World Spine Care mourns the passing of Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The entire World Spine Care family deeply feel the loss of Archbishop Tutu’s passing. We offer our condolences to his family.

The world has lost a great man. One of its highly dedicated advocates for the most vulnerable members of society globally. The leading religious and political leaders have eloquently lauded his amazing achievements and documented his commitment to humanity.

But, to us it is more personal, as he has been part of our organization since its inception in 2010.He joined the WSC Advisory Board in that year, provided a video introduction to our conference in Botswana in 2012 and made a substantial donation to WSC from his Templeton Prize Award in 2013. His support of World Spine Care was fundamental to the achievement of our goals to help people disabled by spinal disorders in underserved communities around the world.

Joan Haldeman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, his wife Leah, and Scott Haldeman in June 2011.

During the visits to Cape Town of Scott and Joan Haldeman, and Geoff Outerbridge and his family, he made time to share meals with them. These meetings, together with messages in the multiple books he authored, remain amongst the most important sources of inspiration to continue our work.

We will sincerely miss his presence and repeated blessings but we will never forget his commitment to the less fortunate people of this world. We are thankful for his life's great achievements, and especially his willingness to work with a small, young organization such as World Spine Care and for his communications where he addressed us as friends. We were deeply honored by his interest in World Spine Care.