Dr. Alison Thompson is a global humanitarian volunteer, and Incident Commander running large refugee camps, field hospitals, and resilience hubs in natural and man-made disasters around the world for the past 25 years, including the Syrian, Afghan, Venezuelan, and Ukraine refugee crises.
Thompson’s full-time volunteer work started as a first responder at the Sept 11th, 2001, attacks in NYC. She worked at Ground Zero for nine months and founded Third Wave Volunteers. Thompson holds a Doctorate of Letters in the Humanities and a Bachelor of Education and is a Mass Incident Commander and rescue paramedic.
In 2022, Thompson received “The Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award” from President Biden.
In 2010, Thompson was awarded the ‘Order of Australia’ by the Australian Govt. and Queen Elizabeth the 2nd,
For the past two years, Thompson and her volunteer teams have been on the front lines of the Ukraine war, rescuing families from the red zones, training 1000’s of civilian soldiers in combat medics to help save lives, and delivering food aid to the re-captured front line villages.
Third Wave Volunteers are also working on the front lines of hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic eruptions.
One of Third Wave Volunteers’ current projects is building water wells for the Wayuu tribes in the La Guajira desert in Northeast Colombia.
Other awards: In 2010, she received the Paul Harris Award from Rotary International and the Commander’s Award of Excellence from US Army General Simeon Trombitas of Southern Command for her collaboration with the 82nd Airborne and Operation Haiti Task Force in Haiti.
In 2019, Thompson and Third Wave won the Governors Hurricane Service Agency award, the Hope Prize at TEDX Talk, the Dr. Martin Luther King humanitarian award, the Rethink Energy Florida award, and was selected as the 2019 Woman of Peace.
In 2020, Thompson was appointed to the Advisory Board of the United Nations Chaplains Association and the board of MACtown disabled homes.
Third Wave Volunteers non-profit was founded on Sept 11th 2001, during the WTC attacks, and has grown to a network of over 30,000 first responder volunteers who support and coordinate direct aid for disasters and displaced people. Programs include natural and man-made disaster search and rescue and aid, medical/telehealth, resilience hubs, disaster preparedness, clean water, reforestation, Gender-Based-Violence, CERT training, and solar lighting up the darkest areas of the world.
In 2020, During the COVID pandemic, the Third Wave ‘Women in White Masks” delivered over 2 million N95 masks across America to 50 states, including 1000’s of underserved communities, nursing homes, prisons, the Navajo, and other tribal nations, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, Peru, and Haiti.
In the United States, Thompson spearheads large volunteer campaigns in back-to-back hurricane, tornado, flooding, and bushfire disasters, including Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico for one year and ongoing missions after Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas. Other USA hurricanes include Katrina, Matthew, Laura, Harvey, Irma, Maria, Michael, Florence, Dorian, Ida, Fiona, Beryl, and Ian, where 1,000’s of Third Wave Volunteers have deployed.
In 2017, after Hurricane Irma, Thompson co-founded the first Community Emergency Operations Center (CEOC) in the heart of Miami’s most vulnerable communities. She collaborates with 138 other local organizations, providing food programs, aid, and empowerment with CERT emergency response training for future disasters.
From 2015-2017, Thompson and Third Wave volunteered tirelessly on the island of Lesvos, Greece, at the epicenter of the Syrian refugee crisis. They helped rescue thousands of refugees from the Argean Sea and delivered over 100,000 solar lights to dark refugee camps.
In 2012, Thompson was appointed the first official Ambassador to the Haitian Ministry of Environment, focusing on reforestation, clean water, and sustainable energy. Thompson managed the planting of over 1.5 million canopy and food trees and helped deliver 21 variety seeds to over 25,000 farmers after Hurricane Matthew wiped out 96% of the crops in southern Haiti.
In 2016, Thompson represented Haiti at the 2016 COP 22 United Nations Climate Change meetings in Marrakesh, where she later helped ratify the Paris Agreement in the Haitian Parliament.
In 2010, Thompson managed a 75,000-person IDP camp and field hospital in Haiti after the earthquake killed 300,000 people and injured over 1 million. There, she worked alongside actor Sean Penn, US Army General Simeon Trombitas, and the 82nd Airborne, reporting directly to the CDC and Ban Ki-moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations.
In 2010, Thompson co-founded We Advance, a gender-based violence rape clinic for women and girls in the Citi Soleil slums, and later volunteered for eight months in the Haitian cholera outbreak in the Artibonite river region in Haiti, where 100’s of people died in her arms.
In 2008, Australia moved a motion of Apology to Indigenous Australians. Thompson spent months visiting the Kimberley tribes, documenting the apology with the Nomad project, and participated in a global art collaboration with Australian photographer Russell James.
From 2004-2022, Thompson co-founded CTEC, the first Community Tsunami Early-warning Disaster Center and Children’s Learning Museum, which protects 100’s villages along the Sri Lankan coastline. She was nicknamed “The Angel of Galle” after her help with the tsunami disaster in Sri Lanka, where she managed a busy field hospital and oversaw the rebuilding of a new school and village.
Her award-winning documentary, The Third Wave, chronicled her volunteer experience in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami and was screened at the 2008 Cannes film festival in a presidential jury screening presented by Sean Penn and Bono. She followed up with a book by Random House called The Third Wave- A Volunteer Story.
With love and humility, Thompson inspires everyone to action and tailors her message on how “everyone is needed.”
“It’s easy to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it’s Leadership to be at the wrong place at the right time.”