The first cheque for the charity came from a man who had been shot. He was still in hospital recovering from shrapnel wounds when he sent the £500. It was that important to him.
Before the stick of mortar bombs had exploded in front of him, the man had an unexpected meeting. Here, Sarajevo, 1992, in the middle of a battle zone in the early stages of the Balkan War, a boy he knew as his junior from school in Cambridge stood, shaking his hand, introducing himself as Colonel Mark Cook, commander of the British contingent for the UN protection forces for Bosnia. Stranger still, he didn’t want to talk about war but a destroyed orphanage in Lipik, Croatia, he had visited days earlier. So moved by what he witnessed, by the children he met, that he had promised to rebuild it. Promised to rebuild it! Would he help? He was after all a famous news journalist, the man in the white suit. They had been at school together. Then the bombs.
True to his word, Mark Cook enlisted the help of British soldiers, and with additional support from the Croatian and Italian governments, the Lipik Orphanage in Croatia was re-built and re-opened in December 1993.
The experience changed his life completely. By the end of 1994 Mark had retired from the army and returned to Sarajevo, this time with his wife, Caroline, to see what could be done for children like Natasha whose rescue story from a run-down orphanage they had read about. How many others were like her? What could the Cooks do?
Mark later described in an interview what they found in Sarajevo at the Bjelave Children’s Home. ‘It was a terrible place. There were 40 babies in cots in one stiflingly hot room, covered in sores, desperate for attention. In another part there were older children behaving like pack animals.’ When Mark and Caroline returned later, they had to smuggle the money needed to rebuild the orphanage over the mountains, strapped to Mark’s body.
From Albania to Romania, from Sierra Leone to Sudan to Rwanda – there has been no stopping the Cooks since Croatia and Bosnia. They called their charity, Hope and Homes for Children, because that was the Cook way, exactly what they wanted to provide, emphasising at every possible opportunity that love was key to their work. Over time, they have gone beyond orphanages, recognising that too many children have been trapped and uncared for, unloved, in institutions. The Cooks have achieved much more: reuniting children with their families; making it possible for vulnerable children to stay with their families; and helping to close institutions that don’t provide proper care and facilities. The charity’s goal now is simply to make orphanages history.
Mark and Caroline Cook are philanthropists who started with vision, passion and commitment, but not a fortune, to fund what they believed needed to be done for the most unloved children. Their philanthropy has excited others, attracting generous donations from individuals and organisations for a charity that can now spend nearly £11 million per year on its activities.
Among its long list of patrons and celebrity supporters is the man who was shot, the first supporter, the cheque sender, the man in the white suit, former war correspondent of the BBC, the broadcaster and former independent MP, Martin Bell OBE. As he has observed, ‘Mark is evidence that the belief, audacity and practical idealism of an individual can effect monumental changes in the world.’