By Scholastic Kids Reporter Danielle Azzolina
Yesterday I had the chance to witness the best of humanity. I saw kindness and tremendous good and met truly amazing people and I was very inspired. I hope when you read this story you will be too.
I attended the 11th Annual Awards ceremony given by The World of Children Organization which was held at UNICEF House located at UN Plaza in New York City.
The awards were the “Nobel Prize for Children” awards and this year there were eight honorees, three received Health Awards, three received Humanitarian Awards and two were Youth Award winners.
World of Children is an amazing organization founded ten years ago by Mr.Harry Leibowitz and Co-Founder Mrs. Kate Leibowitz. The World of Children recognizes and supports ordinary people doing extraordinary work on behalf of children around the world. WOC wanted to create international acclaim for individuals who are devoting their lives to making the world a better place for children.
Mr. Harry Leibowitz and Mrs. Kate Leibowitz are the Co-Foundes and Mr. Leibowitz is the Chairman. The Honoray International Chairperson is Muhammad Ali. The organization has very accomplished individuals on their board.
This year there were eight honorees. They are Rita Conceicao from the Country of Brazil a Humanitarian Award winner, Richard (Ricky) Anywar from the Country of Uganda one of the Humanitarian winners, Dr. Edward Zigler of the US (originally from my state of New Jersey I’m proud to say.) received one of the Humanitarian Awards, Tibebe Macco of Ethiopia was a Health Award winner, Dr. Jumana Odeh from Palestine was also a Health Award winner, Frank Brady from the US was a Health Award winner and the two Youth Award winners are Talia Leman from Iowa and Darius Weems from Athens, Georgia.
Here are their stories and why they so deserve the awards that were given to them today.
Dr. Odeh who wept when accepting her award is an amazing person. She has spent her lifetime in her native Palestine helping children with disabilities. Children with disabilities are not valued very much in this Country. Dr. Odeh is trying to change that one child at a time. She started the “Palestinian Happy Child Center” in 1994 to help children from the impoverished Ramallah area receive treatment for trauma and neurological disorders and also to help them learn and develop in spite of their disabilities. Hopefully Dr. Odeh is helping the Country see the value of all children.
Tibebe Maco spends her life helping orphans who dwell in the poorest areas of Ethiopia. She is a children’s rights advocate and fights for these children to receive health care, education, food and shelter. She is the director of Hiwot Hiv/AIDS Prevention, Care and Support Organization HSPCSO. She even works with the children inflected with the Aids virus and spends all of her own money on these children, no wonder they call her their angel.
Frank Brady after a serious illness of his own created the Medical Missions for Children MMC in 1999. His foundation helps children around the world receive adequate medical care they would otherwise not be able to have. His foundation enables pediatric specialist to remotely examine and diagnose critically ill children from anywhere on the globe. How does he do this? By video conferencing and remote diagnostic equipment. MMC has helped with the care of children in over 100 countries. MMC also operates the Medical Broadcasting Channel (MBC) a global TV network which provides medical symposia to hospitals, 750 hospitals in china.
Richard (Ricky) Anywar from Uganda was abducted at 14 years old as many children are in that part of the world. Along with other children he was forced to fight in the LRA (Lord Resistance Army). He experienced terrible things before he was able to escape. He is the founder of Friends of Orphans Organization which helps former LRA children with help of their basic human needs and also with their development and empowerment and counsel to help them overcome their experience and to be positive members of society. I asked Ricky where he gets the strength to have overcome what has happened to him and how he escaped his situation. Ricky said, “Getting out of the war zone helped me and my personal resilience which I have, helped me out. Because when I was in the bush I was thinking, no I don’t want to be here. And I saw what they were doing to the children it created a great sympathy in my mind for the children, so when I came out I was taken to central Uganda to a very peaceful area. But still my mind was thinking of the children who were left behind. I keep thinking about those who were still under abduction and terror, those who could not get sleep like myself because I was sleeping well at least in central Uganda with no fear of abduction. So when I finished my University I decided to go back and help these children and that’s exactly what I’m doing now. I’ll tell you a little bit about my experience what we experienced in the bush, personally I fought many, many wars. I went through spray bullets and bombs and it was so scary. They never wanted us to escape. I remained in there, forcefully so when I managed to escape and this is why I’m helping the children.”
Rita Conceicao grew up in a very bad place. She grew up in the notorious shantytowns of Brazil. These places are violent and impoverished. Girls are not treated well there. Rita is the co-founder of Bahia Street, a place where the girls who live in the shantytowns can go to be safe. Bahia Street is a school serving Brazilian-African girls who have had a very bad life. Bahia Street provides girls with an education, health care, good nutrition and emotional support. It sounds like an oasis of safety.
I also spoke with Talia Leman one of the Youth Award winners. Talia is only 13 years old but has accomplished so much already. Her organization “RandomKid” has raised over ten million dollars to help kids in more than 48 states in the US and 19 countries to develop solutions to real world problems. One project helped by RandomKid was a school that was built in Cambodia for 300 children. The organization also helped fund and refurbish a school for 200 kids in Slidell, Louisiana. They also provided interactive play centers which serve over 500 hospitals for kids in Iowa. In far away places like Africa they provide funds to buy water pumps. An amazing accomplishment at any age! I asked Talia what advice she would offer to other kids who like to help kids in need. She said, “Well, I’d say the first thing would be to find an adult and tell them your idea. Because they’re really the people who can help and from there I think it can just really take off.” I asked her if she ever dreamed when she started that she would be so successful and would be able to do all that the foundation has. “No, I really didn’t. I did a project called TLC which meant Trick or Treat for the Levy Catastrophe. Where kids would trick or treat for coins along with getting candy. My goal was to raise one million dollars. That seemed really high but when you reach a goal you always wind up reaching higher and we actually raised ten million dollars.” The money RandomKid raised provided help to the victims of hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Dr. Edward Zigler helped to found Project Head Start which has helped children in America and thousands across the world. Project Head Start, by early childhood intervention helps educate children in their early learning years. He was also part of the development of the Parents as Teachers National Center PATNC, which is a program that helps more than two million children in all 50 states in America and also in nine other countries. This program emphasizes equality of opportunity in the early years of kids regardless of where they live or how much money they have or anything else, it helps just because they’re kids who need it. Dr. Zigler himself has provided health, education and social and emotional well being of children in America and thousands of kids worldwide over five decades! I really enjoyed speaking with him. I was curious to know how the idea for Head Start began and how he began working with other countries, so I asked Dr. Zigler and he said, “We had some programs in this Country before Head Start. Head Start expanded earlier programs that were just about education. So the idea was to give children a heads start before they entered school. So that they could do well in school along with other children who weren’t poor. So with project Head Start we provided, in addition to preschool education, physical and mental help and social services. The idea was to help support poor children before they entered school.”
When I spoke with Darius Weems I couldn’t help but notice he always had a smile. Even though he has a terrible disease that is fatal and he has many difficulties, he is very positive. I know he was very moved by the award. His words broke up and he bowed his head and a few tears of joy ran down his face as he accepted the medal he deserves. He said, “Wow, this is amazing, thank you, thank you. Even though we are doing different things the main goal we all share is to help children and it’s my pleasure to help children. From people helping me it gave me motivation to help other people. It’s crazy to be able to receive an award for something that’s my pleasure, helping children. This award will help carry on my story. This day right here, it has made me very proud. I hope my courage will help other people want to keep on going in life. The World of Children it helps change people lives, thank you, thank you.” Darius is 19 years old and he has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). DMD is a horrible genetic disease that takes the life of people who have it usually before they turn thirty. Even though Darius’s muscles have almost fully deteriorated he found the strength and courage with the help of 11 friends to travel across the country to spread awareness of this disease. While traveling across the country Darius and his friends made a movie about it called, “Darius Goes West:The Roll of His Life”. Darius uses a wheelchair. His film has won 25 awards worldwide and 20 of them are Audience Choice Awards. He has raised more than one million dollars for DMD research. The grant funds Darius was awards from World of Children as a “Nobel Prize for Children” youth winner was donated by him to the Charley’s Fund an organization dedicated to finding a cure. Darius also draws strength from the memory of his brother, Mario, who passed away six years ago of the same disease. I asked Darius where he gets the strength to do what he does and he replied, “Watching what my brother went through and seeing what he went through gave me the motivation to try to help others so hopefully they wont have to go through the same things” Darius also said that having other people helping and supporting him has given him the courage and desire to help others. His strength also comes from his love of his family and friends.
The last person I spoke with was the beginning of it all, Mr. Harry Leibowitz I really wanted to know how he got the concept for the foundation and how it all started out, I asked him that question and he answered, “Well it started in 1996 when I had cancer. I was very sick and I was on a lot of medications and chemotherapy and I had had surgery due to the cancer. So I was sitting at home all by myself, I was alone, I wasn’t married at the time and I watching TV and they were giving out Pulitzer Prizes, which are prizes for art and litature. It just struck me that there were prizes for art and lititure, science and economics but no prizes for children. That’s what got me started. You know children are so important we should have prizes for children if we’re going to have prizes for everything else. That’s how it started.” I told him I agree children are very important!
World of Children foundation is a great thing. It’s good to say thank you and to show appreciation to people who are making such an incredible difference in the world by helping it’s future, the children.
After having a chance to interview some of the honorees I reflected back to an interview I did with NBC anchor, Mr. Lester Holt. I had asked him who he enjoyed interviewing the most. He said, “Ordinary people, people with amazing stories to tell…” He said those were the stories that linger with you for a long time. I understand that now.
I know I felt honored and comfortable at this event, it was so nice to be in a place where everyone valued children and everyone was nice, positive and helpful. It was also nice to know that people care in so many places of the world. I thought how great it would be if EVERY kid in the world felt just like I did at this event.
