Name: Dave Feickert
From: Sheffield
Living in: Beijing and Whanganui, New Zealand

“If I were a 30 year old, this is the country where I would want to live, work and experience full time the re-creation of an ancient civilisation as a modern, forward-looking and dynamic economy, with the potential to make a major contribution in many areas of human living.”

Dave Feickert was awarded the Friendship Prize for Foreign Experts in 2009, for his work on coalmine safety in China. He advises the Chinese government and coal companies, working in networks which include other foreigners from New Zealand (where he was born), the UK, the US, Australia, the EU and Japan. These networks have made a substantial contribution to reducing the fatal accident rates in China’s huge coal industry and will continue to do so, moving on to help reduce rates of occupational disease. They aim to reduce China or any other developing country going through tragedies all the developed countries with coal industries have already been through and believe that what they learned can and must be passed on.

Dave has found this work immensely satisfying and enjoyable. Together with Chinese colleagues he has been able to apply what he has learned from the experience of working in the UK coal industry to solving some immensely difficult problems faced by the industry in China. Miners are the same the world over – facing the same hazards, although in different intensities, with the same humour and bravery. The Chinese industry’s professionals are no less dedicated to solving the same or similar problems.

In the process of helping out, Dave has learned so much more about the country and people. His work repeatedly shows those making up the Chinese people have huge resources of good will, humanity and steadfastness in a period of unprecedented opening up. This was shown no better than by the 44 mine rescue teams and the 7 mine medical teams which were on the spot in Sichuan almost immediately after the earthquake in 2008. They saved 1,000 people.   As the People’s Republic of China marks its 60th anniversary, the ability to respond to these adversities demonstrates the country’s continuing modernity and ability to adapt.