It's not every day you get to meet someone who flies into dangerous combat zones as a daily activity.

One of the most inspiring evenings I have had in recent memory occurred when I attended a dinner last week in Sydney at which Baroness Caroline Cox spoke of her remarkable work. Her nickname is the "British Joan of Arc".

Baroness Cox, who has an academic background as a British university sociologist and economist with a professional interest in nursing education, has also been involved in missions to conflict zones including Armenia, Sudan, Nigeria, India, the Burmese jungles and Indonesia. She recently visited North Korea both to help promote parliamentary initiatives - a bit of an uphill battle in that dictatorship! - and to assist with some medical programmes.

The Baroness has a rather informal disarming style. She says that she was the first Baroness she had ever met. One can easily imagine her bunked up overnight in a dilapidated truck in a Polish forest getting items to the Solidarity resistance movement behind the then Iron Curtain!

She first came to prominence in Britain when she stood up for freedom of thought in British universities in the 1970s. Her outspoken quality resulted in her eventual elevation to the House of Lords. She has used her peerage for promoting good causes and she has a wide range of contacts.

For example, Hollywood movie star George Clooney has made the genocide in Darfur (in western Sudan) a major issue in US politics - and good for him for doing so - but the conflict in southern Sudan has been even larger. Sudan is Africa's geographically largest country and so there is plenty of scope for two horrific conflicts to run simultaneously involving the brutal and corrupt national government. Baroness Cox has been particularly active in drawing international attention to the neglected conflict in southern Sudan.

Another African concern of the Baroness has been the plight of AIDS orphans. Mrs Clinton (now US Secretary of State) once wrote about how it takes an (African) village to raise a child - the implication being that raising a child involves a large number of adults sharing the work. This is a fine sentiment (not least for the west, where we have "nuclear" families of only both parents - if that - and few other relatives around to assist).

But what happens if there are children - but no villages? It used to be very rare to see abandoned orphans in Africa. As Mrs Clinton suggested, a stray African child would always have adults around to look after him or her. But now there are abandoned children across the continent. Some villages - thanks to AIDS pandemic - now have no adults left.

The Baroness is a great example of what one person can do. She is an inspiration to us all.

The photograph was taken by photographer Ramon A Williams - Worldwide Photos. For more of Ramon's work please visit his website: Community snapshots.

Keith Suter.