An icon defending mountain gorillas, Dian Fossey graduated in Occupational Therapy. Part III

June 18, 2010

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Dian started a campaign against gorilla poaching. She complained to the Rwandan government but was rejected.

They permitted this activity because they though it was the only means by which Rwandan natives could earn the resources to survive themselves. Obviously Dian didn't agree with such considerations and dedicated herself to protect the African Mountain Gorilla from illegal poaching, intending by this means to save them from possible extinction.

The articles she wrote about her works with the gorillas published in National Geographic, with the story of Digit and his cruel death produced unexpected results. Lots of readers began to send donations, and with this money she established the Digit Fund.

She returned to the United States to receive her Ph. D at Cambridge University. In 1980 while working at Cornell University she wrote the book "Gorillas in the Mist", and after finishing it she returned to Karisoke to continue the work she loved most.

The originally named "Digit Fund" in memory of Dian's favorite gorilla was renamed in 1992 becoming the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the conservation and protection of gorillas and their habitats in Africa.

They are committed to promoting continued research on their threatened ecosystems as well as education about their relevance to the world in which we live.

In collaboration with government agencies and other international partners, they also provide assistance to local communities through education, training and economic development initiatives.

Their activities take place on many levels and places, with people from Rwanda and elsewhere in Africa, the United States, and around the world.

Finally I arrived to a conclusion: a person who decides to study &#&Occupational Therapy&#& is, no doubt, a sensitive one. She has to consider that this is a profession where a person's hands-on help can make a difference in someone's life.

Actually Dian Fossey was an excellent Occupational Therapist; only her clients were not disabled kids, or suffering ill people. She chose her needed patients. They were without any protection, victimized, killed, in serious danger of extinction.

She decided that her needed patients were in Africa, living in the mountains of Rwanda.

Dian Fossey was mysteriously murdered on December 26, 1985, in the bedroom of her cabin. Her death is still unsolved. She was interred in the mountains of Rwanda, in the graveyard behind her cabin at Karisoke, among her gorilla friends and next to her beloved Digit.