Director recognised for 25 years of training rehabilitation methods in Hong Kong and mainland

Sheila Purves is back in Hong Kong before heading back to the mainland. The Canadian with a British accent - "I was born in the UK and never lost it" - arrived in Hong Kong 30 years ago and has spent most of the past two decades across the border.

Purves, director of the Hong Kong Society of Rehabilitation's international and China programmes, says she's constantly learning from her work on the mainland. There are frustrations, but there are also lessons learned that while a local staff member may do a task differently from how Purves anticipated it, it doesn't mean it won't work.

She has been nominated by the Red Cross for the Spirit of Hong Kong Award for personal contribution to the community.

But she said: "This shouldn't be about me, not as an individual It really is a team."

She added: "I've been doing this job for 25 years and China has changed such a lot."

Purves joined the society in 1983 after graduating from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, with a stay in Switzerland along the way.