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Heather Mills

Biography

Heather Mills McCartney is a patron of Adopt-A-Minefield and a United Nations Association Goodwill Ambassador who has tirelessly campaigned for over 11 years to raise funds and awareness to rid the world of landmines. Heather has made a career out of voluntarily counselling people from around the globe who have lost limbs in accidents, through illness, natural disasters and terrorist atrocities. She has given people hope and inspiration through countless lectures and meetings before audiences ranging in size from 30 to 3,000. It is Heather’s determination and commitment that finds her inspiring people of all ages from around the world. She lets them know personally, in daily correspondence, that they can make a difference.

It is this work and specifically her work in Croatia and Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which earned Heather a 1996 Nobel Prize nomination. Her accolades and awards have included The Gold Award for Outstanding Achievement from Former British Prime Minister John Major, the Human Achievements Award from ‘The Times’ of London and the British Chamber of Commerce’s Outstanding Young Person of the Year Award, which was renamed The Heather Mills Award. More recently she was the recipient of Redbook’s Mothers and Shakers Award and of The Victory Award presented by the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Washington DC and recognised at the White House.

While Heather finds herself a force to be reckoned with in Westminster, the White House and by the U.N. for her stance on landmines (lobbying for a world-wide ban), it is perhaps her story that gives us a greater understanding of her sheer determination and tenacity.

Born into a dysfunctional family in 1968, Heather’s early years were characterised by disruption and confusion. Her mother left when she was nine, leaving Heather and her siblings under the watchful eye of an abusive father.

Having to cope with domestic duties as well as her father’s demanding business needs taught Heather much of her determined and no-nonsense business sense. When her father eventually ended up in prison, Heather’s life was again disrupted as she moved to London to live with her mother. She ran away from home as a teenager and eventually found herself homeless. After a succession of menial jobs, Heather vowed never to work for anyone else again. She put her entrepreneurial skills to work and successfully formed and sold businesses and began a career in modelling.

In 1990, aged 22, Heather went to Northern Yugoslavia, now Slovenia, for a holiday to overcome an ectopic pregnancy and eventually ended up moving there to build a new life. During her stay she witnessed the outbreak of civil war and the effect it had on many of her friends. This inspired Heather, who worked with government and military agencies to establish refugee crisis centres, hospitals and housing for the homeless. For the next two years she modelled to raise funds to help the refugees and commuted between Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and England.

In August 1993 Heather’s life changed forever.

She was involved in a road accident with a police motorcycle and suffered injuries that included crushed ribs, a punctured lung, multiple fractures of the pelvis and the loss of her left leg below the knee. Realising that her career could now be over, and with no parental support to count on, Heather summoned the waiting press into her hospital room and sold her story.

“Overcoming adversity and, ultimately, denying it the right of passage, has been a constant motivation throughout my life”.

Upon her return to a ‘normal’ life with one leg, Heather found a practical problem that she felt she could solve. Her residual limb was fitted with an artificial limb and as with many, due to the change in shape and size, the prosthetic leg had to be continually replaced, whilst the old leg was discarded. Heather realised that the redundant prosthesis would never find another use and with that an idea was born. She knew that with her experiences in the former Yugoslavia, these redundant limbs would be not only welcome in war-torn Croatia, but would be essential.

Heather instigated a nation-wide appeal for the donation of unwanted prostheses, and then employed the services of the inmates of Brixton prison to dismantle the limbs and make them ready for transport. In October 1994, just a year after her accident, the first convoy of artificial limbs and medical equipment left for Croatia. Arriving at the Institute of Prosthetics in Zagreb the limbs were ready to be fitted. Since then more then 27,000 amputees and survivors of landmine explosions around the world have been helped.

Heather Mills McCartney continues her work to try to improve lives on a regular basis.

In December 2001, Heather made a return to modelling with a difference. After hearing her speak at the Mothers & Shakers Awards in New York, American clothing company I.N.C. asked Heather to front their International Concepts of Inspiration campaign. The campaign has raised a lot of awareness and funds for Adopt-A-Minefield. To date INC have donated $100,000 to the charity.

In October her updated autobiography “A Single Step” was released in North America. All of Heather’s earnings from the book will go to Adopt-A-Minefield of which she and her husband Paul McCartney are Patrons.