"Like a phoenix from the ashes… "

In 1994, South Africa was awakening as a jubilant optimistic new Democracy. A Briton and her young son danced with thousands, in front of the Union Buildings in Pretoria. The world's media were there.

In 1994, 70 km away in Botleng squatter camp, South Africa, a baby girl Dorah was born. Conceived in violence and born too early, she was unwanted. No headlines welcomed her birth.

In 1994, Dorah was left alone with a candle for light. The candle fell. The rudimentary shack burned down around the baby. She was taken to hospital after hospital and repeatedly they turned her away. Finally, the fourth hospital admitted her, to die.

But she didn't.

Despite a face and body destroyed by flame, Dorah survived.

The doctors shook their heads and considered her case to be hopeless. There was not the skill nor the will, to rebuild her.

But Bronwen Jones, a British woman, with her young son Tristan and his friend Thobeka, started to visit the abandoned baby. They saw her soul.

Jones described her then as: "The ugliest duckling, the most beautiful swan."

Without medical knowledge, she simply applied common sense. And when nurse Marina Rowles told her that doctors had decided to cut out Dorah's eyes to save the cost of medical dressings, Jones said "No!"

She'd been raised in Aneurin Bevan's National Health Service where poverty was never a reason to deny people equal health care. With that, and an inbuilt sense of justice, it was impossible to walk away.

The rest is history. The little girl was handed into Jones' care, the general public rallied to help, and she was flown to Britain for amazing operation after operation to rebuild her.

The knowledge gained was inevitably turned into wisdom for the greater good. Child after child was brought to Jones for advice and help. She tried to make the public hospital system in South Africa work. Sometimes it did, sometimes she had to turn to the private sector. Sometimes that failed too, so then she'd seek solutions overseas.

The original gate crasher, a determined door stepper, Jones would sometimes just arrive with a child in need and expect a solution. And quite often her audacity worked!

In politically-correct 2024, such tactics would be frowned upon. Maybe the world has lost a little heart along the way?

But Dorah's joie de vivre, her tenacity to cling to life when all seemed lost, is at the core of the organisation Children of Fire that has seen Dorah through 45 operations and repaired 540 other "hopeless" cases.

2024 is our Year of Celebration. Notwithstanding the cruel atrocities that now beset the world, with babies like Dorah who grow into happy children and then grow into interesting young adults, Dorah is a living reminder that indeed: Every life is precious. If she had the ability to vocalise with her re-sewn lips, Dorah would urge: "Fight with words, wisdom, energy, to save the innocent injured, for each one is worth it."

Dorah turns 30 years old on 12 April 2024. She will celebrate her birthday with more than 300 children in the Joe Slovo squatter camp, on that day.