Dr Laycock came face-to-face with humanitarian work during the Bosnian war of the 1990s when she set up a small charity, SOS Bosnia delivering medical supplies overland to Bosnia. On a news bulletin she learned that two aid workers had been killed in Bosnia working for a partner charity of SOS Bosnia. She discovered then that there was no national memorial for these people or for colleagues doing the same thing. Harbouring the idea for more than a decade, in 2013 she approached some big charities. She won their support and then Westminster Abbey's as well, for an annual event at the Abbey pending the establishment of a public Memorial. The Committee was established and the work began.