MAY LISA FOR EVERMORE REST IN PEACE

Lisa Anne Mbele-Mbong, a national of the USA and Cameroon, joined the UN in 2002 to take up the position of Human Rights Officer in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her passion for human rights brought her to Haiti in 2005.

For the past three and a half years, she worked as a Team Leader in the Policy and Planning Unit of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti. Like many other UN staff members in Haiti, Lisa was attending a meeting when tremors from the earthquake began. Realizing what was happening, they started to leave and Lisa, being closest to the door, was the first out, and was immediately felled.

Lisa, a typical “UN child” (her father, Samuel, worked for the World Meteorological Organization and her mother, Helena worked at the World Health Organization), was born in Colorado in 1971 and grew up in three continents, Africa (Cameroon and Burundi), Europe (Geneva and the neighbouring France) and USA (Massachusetts). After graduation, Lisa began her career in Washington D.C., before landing a job as Elections Monitor with the Organization of American States which took her to Haiti twice. The third time was with a National Democratic Institute (NDI) mission which she eventually headed. Lisa often visited the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva and spoke to her colleagues about the situation in Haiti. Lisa’s love of Haiti, her desire and ability to serve the people of that country, and her eagerness to move to a duty station where her son, Nady, could be with her, combined to bring her to Haiti for the fourth and last time.

Colleagues and friends speak fondly of her “sharp intellect and curious mind”, her strength of spirit and her conviction in her beliefs. A colleague who worked with Lisa at the UN Organization Mission in the DRC remembers when Lisa and she volunteered to go to Eastern Congo, living in difficult conditions for two months. She believes that Lisa had much to do with the positive outcome of their mission.

Her former colleague says, “Lisa was a very dedicated person, always ready to go the extra mile.” Another colleague says, “Lisa was a passionate, brave and thoughtful woman dedicated to human rights and social justice. She had a skeptical, inquiring mind and a joyous laugh; she never hesitated to challenge conventional wisdom about Haiti, human rights or any of the other many issues that engaged her. She was also beautiful and fun.”

The world has lost a dedicated human rights activist, a daughter, a sister, a friend and devoted mother. Lisa’s life and character could be summarized as “citizen of the world, a strong woman, a voice for justice, an ear to the needy, a whip to the self-indulgent, a prop to the weak”, a Lisa with “panache”, as her sister Leontyne says! A memorial ceremony took place upon the arrival of Lisa’s body in Geneva on 5 February 2010 at the Pavillon of the International Geneva airport in the presence of her family and very close friends, colleagues from both the UN Headquarters and the United Nations Office at Geneva. The memorial service was held on 11 February 2010 at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Geneva.