U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos scored another first on March 9, on a mission to the war-torn central Syrian city of Homs to negotiate uninterrupted entry of aid workers to evacuate the injured.
The Guyanese small town girl who excelled in her adopted home of Britain, said her aim was to urge all sides to allow delivery of the essential supplies and evacuatioin of the wounded.
The British Independent reported that the Syrian regime had denied an earlier request by the U.N. But with persistence, and sanctions by Russia and China she finally was allowed entry on humanitarian grounds.
Amos who is the first major international figure to visit Baba Arm since the government launched its latest assault on Homs.
Amos who became Baroness Amos in 1997, when then British Prime Minister Tony Blair appointed her as a life peer, is the first Black woman ever to serve in that capacity.
During this bold undertaking, Amos reaffirmed her commitment to taking on challenges that have charted her career since migrating to Britain at the tender age of 12 with her parents and two siblings.
Her work as a researcher for local Labor Party councils in London, as well as serving as women’s issues and relations officer, are just important roles Amos took on after co-founding Amos Fraser Bernard, an international consultancy business.
Her breakthrough and historic accomplishments, as the first black woman ever appointed to the British House of Lords, and the her appointment as new secretary of state for international development, made Amos one of the most influential individuals in Britain society.
As the British Foreign Office officer for international and domestic aid agencies and foreign governments, Amos is credited for raising the standard of living in developing countries around the world.
An online biography quoted Amos as saying that her achievement was the harbinger of a new, 21st Century era. She told a South African audience that the last vestige of colonialism had vanished and the fact “it is me standing here as a British minister, a descent of those colonized, is surely demonstration of this.”
