TLM's Unsung Heroes

Through our database of TLM Heroes, we have acknowledged many heroes from our 150 year history. Their contributions have all been extraordinary.

We have made an effort to identify as many of these heroes as we can and to ask for nominations from across the countries we have been present in since 1874.

However, we recognise that our search will never manage to be exhaustive. There have been millions of people who have contributed to The Leprosy Mission’s work over the past 150 years, including many in the pre-digital era, when communicating across continents and record-keeping were both more difficult.

There are countless heroes who have made humble, self-sacrificial contributions to the work of The Leprosy Mission, but we have no record of what they did.

This page is dedicated to those individuals. We may not know their names, but we know the kinds of sacrifices they made.

Some travelled far from their homes and families to work in countries on the other side of the world, where they served persons affected by leprosy. Many of these people made this sacrifice at a time when there was no known cure for leprosy; they did so with the knowledge that they themselves could become infected.

Some of our unknown heroes were inspired by the pain caused by leprosy to give their time, money, and talents to the cause. Many of our supporters have been giving for decades and have gone on to also give gifts in their Wills. So many of these individuals have not been wealthy and have had to make sacrifices in order to contribute to a world without leprosy.

Still more of our unknown heroes have prayed diligently over many decades for a world without leprosy. They may not have been rich in time or money, but they have been rich in faith and in relationship with our Father. Their contribution has been incalculable and invaluable.

This page is for all those who have tended to a thousand wounds, typed a million keystrokes of a keyboard, wracked their brains for solutions to our great challenges, taken the photos that have given a nasty disease a human face, stood in front of churches to tell God’s people about a disease close to our Creator’s heart, those who have mopped up the floors of our hospitals and those have driven through dangerous territories in search of new cases. This page is for all of those whose contribution may not be well known on these pages, but will always be known to God.