TV show is "Survivorman."