Born in Israel in 1960, Nechama Surik grew up in Neve Monosson near Tel Aviv. After doing her mandatory service in the Israeli army, she worked for many years as an independent registered insurance broker. She moved to Canada in 1993 and started a new career in health care.
 

In this field, having worked as both an LPN and as an instructor, Nechama facilitated Planetree retreats, was an active member of a few health and safety committees, and held the office of President of the CIIA at Donald Berman Maimonides Geriatric Hospital. While working at this institution, Nechama was awarded the Charlotte Tasse Award and the Prix du Merite in 2006, for her exemplary service and for devoting 40 hours a month of her own time doing volunteer work for the hearing impaired. This volunteer work led her to establish the Nechama Surik Better Hearing Program Inc. which is now officially recognized as part of the health curriculum of the Quebec Government.
 

In 2014 Nechama became a full time teacher at SHADD, and was the first teacher in the English Montreal School Board to give classes in nursing. In this position she won a prestigious scholarship to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Israel, and is now also an official teacher of Holocaust Studies.
 

Wife of composer and concert pianist Edwin Brownell and devoted mother and grandmother, Nechama loves challenges and in between her clinical and volunteer work she was able to achieve her long time goal of completing her first book. “The Will to Live” was published in both hard and soft-cover editions by “Authorhouse” in 2008. Written in Hebrew, and now translated into English, it has now reached its fourth pressing.
 

Presently Nechama is working to bring her Better Hearing Program to Israel, Russia, the United Kingdom and the rest of the world.