A British aid worker, who was abducted and killed in Pakistan last year, has received a posthumous award named after Scottish Bard Robert Burns.
Khalil Dale MBE was named the recipient of the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award 2013 at a ceremony at the poet’s Birthplace Museum, in Alloway. Khalil, 60, spent decades working to help vulnerable people in some of the most dangerous places in the world.
Launched in 2002, the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award recognises a group or individual who has saved, improved, or enriched the lives of others or society as a whole, through personal self-sacrifice, selfless service, or ‘hands-on’ charitable work.
Receiving the award, Khalil’s brother Ian said: “Khalil very much saw himself as someone who just got on with his job, wherever that happened to be, and he would have been very humbled by this accolade, which is testament to the lives he changed and the legacy he leaves behind.”
Khalil Rhasjed Dale, who grew up in Dumfries, was born Kenneth Robin Dale. He changed his name to Khalil when he became a Muslim. Working initially as a casualty nurse at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, he went on to become a medic on a North Sea oil rig.
In 1981, he joined the Red Cross and undertook humanitarian work overseas in war zones and famine regions – including Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iraq and Sudan. One of his toughest challenges was working in war-torn Somalia, during the early 1990s, where he helped in bringing in food and medical supplies despite a perilous security situation. His efforts resulted in his being awarded the MBE in 1994.
Following a period working for Turning Point Scotland – a charity helping people with alcohol addictions and drug and mental-health problems – he was assigned in 2011 to work on a Red Cross programme in Quetta, Pakistan, providing health care and physical rehabilitation for people wounded in conflict.
David Anderson, chief executive of South Ayrshire Council and chair of the Award panel of judges, said: “Khalil was a true humanitarian and his legacy lives on thanks to the Khalil Dale Memorial Fund, which will be used to do exactly what he set out to do every day of his life – make the world a better place.”
In honour of Khalil, his family received a specially commissioned award and a cheque for the sum of 1759 guineas (around £1800) – a sum that signifies the year of Robert Burns’ birth and the coinage then in circulation.
The family has donated the monies to the Khalil Dale Memorial Fund – further details can be found at www.justgiving.com/khalildale
