Changemakers (English version)

The10

International Children’s Peace Prize Winners tell their remarkable stories

CHANGEMAKERS

For all the children who have the courage to stand up and make their voices heard loudly and clearly ‌ and for all the adults who once were children Together we will move the world

CHANGEMAKERS

“DO YOUR LITTLE BIT OF GOOD WHERE YOU ARE; IT’S THOSE LITTLE BITS OF GOOD PUT TOGETHER THAT OVERWHELM THE WORLD.” DESMOND TUTU

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Desmond Tutu in the Hall of Knights with Peace Prize Winner Mayra.

Foreword Dear friend, The International Children’s Peace Prize celebrates its tenth anniversary.

Congratulations to the KidsRights Foundation and its founder Marc Dullaert, for initiating this prize. The Children’s Peace Prize is awarded annually to a child, anywhere in the world, for his or her dedication to children’s rights. The prize was launched by KidsRights during the 2005 World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. Since then, the award has been presented every year by a fellow Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

I have been a Patron of KidsRights and the Children’s Peace Prize since 2008.

As Patron I am very fortunate to have presented the award twice. I presented the 1st prize to Mayra Avellar Neves, a brave girl from Rio de Janeiro. She stood up against the violence of drug lords in her neighbourhood.

In 2012 I handed over the powerful statuette, a child who is moving the world, to Kesz from the Philippines, a young former street child. After he was rescued, he helped thousands of vulnerable children still living on the streets and dump sites with his ‘gifts of hope’. This year, 2014, I will present the prize to yet another courageous young winner.

In the past 10 years the Children’s Peace Prize has developed to become the international recognition for courageous children who stood up and made a difference for children’s rights. I applaud KidsRights for letting this prize grow, for truly giving a voice to the voiceless and for letting our children speak up to an audience of billions around the world.

Please, listen to the children. Listen to their remarkable stories and become inspired by these young changemakers. Everybody can make a difference. You can too!

God bless you.

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu (Cape Town – South Africa)

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Our story so far...

KidsRights was founded in 2003 with the aim of advocating children’s rights. We achieve this by supporting concrete aid programs all over the world. But we also want to enable children to speak out, to tell their story. It has had staggering results. After eleven years over 100,000 children have been helped and the Children’s Peace Prize is celebrating its tenth anniversary.

What happened next…

It was in the autumn of 2004 on the Dutch island of Schiermonnikoog. That evening there was a news item about the new Nobel Peace Prize Winner. Later that evening there was a television report on Iqbal Masih, a brave Pakistani boy who fought against child labour and paid for this struggle with his life at the age of twelve.

My wife and I wondered: why is there no Nobel Peace Prize for children?

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After travelling over the continents I had become aware that children are not just vulnerable, as is the common perception, but that they have enormous strength and can bring about actual change.

A platform was needed where they could convey their message, to ensure that they were heard.

That evening the International Children’s Peace Prize was born.

In order to find support for the idea, I visited the Nobel Peace Prize Winners who are united in The World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, led by Mikhail Gorbachev. He was moved when I asked him what his grandchildren could teach him. He immediately understood the purpose of the Children’s Peace Prize.

In November 2005 at the World Summit of the Nobel Peace Laureates in the Capitol in Rome, the first International Children’s Peace Prize was welcomed and awarded posthumously to Nkosi Johnson, who stood up for children with AIDS.

Since then, year after year more and more people were moved and inspired by the brave stories of the winners, like Om Prakash, who fought against child slavery, Thandiwe who exacted the right to education in her country and Chaeli who stood up for disabled children.

Not only did the number of nominees from all over the world increase, but so did the impact of the Prize. Presidents met the Children’s Prize Winners from their country and laws were changed to benefit children’s rights. The Children’s’ Peace Prize reached and touched hundreds of millions of people.

The prize, which was world famous by now, had a downside.

By merely being nominated, Malala from Pakistan had been turned into a target.

Her school principle nominated this unknown girl, with a simple letter. We were afraid to give her the prize, because we were concerned about her safety. Who could have imagined what would happen?

“Hey you oldies listen to the children and act,” Desmond Tutu said during a Children’s Peace Prize presentation in the Hall of Knights. In 2008 he had become the patron of the International Children’s Peace Prize.

I remember our first meeting in his modest office in 2002 vividly. When I told him about my plans of starting KidsRights, he listened intently and then said with a beautiful African voice: “…. aaah, you want to give a voice to the voiceless.”

After all these years I am still decidedly convinced that children can ‘set the world in motion’, as is portrayed by the beautiful Children’s Peace Prize statuette.

Nowadays the Children’s Peace Prize statuette, the Nkosi, named after the first winner, has become a powerful icon that is recognised and understood by children and adults from all cultures. A child that literally sets the world in motion. My wife, Inge Ikink, made this statuette.

After a decade we are opening a new chapter with the Children’s Peace Prize Winners. During the tenth ceremony

the Youngsters will be launched. The Children’s Peace Prize Winners will unite in a group to make the voices of children and youngsters heard and to put important children’s rights issues on the agenda.

We are going to hear a lot from the Youngsters.

It’s the autumn of 2014. I just heard on the radio that Malala and Kailash Satyarthi have won the Nobel Peace Prize. My eyes fill with tears and I grab the phone to congratulate them. This is fantastic!

Our shared history flashes in front of my eyes.

With Kailash, Kidsrights has literary freed thousands of children from the bonds of slavery in India.

We just completed the last raid and rescue in May. I can still see the shaken children step out of the stuffy sweatshops.

They can’t believe they are free.

Two weeks ago we were seated at the table in Malala’s home to discuss everything that had happened after her nomination and about the secondary schools we are building in Pakistan with the Children’s Peace Prize project fund.

All that is left now is gratitude to all the people who have made the past ten years a reality. In particular the Nobel

Peace Prize Winners, united in the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, who have backed the International Children’s Peace Prize.

The main sponsor of the Children’s Peace Prize, the ABN AMRO Bank, who has been a loyal partner since 2006 and believes in the strength of the young winners.

I would also like to thank the KidsRights Board, the team at the KidsRights office, the sponsors, donors, ambassadors, volunteers and of course my family.

In short, all the people who carry this special story.

This book captures the early, but already impressive, history of the Children’s Peace Prize Winners of the past decade.

A history that moves young and old and affects us all and which gives us hope and faith for the future: that we can all contribute to change and that we can be the change we want to be.

Deventer, The Netherlands, autumn 2014

Marc Dullaert Chairman KidsRights Foundation

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The International Children’s Peace Prize

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The International Children’s Peace Prize is awarded annually to a child for his or her brave and extraordinary dedication to children’s rights. An Expert Committee selects the winner from nominations from all over the world.

the world and hugely impacts issues about children’s rights. In 2014 the price celebrates its tenth anniversary.

The winner receives the statuette ‘Nkosi’ and an award of 100,000 euro. The amount is put in a project fund and is meant for aid projects aimed at children’s rights issues in the winner’s country.

The statuette ‘the Nkosi’ emulates a child that is literally moving the world. The Dutch visual artist Inge Ikink makes it.

The statuette has become an icon and is acknowledged and recognized by children and adults on all continents. It’s also the logo of the International Children’s Peace Prize. ‘The Nkosi’ is produced in bronze and made up of a globe that is pushed by a child. Every year the hands of the child are placed on the country of the young winner.

The statuette is named after Nkosi Johnson. He received the prize posthumously in 2005, four years after he died of AIDS at the age of twelve. During his short life he fought courageously and successfully for the rights of children with HIV/AIDS. His foster-mother Gail Johnson accepted the award. The winner also receives financial support for his or her education.

In 2005 the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Rome welcomed the International Children’s Peace Prize, an initiative of Marc Dullaert Chairman and Founder of the Dutch KidsRights Foundation. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mikhail Gorbachev presented the first International Children’s Peace Prize in the Capitol.

With this prize KidsRights provides a platform for children to express their ideas and personal involvement in children’s rights. Since 2006 a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate presents the International Children’s Peace Prize to a young winner in the Ridderzaal (Hall of Knights) in The Hague, The Netherlands.

Every the year the award ceremony is global news. The message of the winner reaches hundreds of millions of people around

The Nkosi

KidsRights Founded in 2003, the KidsRights foundation stands up for the rights of vulnerable children all over the world. They achieve this by helping children directly through local projects.

For example, since 2005 KidsRights supports the Indian organization BBA. In recent years BBA and KidsRights have managed to rescue thousands of children from slavery and united them with their families. Kailash Satyarti, the founder of BBA, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014.

KidsRights also has the mission to let children’s voices be heard, in order for them to stand up for their rights. KidsRight’s patron Desmond Tutu puts it pointedly: “KidsRights gives a voice to the voiceless.”

The most famous advocacy platform of KidsRights is the International Children’s Peace Prize.

The appeals of the Children’s Peace Prize winners are supported by findings, the so-called ‘KidsRights’ reports’.

These reports analyse children’s rights’ issues.

KidsRights also initiated the KidsRights Index. This unique index, developed with the Erasmus University Rotterdam, charts the status of children’s rights in the 193 countries that have signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The annually published index makes concrete recommendations and classifies the 193 countries.

The latest advocacy platform of KidsRights is the Youngsters.

It unites the Children’s Peace Prize Winners who put current children’s rights issues on the global agenda (www. kidsrightsyoungsters.org).

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Desmond Tutu on the importance of the Children’s Peace Prize:

“If you ask me it is the nursery for the next Nobel Peace Prize Winners.”

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Contents NKOSI JOHNSON

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OM PRAKASH GURJAR

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THANDIWE CHAMA

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MAYRA AVELLAR NEVES

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BARUANI NDUME

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FRANCIA SIMON

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CHAELI MYCROFT

123

KESZ VALDEZ

137

MALALA YOUSAFZAI

159

NEHA GUPTA

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NOMINEES

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MANIFEST YOUNGSTERS

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OUR JOURNEY

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COLOPHON

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2005 Nkosi Johnson

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Nkosi Johnson

South Africa

Nkosi Johnson 2005

“Care for us and accept us – we are all human beings. We are normal. We have hands. We have feet. We can walk, we can talk, we have needs just like everyone else – don’t be afraid of us – we are all the same!”

With these apt words Nkosi Johnson broke the taboo on AIDS in South Africa and the rest of the world. On 9 July 2000, this eleven-year-old little sick boy, a baggy suit hanging around his skinny body on top of white sneakers, addresses a packed room at the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban. The 11,000 attendees of the conference, which was held in Africa for the first time, listened with bated breath.

The rest of the world listened too. His speech was broadcast live around the globe and was watched and listened to by 60 million people. He received a standing ovation.

To this day he personifies the disease HIV/AIDS, he has given it a human face, simply by showing what the disease does to you and making an appeal to the world to continue to treat people with AIDS as human beings. He continued to do so during the remainder of his short life. With the help of his adoptive mother Gail Johnson, he ensured that HIV-positive children could go to school like other children. He fought for health care and medication for pregnant mothers who transmitted the virus to their babies. In 1999 they managed to open the shelter “Nkosi’s Haven” for HIV-positive mothers and their children, and for infected orphans together. One by one these are milestones in the fight against HIV and AIDS in

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South Africa. He would have loved to continue his work, but unfortunately lost his own battle with the debilitating disease on 1 June, the International Day for Protection of Children, less than a year after giving the impressive speech in Durban.

He was twelve years old.

Nkosi’s Haven

Nkosi Johnson

Gail Johnson has tirelessly continued the struggle against discrimination of people with AIDS and for the care of mothers and children infected with the virus. She is doing it in Nkosi’s spirit. After opening the first shelter in Berea, Johannesburg, a second one followed. Today, Nkosi’s Haven is a registered non-profit organisation, which is headed by Gail as executive and employs an additional twenty-two people. In 2002, the development of Nkosi’s Haven Village commenced on a large plot of land just south of Johannesburg. The Village is situated in an idyllic spot on a hill overseeing the city.

Accommodating twenty-two mothers and 121 children, it has facilities such as a sick bay, a therapy block, an upgraded kitchen, a laundry room, a sports field and a leisure room.

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When you enter the complex you immediately notice the colourfully painted cottages spread out over the hill. Little kids’ handprints are displayed in white on a red wall. It’s quiet at the moment; all the children have been taken to school with the school bus, driven by Baba. Gail Johnson is seated behind her cluttered desk in the office of Nkosi’s Village. She is on the phone and gesticulating animatedly, her prominent voice filling the room. The office is filled with photographs and children’s drawings. Behind her is a large painting of Nkosi on the wall. The rattle of pots and pans in the kitchen can be heard in the distance. A joyous laugh sounds in the hallway.

Opposite the office, two nurses are busy. They are sorting medication for the next month into conveniently arranged containers with names on them. There is a container for every resident. It’s the first clue that this is a shelter for mothers and children with HIV. Gail ends the phone call and shows the kitchen, laundry room and sickbay. A thin young girl is huddled under the covers.

She’s feeling cold. Gail cheerfully greets her and asks how she’s doing. “I’m very tired,” she says softly. “She’s not doing well,” Gail says a little while later. “We haven’t seen this in a long time. Most of the mothers and children are doing well.

This girl arrived here recently.” In the leisure room a couple of foreign volunteers are playing games with the children who are too young to go to school. “Soon this will change. We are building a preschool.”

Visiting Mandela

She’s proud of Nkosi’s Haven and is sure that Nkosi would have been too big for his boots with pride. “He didn’t live to see the Village, but he would have loved it. He’d have sat

on a chair and let everyone run around for him, asking him: ‘Do you want some tea, Nkosi? Coffee? How about some lunch, Nkosi?’ He would have been treated like a little prince.

That’s what happened at the first Haven, which he opened himself. The people there adored him and spoiled him rotten.

He often asked me if he could go there. Because he enjoyed the recognition of course, but mainly because he recognised the problems of other AIDS sufferers. All the children and mothers who lived there had to deal with them. Nkosi felt at home there.”

On the day of the opening, Gail and Nkosi are invited to the official residence of President Mandela in Houghton, Johannesburg. “Nkosi enjoyed meeting the president,” Gail recalls. “Madiba wrote a cheque for the Haven and gave us his book Long Walk to Freedom. He inscribed it with the words “Best wishes to a lady who cares and to a very brave young man.” He asked Nkosi what he wanted to be when he grew up. Nkosi took his time to think about it and then said he did not know. So then Mandela asked him if he would want his job. Nkosi answered immediately. “No thank you sir, it looks like too much work to me.” The president burst out laughing and has since repeated this story on numerous occasions.

Ten men and a baby

Fate brought Gail and Nkosi together. It was by pure chance that they met in Johannesburg. Gail lives with her family in Melville, a white suburb in Johannesburg and Xolani Nkosi was born on 4 February 1989 in a small, poor village in KwaZulu-Natal, the once so mighty Zululand with its

endless green hills. The meaning of Nkosi is ‘king’ in Zulu, but unlike his powerful name he is a small baby weighing just four pounds. His mother, the nineteen-year-old Daphne Kumalo, immediately notices that he is different to his sister

“Nkosi Johnson has been an icon of the struggle for life. The fact that he is a child has endeared him to everyone who has seen seen him, including myself.”

NELSON MANDELA

Mbabli. He has difficulty drinking and his breathing is laboured. She decides to move to the capital to find a job and better medical care for her baby. It does not occur to her that Nkosi could be HIV-positive. In the late 1980s, little is known about the disease, and what’s more, it is taboo. She finds work as a cleaner and starts a new life. When she does not feel well she goes to the doctor and receives the devastating news that she has ingculaza, the Zulu word for AIDS. Suddenly it becomes clear what’s wrong with Nkosi. She passed the HIV virus on to him.

She enters a scenario that is very familiar to HIV positive women. Even though she has told nobody, her employer finds out. She is fired. When her landlord gets wind of it, he shows her the door. There is a lot of fear of infection. She is on her own. Daphne is desperate and tries to find a safe place for her sick child. Her doctor tells her about a shelter for HIV positive men, the Guest House in Johannesburg. She appeals for help and asks if there is space for a child. And that is how twoyear-old Nkosi enters Gail Johnson’s life, who is one of the founders of the shelter.

A new home

Gail vividly remembers their first meeting. “He was a cute little man with a bulging tummy. I picked him up and said ‘Hi, I’m Gail.’ He looked at my hair with huge eyes, he’d probably never seen a white face with red hair,” she laughs. “Nkosi was an instant hit at the shelter. The men loved him. When the Guest House had to shut down due to lack of funding, I took him home with me. I had done that on occasion over the weekend. We were all crazy about him.” She talks it over with Daphne, but not her family. “She gave her blessing, which is a huge decision for a mother. She did keep in touch with him, though, until shortly before her death in 1997. My husband and children were a different story. I wasn’t going to ask them.

There was no other option for Nkosi, so I took him home and that was that. Fortunately everybody agreed on the first evening he was with us. We already knew him, it seemed as if he had always been with us.”

I did not take long for Nkosi to call Gail ‘mommy’ and her husband Alan ‘daddy’. He was three years old and didn’t speak English. “We all taught him to speak English. It was quite a challenge! But kids learn fast. We were a very normal family; Nkosi was a happy, if quiet, boy. He had bad lungs and could not run or play football that well. But he loved riding around the swimming pool on his plastic motorbike.

He really wanted to have a father because he never knew his own father and Alan was perfect for the role. At night he climbed into bed with my eleven-year-old daughter Niki.

It was a natural thing for him to do, because beds are often shared in the black community. They adored each other.”

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Gail Johnson’s office.

From the start Gail is very open with Nkosi about his disease and about what’s happening inside his body during treatments at the hospital. At first she talked about the ‘baddies’ in his blood, but once he is able to understand, she explains everything to Nkosi like an adult. It is clear from his Durban speech that he understood everything: “She has taught me all about being infected and how I must be careful with my blood. If I fall and cut myself and bleed, then I must make sure that I cover my own wound and go to an adult to help me clean it and put a plaster on it. I know that my blood is only dangerous to other people if they also have an open wound and my blood goes into it. That is the only time that people need to be careful when touching me.”

Going to school

When he moved in with the Johnson’s, he was thought to have only nine months to live. But miraculously, Nkosi does well. When he is eight years old, he wants to go to school, just like other children. Gail does everything in her power to make this happen. But it’s not easy. A nursery school has already refused admission, and now the same seems to be happening at primary school. Gail is forthcoming and mentions Nkosi has AIDS on the admission form. “I knew there would be trouble, but I thought, rather now than in six months. There was a lot of fear and not much knowledge about AIDS. There were no guidelines for school, for parents, nothing. The parents protested, because they did not want a child with AIDS in their child’s class.”

Nkosi Johnson

In his speech, Nkosi mentions how nervous he was: “Then Mommy Gail phoned the school, who said we will call you and then they had a meeting about me. Of the parents and the teachers at the meeting, fifty per cent said yes and fifty per cent said no. And then on the day of my big brother’s (Brett) wedding, the media found out that there was a problem about me going to school. No one seemed to know what to do with me because I am infected. The AIDS workshops were done at the school for parents and teachers to teach them not to be scared of a child with AIDS. I am very proud to say that there is now a policy for all HIV-infected children to be allowed to go into schools and not be discriminated against.”

Courage

Nkosi and Gail become instantly famous in South Africa.

For a whole week, they are interviewed every day. Nkosi’s situation is discussed in Parliament, and eventually the court decides that schools are not allowed to refuse children on medical grounds. According to the constitution, it’s discrimination. The ruling is a milestone for all children carrying the virus. “It was a milestone for Nkosi as well,” Gail says. “From that moment he started speaking publicly about his disease. Schools asked me if Nkosi could come and talk, and he loved doing that. It was then that I noticed how phenomenal his courage was. Children are very open. I will never forget when a child asked him: ‘How does it feel to know you have a virus that will kill you and that you won’t survive?’ I had my heart in my mouth, but Nkosi simply answered the question: ‘I don’t like it, but we fight with my tummy, my head, heart, the medicine and the healthy food I eat.’ I believe that was where his courage lay. Everyone talks about the conference in Durban, but these one-on-one confrontations took real courage.”

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Nkosi with mommy Gail Johnson.

In those days, there was hardly any knowledge about AIDS and HIV. Nkosi taught people what it’s like to have AIDS by talking about it. He was an innocent child and that made a

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huge impact. It was a lonely battle. There were AIDS activists in South Africa who urged the government to provide AIDS inhibitors, but successive governments did not react. At the peak of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, 1,700 people died every day. Gail is still very angry about it. “President Mbeki blocked the import of Neviparine, AIDS medication for pregnant women, into South Africa, and spoke about AIDS as a disease of the poor. His Minister of Health, Manto TshabalalaMsimang, promoted treating the disease with beets and lemons. Many mothers and babies died unnecessarily due to our nation’s policy, it’s a disgrace. While other countries like Botswana, Namibia and Uganda provided AIDS inhibitors, Mbeki did nothing. I swore at the TV news a lot during that time.

Nkosi Johnson

Dream

“When Nkosi got older, he realized there were more children with HIV and AIDS in South Africa,” Gail continues. “He was very concerned and asked me: ‘Who’s looking after these sick children? Why can’t the mothers and children stay together when they are sick?’ This sparked his dream to open a shelter for mothers and children. He was a caring person. When I came home from work at my own PR firm, he would see I was tired and he’d ask me if I wanted a glass of wine, or run a bath for me.” Laughing, Gail says: “He would also do that if he’d done something wrong. Sometimes he’d take some money or forget to do his chores, he was just an ordinary kid.”

“Nkosi wanted to open as many shelters for mothers and children as possible. In Durban he spoke in a high-pitched, wispy voice about being separated from his mother when she

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The first Children’s Peace Prize presentation in Rome. Nobel Prize Winner Mikhail Gorbachev, Gail Johnson and Nkosi’s little brother, Thabo.

fell ill. He talked about how she died just before he started school. ‘I just wish that the government can start giving AZT to pregnant HIV mothers to help stop the virus being passed on to their babies. Babies are dying very quickly and I know one little abandoned baby who came to stay with us and his name was Micky. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t eat and he was so sick and mommy Gail had to phone welfare to have him admitted to a hospital and he died. But he was such a cute little baby and I think the government must start doing it because I don’t want babies to die.’”

Nkosi gave his speech in 2000. It took ten years for his plea to finally be heard. In 2010 President Zuma launched a new HIV protocol. The government started giving pregnant women AIDS inhibitors from the fourteenth week of pregnancy. This has lowered the chances of a baby being infected with HIV by 90%. Other HIV patients are eligible for medication at an earlier stage too. Gail Johnson believes it is a step in the right direction. “It has dropped from 55% to 2.3% and that’s brilliant. But there is still the 2.3%. South Africa has six million registered HIV and AIDS patients, and it is the nation with the highest rate of infected people. There is still much to be done.”

First Children’s Peace Prize

In 2005, Nkosi received the International Children’s Peace Prize posthumously, for his struggle for children with HIV and AIDS. Gail travelled to Rome with Nkosi’s brother Thabo, where she received the prize from Mikhail Gorbachev, the chairman of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.

Nkosi was the first recipient of the prize. The Little Warrior against AIDS, as he is called in South Africa, received the highest honour. The statuette that every winner receives is honourably renamed the ‘Nkosi’. KidsRights started a children’s project fund that invested the 100,000 euro prize money in Nkosi’s Haven.

Is Nkosi a changemaker? Gail has to think about this. “He changed people’s fear, he didn’t change their behaviour. He made a big contribution to the acceptance of people infected with HIV, and he achieved that by being himself. He was a good storyteller. He wrote the Durban speech himself. All I did was put it on paper for him. He was already quite ill when he gave the speech. I was as proud of him as a mother could be, it felt like my heart would burst. He was incredible.”

She thinks it’s unforgivable that President Mbeki left the AIDS conference early and missed Nkosi’s speech. Nkosi spoke to an empty chair. “It was a missed opportunity. Nkosi wanted to show the president what a child who has AIDS looks like.”

She’s sad Nkosi did not live to see the impact his life had on so many people. “First of all he should have accepted the Children’s Peace Prize, not me. Gorbachev shook my hand, not his.” Gail falls silent and then says: “When Nkosi went into a coma at the end of December he was front-page news for a few weeks. He adorned the cover of Time Magazine

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and Newsweek. He’d have loved it. Our front garden became a site of pilgrimage. There was a sea of flowers, just like when Princess Di died. Thirty people visited him every day, including Mrs Mbeki and the national football team. The nation mourned when he died six months later on the first of June. A lot of people were finally able to show their grief for the loved ones who died of AIDS. It was astonishing. It was very grand.”

Icon for AIDS

“He gave AIDS a human face in Africa, and in the rest of the world, there’s no doubt about that. And he gave it a voice. The virus got the better of him. I never thought he would die from a stroke. Never. But his voice was not silenced; people still talk about him. Books have been written about him and there are plans to make a movie about his life. Children send me emails when they have to do a project on heroes, requesting information about Nkosi. These are kids who weren’t even born when he died. Every year on the first of June, we honour him here at the Haven by celebrating Nkosi Day. We do his

“Nkosi has been a great ambassador for our country and its people, particularly for millions of people living with HIV. We should not despair and lose hope.”

NELSON MANDELA

Nkosi Johnson 28

work, we talk his talk, we live his dream. I hope to continue this work in his spirit for a long time.”

A little girl is singing happily on a swing in Nkosi’s Haven.

She just had a shower and is wearing a pink robe, her favourite colour. Ria is ten years old and has lived in the Haven her whole life. She shows her cottage, which is painted green.

“Look, this is where I sleep,” she says, pointing to one of the three bunkbeds in the room. Bags, sneakers and clothes are strewn all over the floor and around the beds. “We just got home from school. I’ve washed my shoes and put them at the window. I love to clean,” she says with a smile. Two mothers live in every house to care for the children. Ria skips back to the swing. “We eat and play in that big building and I have to get my medicine there every day too,” she says cheerfully.

“We have many trees here as well, Gail loves trees and so do I.” Does she know who Nkosi Johnson is? “Yes, of course!

He could sing very well and he was very important to people with AIDS. He told everyone that we are normal. And he was right, we are!”

2005 WHO: Nkosi Johnson

(1989 - 2001)

DEFENDS: The rights of

children with HIV and AIDS. Art. 2 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

MOTTO: “Do all you can. With what you have, in the

time you have, in the place you are.”

CHANGEMAKER: Fights for the acceptance of

people with AIDS, dispelled fear by being himself. Opens the first shelter for mothers and children with HIV and AIDS, Nkosi’s Haven.

LOVES: Motor sport.

INSPIRATION: Michael Schumacher.

IN TEN YEARS TIME: Would have loved to have travelled the world to inform people about AIDS. MESSAGE TO CHILDREN:

“I want people to understand about AIDS − to be careful and respect AIDS − you can’t get AIDS if you touch, hug, kiss, hold hands with someone who is infected.”

WEBSITE: www.nkosishaven.co.za

Letter of Condolence by Nelson Mandela June 2001 The deterioration in Nkosi Johnson‘s health over the past few months has been a source of great concern to us. It is an immense human tragedy that AIDS is so cruelly ravaging the lives of people, and particularly those of children.

Children, such as Nkosi Johnson, should be enjoying a life filled with joy and laughter and happiness. The regrettable reality of our situation is that AIDS severely threatens all that which is beautiful about children and humanity in general. On a frightening scale HIV/AIDS is replacing that joy, laughter and happiness with paralyzing pain and trauma.

Nkosi Johnson has been an icon of the struggle for life. The fact that he is a child has endeared him to everyone who has had contact or has seen him, including myself. Therefore, I urge the country and our people to give moral support in his dark hour as he fights for his life.

He has earned the right to be accorded all honor, dignity and respect.

Nkosi has been a great ambassador for our country and its people, particularly for millions of people living with HIV. We should not despair and lose hope. Let his life and example spur us on to be strong, resilient and vigorous in our fight against this dreaded infection.

I extend my strongest support to his family, relatives and friends during this dark hour. May Nkosi’s soul be saved. I wish him peace and tranquility. With them we think of Nkosi in these times of severe suffering.

Nelson Mandela

Source: Nelson Mandela Foundation

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The following is the speech of Nkosi Johnson, 11 years old, held at the opening ceremony of the 13th International AIDS Conference in Durban: “Hi! My name is Nkosi Johnson. I live in Melville, Johannesburg, South Africa. I am 11 years old and I have full-blown AIDS. I was born HIV-positive.

When I was two years old, I was living in a care center for HIV/AIDS-infected people. My mommy was obviously also infected and could not afford to keep me because she was very scared that the community she lived in would find out that we were both infected and chase us away.

I know she loved me very much and would visit me when she could. And then the care center had to close down because they didn’t have any funds. So my foster mother, Gail Johnson, who was a director of the care center and had taken me home for weekends, said at a board meeting she would take me home.

Nkosi Johnson

She took me home with her and I have been living with her for eight years now.

She has taught me all about being infected and how I must be careful with my blood. If I fall and cut myself and bleed, then I must make sure that I cover my own wound and go to an adult to help me clean it and put a plaster on it.

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I know that my blood is only dangerous to other people if they also have an open wound and my blood goes into it. That is the only time that people need to be careful when touching me.

In 1997 mommy Gail went to the school, Melpark Primary, and she had to fill in a form for my admission and it said does your child suffer from anything so she said yes: AIDS. My mommy Gail and I have always been open about me having AIDS. And then my mommy Gail was waiting to hear if I was admitted to school. Then she phoned the school, who said we will call you and then they had a meeting about me.

Of the parents and the teachers at the meeting 50% said yes and 50% said no. And then on the day of my big brother’s wedding, the media found out that there was a problem about me going to school. No one seemed to know what to do with me because I am infected. The AIDS workshops were done at the school for parents and teachers to teach them not to be scared of a child with AIDS. I am very proud to say that there is now a policy for all HIV-infected children to be allowed to go into schools and not be discriminated against.

And in the same year, just before I started school, my mommy Daphne died. She went on holiday to Newcastle − she died in her sleep. And mommy Gail got a phone call and I answered and my aunty said please can I speak to Gail? Mommy Gail told me almost immediately my mommy had died and I burst into tears. My mommy Gail took me to my Mommy’s funeral. I

saw my mommy in the coffin and I saw her eyes were closed and then I saw them lowering it into the ground and then they covered her up. My granny was very sad that her daughter had died.

Then I saw my father for the first time and I never knew I had a father. He was very upset but I thought to myself, why did he leave my mother and me? And then the other people asked mommy Gail about my sister and who would look after her and then mommy Gail said, ‘ask the father’.

Ever since the funeral, I have been missing my mommy lots and I wish she was with me, but I know she is in heaven. And she is on my shoulder watching over me and in my heart.

I hate having AIDS because I get very sick and I get very sad when I think of all the other children and babies that are sick with AIDS. I just wish that the government can start giving AZT to pregnant HIV mothers to help stop the virus being passed on to their babies. Babies are dying very quickly and I know one little abandoned baby who came to stay with us and his name was Micky. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t eat and he was so sick and mommy Gail had to phone welfare to have him admitted to a hospital and he died. But he was such a cute little baby and I think the government must start doing it because I don’t want babies to die.

Because I was separated from my mother at an early age, because we were both HIV positive, my mommy Gail and I have always wanted to start a care center for HIV/AIDS mothers and their children. I am very happy and proud to say that the first Nkosi’s Haven was opened last year. And we look after 10 mommies and 15 children. My mommy Gail and I want to open five Nkosi’s Havens by the end of next year because I want more infected mothers to stay together with their children they mustn’t be separated from their children so they can be together and live longer with the love that they need.

When I grow up, I want to lecture to more and more people about AIDS and if mommy Gail will let me, around the whole country. I want people to understand about AIDS − to be careful and respect AIDS - you can’t get AIDS if you touch, hug, kiss, hold hands with someone who is infected.

Care for us and accept us − we are all human beings.

We are normal. We have hands. We have feet. We can walk, we can talk, we have needs just like everyone else − don’t be afraid of us − we are all the same!”

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“We are all human beings. We are normal. We have hands. We have feet.

We can walk, we can talk, we have needs just like everyone else. Don’t be afraid of us, we are all the same.”

NKOSI

Nkosi Johnson

JOHNSON

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CHANGEMAKERS

“OUR GREATEST CHALLENGE TODAY IS TO HELP VULNERABLE CHILDREN. IF WE PROVIDE EDUCATION AND PROTECTION TO CHILDREN, THEN WE TAKE OUR RESPONSABILITY AS ADULTS.” MIKHAIL GORBACHEV

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2006 Om Prakash Gurjar

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Om Prakash Gurjar

India

Om Prakash Gurjar 2006

“I was five years old and didn’t know what was going on when I was first put to work, slaving away all day on our landowner’s farm.

Besides ploughing, sowing and harvesting, I had to look after the animals. I was given two meals a day but no wages, and was beaten for the smallest mistake. I wondered why I didn’t go to school like other children. The reason was simply that my father had once borrowed money from the landowner, and he and his family were forced to work as bonded labourers in exchange - I had become a child slave. After three years, I was saved and was able to go to school, and six years on, I’d become a children’s rights activist and was awarded the Children’s Peace Prize.”

Today, Om Prakash is a young man of twenty-three. He doesn’t like thinking of the past. “I remember everything very well,” he says, “it was a bad time for me. Many children in India are still going through the same. That has to stop.

We must work hard to change the attitudes of landowners and parents. We need to convince them that children have rights, too; that they aren’t meant to work on the land, in quarries or anywhere else, but that they have the right to go to school. It’s up to the adults to listen to children and respect their rights.” Om Prakash is a gifted speaker. Sitting on a low rope bed in his parents’ cool house, he punctuates his speech with animated gestures. He is surrounded by listening family members and curious villagers. Saradhana Ki Dhani is a small village in the barren desert interior of Rajasthan, India’s ‘Land of Kings’. About ninety families live here, most of which work on the land or the farms of one of the landowners and don’t have an education. It’s a hard life. Om Prakash’s mother got up at five o’clock that morning to work in the fields. Several hours later, she and the other women carry the crop to the barns, balancing it on their heads in bundles wrapped in large, colourful pieces of cloth and wearing brightly coloured saris that seem to light up the arid landscape. She has already started on her next chore, baking chapatti on a wood fire.

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Om Prakash Gurjar

Om Prakash teaches about children’s rights in a village in Rajasthan.

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Bonded labour Om Prakash lives on the campus of Poornima University in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, where he studies Computer Application. He and his friend Kulpreet Singh hitch-hiked back to his native village today especially for the interview.

There is not much entertainment in the area and the villagers have flocked to see the visitor. “People have to work hard to support their families,” he goes on. “And of course I understand they occasionally need some extra money to buy a cow, say, or to settle a debt. But if they borrow money from landowners they become part of the bonded labour system, and that is bad. It’s a form of slavery. You see, what happens is that the family gives a child in pledge for the loan. The child is obliged to work for the landowner until the debt - and the accumulated interest - is paid back. This is almost impossible given the workers’ low wages, and they are burdened with it their whole lives, sometimes for generations. The children pay the price. They are used as child slaves and rarely - if ever - see their families again. And they can’t go to school. In effect, their childhood is taken from them.”

Bonded labour, one of the oldest forms of slavery in India, is especially prevalent in rural areas such as Rajasthan.

Outlawed in 1976, it’s a tradition that has proved difficult to eradicate. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill that was announced on 11 May 2012 is a big step forward. The new law is to impose a complete

ban on child labour and develop a national policy for the rehabilitation of child labourers, as the Minister of Labour and Employment Mallikharjun Kharge announced at a meeting of Indian children’s rights organisations Global March Against Child Labour and BBA, Bachpan Bachao Andolan (Save Childhood Movement). In March 2014, the High Supreme Court approved the radical changes outlined in the bill. KidsRights, who has been an important partner and sponsor of BBA for years, drew up a first draught of this law, which will be implemented in 2015. A real breakthrough.

In addition, a children’s hotline has been introduced that is linked to the missing children database set up by KidsRights.

The police have access to this information. At long last, the problem of child labour is being taken seriously in India.

Saved “Children have very little say in this system,” Om Prakash says sharply. “They do as their parents, or the landowners, tell them. No one listens to them. I advocate a form of micro financing for everyone, so that poor people can get a loan on honest terms, and pay it back in an honest way, too. Out of their wages. Then life can go on. With bonded labour, quality of life plummets.”

At eight years old, Om Prakash’s life is changed for ever when he is saved by BBA social activists and taken to the Bal

Ashram centre in Rajasthan. Founded by Kailash Satyarthi in 1980, the organisation fights child labour and child slavery.

Kailash and BBA have been saving children from lives of hardship for over thirty years, by mediating and by educating the public about children’s rights, but also with raid and rescue operations executed in close collaboration with the police and the court. So far, they have saved 80,000 children from quarries, factories, brothels, farms - anywhere children are forced to work. An estimated 12 million children in India work. This is still one of the highest figures in the world, though according to the International Labour Organisation ILO, it has dropped slightly since the turn of the millennium.

The BBA visits villages to raise awareness of children’s rights among parents. Their talk makes a deep impression on the young Om Prakash. “I’d never heard of children’s rights. My father and the landowner didn’t want to hear about it, they thought child labour was perfectly normal. The organisation had to do a lot of talking and explaining to convince my father and the landowner, but they finally succeeded in freeing me and the other children.”

Bal Ashram Once the children have been freed, they are housed in one of two ashrams, Mukti Ashram in Delhi and Bal Ashram in Rajasthan. Many of the children have been deeply traumatised by their experiences and need to rest first, under the supervision of doctors and psychologists. After spending a month at Mukti Ashram, where they are taught to read and write for the first time but are also free to play, sing and dance, they are reunited with their families – provided the families can be found. Children without a home go to Bal Ashram, where they stay for a longer period. It’s a small oasis

at the foot of a rock, on which stands one of Rajasthan’s many old palaces, and houses about forty boys.

Om Prakash is reunited with his parents and siblings, but since the family is too poor to look after him properly he’s sent to Bal Ashram, about a half an hour’s drive away from his parents’ house, to recuperate. He stays there until he’s eighteen. After his difficult time as a child slave, it feels like paradise to him. “It was such a beautiful place, full of trees and flowers. There were boys playing cricket, others were dancing and singing, and no one had to work. I was too shy to say much at first, but that soon changed. We held a wonderful ceremony, in which I and some other children, Muslims and Hindus, were assigned a birth date. It meant a lot to me, I’d never celebrated my birthday before.”

“I have happy memories of the time I spent there. We had everything we needed, clothes, good food, medication, lessons, and I learned to read and do maths. I enjoyed it and wanted very much to go to school. The days were packed with meditation, school, communal meals, drama and sports - I had no spare time, but learned a lot. I was taught that I wasn’t a victim but a liberator. The staff really encouraged us. Mrs Sumedha Kailash is a mother to all the children, and Mr Kailash Satyarthi a very inspiring man. One thing that immediately struck me was that children were listened to. That was new to me. I also learned a lot about children’s rights, and that there is even such a thing as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which doesn’t just apply to India but the whole world.” A keen student, children’s rights activist 43

2014 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Kailash Satyarthi in the Bal Ashram, India.

Om Prakash Gurjar

Children’s rights activist

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Om Prakash is enrolled at the local state school. He thrives and makes quick progress. From the very beginning, he helps other boys at Bal Ashram and undertakes various activities to raise awareness of children’s rights. For instance, he gives talks on his life as a child slave at informational meetings held in the surrounding villages, and tells children and parents that education is the key to a better life. According to Kinsu Kumar, a nineteen-year-old student and fellow Bal Ashram inhabitant who also advocates children’s rights and has spoken about them with the then Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, Om Prakash is a convincing and impassioned speaker. “He’s a great storyteller and people listen to him. As a local, he speaks the language and is good at connecting with people. He’s a few years older than me. At Bal Ashram, the older children generally look after the younger ones and make them feel at home, and when I first came here as a tiny boy, Om Prakash looked after me.”

The information meetings in the villages have the aim of putting an end to child labour and letting the children go to school again. Short plays and songs are performed to convince the parents. If the villagers come round, the village is given the title Bal Mitra Gram, child-friendly village. Rajasthan counts over 300 of such villages already. Saradhana Ki Dhani, the village the Gurjar family lives in, is also a Bal Mitra Gram.

All 125 children of the village now go to school in their own community. A vast improvement.

At court At the age of twelve , Om Prakash is elected head of the School Assembly, a children’s parliament. The position brings great responsibility. When he finds out that the school charges one hundred rupees (approximately 1.25 euros) for each child, he immediately takes action. “I’d read that state schools in India were free, but my school was charging a fee. Most parents can’t afford to pay. I approached the district magistrate and asked him to do something about this. He filed a petition to the court in Jaipur, which ruled that the school was obliged to pay back the money to the parents. And it did. I was very happy with this success,” he says with enthusiasm. Om Prakash’s initiative has far-reaching consequences. The Rajasthan human rights commission supports the judge’s ruling, and with his case acting as a precedent, all schools in the district are prohibited to charge any more school fees.

Five hundred birth certificates Growing up in such inspiring environments as his school and the Bal Ashram, Om Prakash becomes more of a children’s rights activist every day. On finding out that the simple fact of having a birth certificate gives children rights that protect them against exploitation, he launches a campaign advocating registration. “If you want people to listen to you and give

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“This is our right, adults have to listen.

This is children’s rights. And if they are not abiding with that right, we will work harder to make them hear.”

OM PRAKASH GURJAR

“Children are pure. The problems are caused by adults.

I want to help the little people.”

Om Prakash Gurjar

OM PRAKASH GURJAR

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you your due rights, you need to obtain legal recognition first. I went to schools and villages to tell people about the importance of a birth certificate. It gives you a name, an identity and a nationality. And many rights, such as the right to an education, health care, and, when you are of age, voting and opening a bank account. And it helps protect you against human trafficking and other forms of exploitation. Neither the children nor their parents knew about this.” He manages to get 500 children in the Dausa and Alwar district registered - a remarkable achievement, given the administrative situation in Indian villages is in disorder. The fact that he is only a child himself at the time makes convincing civil servants all the more difficult; it’s an almost superhuman task.

Another example of his perseverance is his bicycle marathon to Delhi, where the second Children’s World Congress on Child Labour and Education is held in September 2005. Om Prakash wants to go, but is away visiting family on the day on which forty children are selected to join. When he hears about the congress back at Bal Ashram, he decides on the spur of the moment to travel to Delhi by bike. It’s not exactly down the road; he rides his bike through the heat and thronging Indian traffic for thirty-six hours. “I really wanted to go there to talk about child labour and birth certificates, it was important to me. It was quite a trip, but worth it,” he laughs modestly.

Children’s Peace Prize In recognition of his struggle against child slavery, Om Prakash is presented with the International Children’s Peace Prize by Nobel Laureate Frederik Willem de Klerk, former president of South Africa. The ceremony takes place at the Hall of Knights in The Hague. Om Prakash is 14 years old at the time, and the first winner to receive the ‘Nkosi’ trophy, a

Om Prakash with Nobel Peace Prize Winner F.W. de Klerk on Dam Square, Amsterdam.

sculpture depicting a child making the world turn around. A powerful, universal image. The award comes with a 100,000 euro prize. The money is not his to spend as he likes, however, it is paid into a children’s project fund earmarked for projects linked to the winner’s theme.

It’s a glorious moment for Om Prakash, who lifts the trophy high above his head in triumph. In his speech, he appeals to the audience to help him end child slavery: “If a bonded child labourer like me could see a dream of a world free from exploitation in which every child goes to school, why not you?”

“We always ask ourselves what we can do about it,” De Klerk praises the newly-awarded winner, “and then along comes a brave young boy like Om Prakash, who doesn’t just ask, but provides answers.” On the same evening, a spectacular open-air concert is given on Dam Square in Amsterdam in honour of the Children’s Peace Prize Laureate, featuring Dutch and international artists such as Bløf, Ilse de Lange, UB40 and Zucchero. A huge globe rolls over the raised hands of the thousands of spectators on Dam Square - the Children’s Peace Prize trophy brought to life.

Impact Back in India, Om Prakash gets a hero’s welcome. The former child slave’s story is in all the papers – a remarkable fact, as

children from the lowest caste don’t usually get so much attention. He is received by India’s vice president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat and several ministers, and speaks with them about implementing more effective measures to end child labour in the country. Shortly afterwards, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time, Gordon Brown, visits him in India. He has heard much about Om Prakash and wants to meet him. Brown is impressed by his story, and promises to invest 300 million euros in education for the poorest children in India. Rajasthan is also proud of its young winner, and shows it by awarding Om Prakash the Pride of Rajasthan, the press award of Jaipur. His father Gurjar accepts the prize on his son’s behalf from Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia. The moment has been captured in a nicely framed photograph hanging on the bedroom wall.

The Bal Ashram boys have organised a huge party for the Children’s Peace Prize Laureate. Bursting with pride, they all feel like winners. They dance and sing under the starry Indian sky until the small hours. Kinsu Kumar was only ten at the time, but remembers it well. “We were incredibly happy and proud that a boy from our Bal Ashram had won such a prize, the greatest prize a child can win in this world. It was of course awarded to him, but all of us at Bal Ashram felt part of it. We had a huge party with music, drums and singing. Every child gave a little speech, about all the good things we knew about him. We were all so happy, it felt like a holiday.”

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Marriage It has been seven years since Om Prakash won the Children’s Peace Prize, but it still has great significance to him. “Winning the prize was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

It still inspires me in my fight for children’s rights. I think of it whenever I feel down and it always cheers me up.” His parents are proud of him, though his mother is disappointed that he’s going to university instead of getting married. A strong daughter-in-law to help with the household would be more than welcome, the interpreter Kulpreet Singh translates her words. The Children’s Peace Prize money is used for two projects tackling child labour. The first is the Indian project STOP, Stop Trafficking, Oppression and Prostitution of children and women, which helps young girls who are abducted and sold into the sex industry. The second, People’s Welfare Family Service Committee in Nepal, saves children from child labour and helps them go back to school.

Om Prakash Gurjar

Future plans

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Supported by the KidsRights study fund, Om Prakash is studying Computer Application at the University of Jaipur.

He’s enjoying it very much. After completing secondary school, he tried opening his own computer shop, but soon decided he wanted to go to university instead. He doesn’t yet know exactly what he wants to do after graduating. “Jaipur is full of international IT companies where I might find a job, but I’m also considering staying at university to do an MBA programme,” he laughs. “My first priority is looking after my family and the village, however. It would be good if they made things that could be sold, so they’d have some extra income. I want to help them do that.” He talks excitedly about his many plans. “I’m organising a bicycle tour in Rajasthan in two years’ time, to bring child marriages onto the agenda. Girls of only six or ten years old are married off. It has to stop. A bicycle tour is an environmentally friendly way of protesting, and also helps to raise awareness of air pollution, a huge problem in the cities. My friends are helping me organise the tour. I particularly want young people to participate and connect with each other. The future belongs to them. We have lots of young people in India, and with them, plenty of energy! If the tour is a success, we’ll do it again in another district in 2017, and hopefully in Pakistan or Africa after that.” Protest marches have a long tradition in India. Gandhi’s is the most famous, but Kailash Satyarthi also organised various successful marches against child labour. Om Prakash is following in the footsteps of his master. “In ten years’ time, I hope to write a book about human rights across the world, and children’s rights in particular. There are a great many problems in India: children in Kashmir who go to school in the morning and never come back because they have been trafficked; small boys and girls who are taken to Nepal, where they have to work hard as domestic workers; girls who are forced

into child marriages. That’s what I want to write about. And the problems children in other countries face. Children are innocent, the problems are all created by adults. I want to help the little people.”

Paathshala His dreams of the future may seem a long way off, but he’s not twiddling his thumbs in Jaipur, the Pink City, either.

Together with some of his student friends, he has started a small school for children of contract workers. They take turns giving lessons. “Travelling around with their parents, those children hardly ever get the opportunity to go to school. We give lessons every day, to small groups of children of different ages, after attending our own lectures. We raised money to buy school supplies, and toys for the smallest children; things their parents can’t afford to buy,” Om Prakash says with feeling. What gave him that idea? “The students come from wealthy families, who heard about my work for children’s rights and my winning the Children’s Peace Prize, and asked me if I’d be interested in doing something in Jaipur. They support our school, which we’ve named Paathshala. It means ‘the holy place of learning’, or ’where children are taught how to be children’. The school is thriving, the children are happy, and so are we!”

Om Prakash is still a children’s rights activist. His past fuels his future. It’s important to him that children go to school, aren’t forced to do heavy work as child slaves and aren’t married off. He draws inspiration from meditation and yoga, and from great men such as Mohammad Yunus, Kofi Annan and, last but not least, Kailash Satyarthi. “All those men have done good work, just as I want to do for the children. I see it as my duty to solve problems for people all over the world, starting with my family.”

On 10 October, the announcement comes that Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people, and for the right of all children to education. “The Nobel Prize is a great honour for all Indians and all children who still work as slaves,” Kailash says. “I dedicate this award to all those children in the world.”

“Om Prakash is already adding stature to the International Children’s Peace Prize.”

FREDERIK WILLEM DE KLERK

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2006

WHO: Om Prakash Gurjar

(1992)

FIGHTS FOR: The rights of child slaves.

Art. 2, of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, protection against child labour.

Art. 35, Protection against abduction and human trafficking.

MOTTO: “From education to action. I want to work for the little people.”

CHANGEMAKER: Arranges for 500 children to receive a birth certificate and with it their rights, identities and nationalities, so they are less at risk of being abducted and trafficked. Struggles against child slavery and child labour.

LOVES: Doing things with friends, computers, football.

INSPIRATION: Mohammad Yunus, Kofi Annan and Kailash Satyarthi.

STUDIES: Computer Application at Poornima University in Jaipur.

IN TEN YEARS TIME: Wants to write a book about children’s rights.

MESSAGE TO CHILDREN: “Adults must listen to children, it’s every child’s right.

And if adults don’t respect it, we have to work even harder to make sure they do.”

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Om Prakash Gurjar

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2007 Thandiwe Chama

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Thandiwe Chama

Zambia

Thandiwe Chama 2007

“If not you, then who? If not me, then who?

If not now, then when?”

Thandiwe Chama from Lusaka, Zambia’s capital city with over 2.5 million inhabitants, lives up to her own statement. From a young age, she has advocated children’s right to an education.

She saw an injustice and took action without hesitation. There was no time to lose. “I was eight,” she says, “had just started school and was very happy. I made new friends and enjoyed learning new things. Then, like a bolt from the blue, came the news that the school was to close. There weren’t enough teachers any more, they had all died of AIDS. It came as a great shock to me. I thought, ‘No, I’ve only just started, I’m not going back to staying at home. What can I do?’ I then drummed up sixty children from my school and we did a protest march to the Jack Cecup School. I insisted on our right to an education, and asked to be admitted to that school.

Miraculously, it worked!”

She tells the story while showing her old school in the Chawama district, one of Lusaka’s many poor townships, close to her parents’ house. It consists of two small buildings and a dusty yard, where children are playing with an old bicycle tyre. They use it as a hoop. One of the buildings has been repurposed as a church and a large group of people are standing outside the door in their Sunday best, chatting. It’s

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Thandiwe Chama

pamulungu, Sunday, literally ‘the day on which we worship’.

Across the street, a woman is hanging out laundry. The street is bustling, with many groups of children and young adults standing around. Thandiwe shows the route she and the children from her school walked on 16 June 1999. “It was a long march, but we sang songs and were in high spirits.

Look, this was still a field at the time, now there are houses everywhere. My mother used to tell us to walk along here briskly, and run away fast if anyone asked us a question. Many girls have been assaulted here. It still isn’t safe for a woman to walk here in the evening.” Chawama is divided by a railway line. A steam train comes past twice a day. The track is also used as a road, long lines of people are walking on it. And everywhere, children are playing; many, many children.

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‘Creating a Safe World For Every Child. Jack CECUP School’ is written on the wall of the blue-painted school. Thandiwe has happy memories of the school, and particularly of the headmaster, Mr Wiseman Banda. She still visits regularly, for a chat with the kids and to teach them about children’s rights and AIDS. Mr Banda welcomes her with a wide smile. He is delighted and proud to show the classrooms, which he says are used by 700 schoolchildren and eleven teachers. Most of the children, who take turns going to school in morning or afternoon shifts, are orphans. Around fourteen years after she nervously made her remarkable request to him, he’s still impressed by Thandiwe’s initiative.

“Children like Thandiwe understand they have a role to play in society. They can be an instrument of change, for a better future. I’m proud of her for standing up for herself and showing concern for others. How could I refuse her? I felt I had to give my support, it was my duty as an adult and as a teacher. We must give children our support, and the freedom to act as they wish and express themselves. Not just say ‘do this do that,’ as adults tend to do.”

The Chicken with AIDS Thandiwe listens to the story with a modest smile. She is twenty-three now, but remembers it as if it were yesterday. “It was fantastic. For the first time, I realised that children had rights. Something stirred deep inside me, an urge to fight. I don’t know where it came from, it was unbelievable. But it was also difficult. The other children said ‘it was your idea, you should be the one to talk,’ even though some of them were older than I was. I had to muster all my courage. I thought ‘I can’t disappoint everyone, I have to do it,’ so I talked to Mr Banda. He listened to me, and said yes. I was relieved, happy and surprised, all at the same time. I was only eight, but the other children followed my lead.”

She discovers a lot about herself that day. Not only does she find her passion to fight for children’s rights, she also realises she can be a leader and make grown-ups listen to

her. Thandiwe the activist is born. And her newly fledged activism is fuelled by the realisation that a disease like AIDS could shut down her school. She immediately decides to do something about it, to educate the children at her school. “Not just the person affected,” she says, “but also their family and immediate work sur-roundings are devastated by the disease.

Almost everyone I know, knows someone who is seropositive, has the disease or has died of it. It has an enormous impact on life in Zambia. That’s why I started giving talks about it at school. I wanted all the children to know what kind of disease AIDS is and how you can contract the virus – and, much more importantly, how to avoid it.”

She comes up with the inspired idea of writing a book about it, The Chicken with AIDS. “Yes,” she says with a wide smile, “it’s about a chicken and a duck. The chicken has many different relationships and contracts AIDS that way. The duck gets it too.

The message is that people have to protect themselves in life.

Why a chicken? Because it’s a cute animal, and chicken is the favourite food of most Zambians – mine, too. I hoped it would spark children’s imagination, and make them think, ‘what’s the matter with the chicken?’ It’s a proper children’s book, Mr Banda helped me with the printing and I’m very pleased with it. I distributed it at school.”

The book’s success inspires Thandiwe to give talks in the neighbourhood. Wherever she can, she looks for a platform to inform people of the disease, at markets, community centres and churches. It becomes a personal crusade. But she does not always get a warm welcome. “It’s difficult. Many people here consider AIDS a taboo subject that should only be discussed in the bedroom. A young girl like me talking about it in front of so many people is not acceptable to everyone. When I stood up in church and said ‘Hello, my name is Thandiwe and I’m

going to tell you about AIDS,’ people started booing. It’s easier now I’m older, and luckily, I can now rely on my friends to help me. There are nine of us trying to bring about a change in our city.”

A future without AIDS Back at her parents’ house, her mother Violet prepares a Zambian lunch of milli, (cornmeal balls), beans and, in honour of the guests, a small piece of meat. “It’s all we can offer,” she says modestly. Before the meal begins, everyone at the table washes their hands in warm water, which the family hauled from the neighbourhood pump in the early morning.

Kneeling gracefully, Thandiwe performs this ritual with a jug and bowl.

When you talk with people in Lusaka, the first question they usually ask is whether both your parents are still alive – not something that is taken for granted since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Thandiwe is lucky, her family is healthy, but even she has heart-wrenching stories to tell. “I’ve just heard that the brother of a friend of mine has contracted the virus.

He’s just fifteen, and he’s infected a girl, who is also fifteen.

That isn’t good. He must have contracted the disease by accident, which is sad, but passing it on to an innocent person is wrong. No one that young should have the virus. I’ve also discovered that one of my aunts has it, and that my nephew is also infected. They are poor and have little stability in their lives; it’s a great worry. She does have medication, but only takes it occasionally. My aunt is risking her life that way.”

Visibly upset, Thandiwe heaves a sigh. “You know, it’s a common story here in Zambia. Take ten people and one of them will have AIDS. The risk of getting the disease is high, and still growing. Especially among young people. I heard on the radio that 80 per cent of students at Lusaka University have the virus. It’s the largest university in the country. I just can’t believe it. They are the future of this country. I talk with young people and ask them why they keep on having multiple sexual contacts and why they don’t protect themselves.

They tell me ‘you don’t know anything about life, you have to enjoy it.’” They don’t care, they take the risk. It’s absurd.

They know how the disease is transmitted but they ignore that knowledge. I find that shocking. You’re not doing the community or the world a service by collectively contracting AIDS. Where will the world’s next doctor come from then, or president, or teacher?”

She reflects silently before adding, with passion: “But all is not lost, we can change. It all starts with us, the young people. We have to change the way we think, protect ourselves and insist that others do the same. If we all fight together to improve things, we can turn the situation around. The next generation will be better than this one. There is hope. I feel I need to do this. I just have to, I can’t stop.”

According to UNAIDS figures, 35 million people are infected with HIV and AIDS worldwide. Almost 23 million of them live in Africa. Of all children living in sub-Saharan Africa, one in eight has lost one or both parents to the virus, and there are 15 million AIDS orphans. The figures are shocking,

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Thandiwe Chama 60

and though they are slowly improving, the problem is still frighteningly huge.

There has been some change in Zambia, however. Lusaka is full of billboards with information about AIDS, and other media also report on the disease regularly. The government provides free ARV (antiretroviral) therapy and free HIV tests.

“It’s a good development,” Thandiwe says, “but for many people, going in to get tested is still a bridge too far. Your health status needs to be checked every three months. Here in Chawama, there’s a hospital stall at the market on Mondays and Fridays where you can volunteer to get tested. I explain to parents and children how it works, and that it’s nothing to be afraid of. I go there myself every three months. You have to, you owe it to yourself and your loved ones.”

are provided for the Jack Secup School and the foundation is laid for a library, Thandiwe’s Library. A huge improvement that the children are thrilled with. Thandiwe and her family’s life has also been changed by the prize. “I never expected to complete secondary school, it’s quite a struggle for a girl in Zambia. Most parents give their sons’ education priority, they view us girls as wedding candidates, not scholars.

Ridiculous. If boys can do it, so can girls! I’m lucky that my family takes a different view. Sending me to a good school was difficult for my parents. It costs lots of money, which they didn’t have. After winning the prize, they were able to afford it – for me, my brother Newton and my sister Emma.

It’s a miracle that has changed my life from that of a nobody to the life of a somebody.”

International Children’s Peace Prize

International speaker

Children who stand up and speak out need support. Luckily, Thandiwe’s parents John and Violet stand firmly behind their daughter and are proud of her. Head teacher Mr Banda goes even further: he’s so impressed by her achievements that he nominates her for the International Children’s Peace Prize. He thinks she deserves to reach a wider audience. And she has; in 2007, Thandiwe is presented the International Children’s Peace Prize by Nobel laureate Betty Williams and ‘Man of Peace’ Bob Geldof. She is sixteen at the time.

The ceremony at the Hall of Knights makes an overwhelming impression on her, as she writes in her human rights blog: “I will never forget this day. It was a shock to see so many white faces in the audience! The speech came straight from my heart and I meant every word I said. I surprised myself by crying. It was nerves, but also tears of happiness. Here in Zambia, it’s not easy to stand up and say something, especially for girls. It was wonderful that people were impressed by my story.”

Betty Williams and Bob Geldof praise her in their speeches, but the audience is touched most profoundly by Thandiwe’s own closing words: “If not you, then who? If not me, then who? If not now, then when?”

They are the essence of her own struggle, and a powerful appeal to everyone to take action now.

Back in Zambia, she receives a grand welcome at the airport. Sport, Youth and Child Development Minister Angela Chifire welcomes her and promises to make sure her school will be given more land to build classrooms. She is interviewed by television and radio stations and becomes a celebrity overnight. On BBC World, she speaks to millions of households about her fight for the right to education. This contributes to her country passing a new law later that year, providing more poor children with access to schooling.

Thanks to the Children’s Peace Prize project fund, computers

Thandiwe has become a popular speaker for KidsRights at international conferences. She has given talks in Kenya, South Africa, Paris and New York; important platforms for making her voice heard. She enjoys it: “I feel honoured to speak on behalf of my country’s children. I never expected to meet such important people as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Archbishop Tutu and our minister Sifire. It has been a blessing to my life. Just imagine, I interviewed Bono on top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris during the Nobel Peace Summit.

That was incredible. He was very nice.”

In 2009, she is invited to speak at a side event of the UN summit in New York, together with 2008 winner Mayra.

The subject is “Violence against the Girl Child”. New York makes a huge impression on her. “To be honest,” she laughs, “the city was just a bit too large for my liking, with all its tall buildings and many cars. I did enjoy my first hamburger, though, and the UN meeting was great. Speaking to such a large and important audience makes you nervous at first, but once you’re up there telling your story – not one you’ve read in a magazine but things you’ve actually experienced – it feels natural. I’m proud of it. Mrs Clinton told me to carry on fighting for the rights of children, especially girls. There is still so much to do. Just think of Boko Haram in Nigeria.”

Thandiwe spends a lot of time on her social work. Her activism, begun at primary school, has become her life. Does she consider herself a changemaker? She answers without hesitation: “Yes, very much so. This is simply what I was born to do, if I didn’t do it, I’d die. Luckily, I have friends who help me with this work. They are special to me. Whenever I feel bad or things aren’t going well at work, they are there for me.

We go to church together, or on a night out. We laugh and cry together. I trust them. They all have their own story. Each of them deserves a peace prize too. Together, we are strong.”

The group visits orphanages, where they play and spend time with the children. They keep an ear to the ground and act on

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Thandiwe Chama

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Betty Williams and Thandiwe in the Hall of Knights, The Hague.

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stories they hear around them. “Recently, somebody told us that hygiene in the women’s prison was very poor. We had a whip round and went there with boxes of sanitary towels. We also take fruit to ill children in hospital.”

But the right to education is still closest to her heart. She gives talks at schools on the importance of completing an education.

“It doesn’t matter whether your school is in a nice building or whether or not your friends go, as long as you go! I always tell the children that we didn’t have chairs when I went to school, we just sat on the ground. The school didn’t have a roof or windows, and when it was dusty, as it is now in August, the wind and the sand blew straight in. If it rained, we turned around the blackboard and carried on. It wasn’t easy, but hey, here I am! It doesn’t matter what your school looks like, as long as you get an education. So I tell the children, ‘Don’t play with school! Just go!’”

Future Thandiwe’s secondary school certificate opens the door to a better future. “I used to dream of becoming a doctor,” she says, “but that requires a seven-year medical course. I learned a lot about children’s rights when I was the president of the Children’s Rights Club at school, and decided I’d be able to help more people if I became a social worker. Today, I’m thinking of training as a nurse. It takes three years, and I’d still be able to do social work. I like the combination. But whatever I do, I want to study, not sit at home. I see myself more as a nurse ten years from now – I’ll be famous. Somebody who’s

Thandiwe with Man of Peace Bob Geldof in the Hall of Knights, The Hague.

recognised throughout the world. And to be honest, I don’t think it will even take ten years.”

She points at her Children’s Peace Prize trophy on the top of the living room cupboard. “Looking at the trophy reminds me that I’ve achieved something in life,” she says with a laugh, “and I want to achieve more! The sky is the limit!”

“The winners of the International Peace Prize are born leaders.”

BOB GELDOF

Thandiwe talking to Carla Bruni and Bono in Paris.

WHO: Thandiwe Chama

(1991)

FIGHTS FOR: The right to education and

informing about HIV and AIDS. Art. 28 The Convention on the Rights of the Child.

MOTTO: “If

2007

not now, then who? If not me, then who?

If not now, then when?”

CHANGEMAKER: Social activist, manages to enroll

sixty children in a new school when the old one closes. Teaches about AIDS and HIV. WROTE THE BOOK:

The Chicken with AIDS. LOVES: Travelling, giving speeches and going out with

her friends.

INSPIRATION: Betty Williams, Oprah Winfrey and Wangari Maathai.

STUDIES: Nursing.

IN TEN YEARS TIME: “I will be someone who knows

and acknowledges the world, nurse, social activist.”

MESSAGE TO CHILDREN: “Don’t play with school, just

go! Take your education seriously.”

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Thandiwe Chama

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CHANGEMAKERS

“THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD MUST LIVE WITH JUSTICE, WITH PEACE AND FREEDOM, BUT ABOVE ALL, WITH THE DIGNITY THEY DESERVE.” BETTY WILLIAMS

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2008 Mayra Avellar Neves 69

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Mayra Avellar Neves

Brazil

Mayra Avellar Neves 2008

“I devoted myself to peace after the death of a journalist in my neighbourhood. I try to convince people that the violence must stop, that children should go to school, so they don’t go astray.”

Mayra Avellar Neves, 23, is eleven years old when the journalist Tim Lopes is killed in her district, the favela Vila Cruzeiro in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. The journalist is doing a report with a hidden camera on drug lords in Vila Cruzeiro for the television station Rede Globo, when he is caught and brutally killed by the drug lords. The situation in the slum, which is already violent due to constant gunfights between the police and drug gangs, escalates. The round-up of the perpetrators by the police causes a spiral of violence. Many people die. So many checkpoints are erected that doctors and teachers can no longer enter the area. Medical posts and schools are forced to close. Many children have stopped going to school because the road leading to it is too dangerous.

Playing outside is out of the question. The chance of ending in the middle of a gunfight is considerable. Between the bullet holes on the colourful walls of the houses in the district, the names of children who have fallen victim to the violence have been written. There are hundreds.

Vila Cruzeiro is one of the 750 favelas in Rio de Janeiro. Rio, the Cidade Maravilhosa, is of course the beautiful city known for its dazzling carnival, the samba, the stunning beaches and football. High above the city, Cristo Redentor rises, the thirtyeight-metre tall statue of Christ that motionlessly looks out

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over the Bay of Guanabara. About 3 million people live in the favelas, which is slightly less than half of the population of the city. Vila Cruzeiro has the reputation of being the most violent district in Rio de Janeiro. For a number of years, this area has been a state within a state; the government has no say here.

Drug lords and hundreds of soldados de tráfico, the soldiers of the drug trade, run the district. The soldados drive around the city on motorcycles, heavily armed. Many of them don’t reach the age of twenty-one. These are not ideal living conditions for children like Mayra, but her parents and other residents try to make the best of it. Their lives are in survival mode. This means they only live half-lives, because the worry for safety dominates everyday life.

Mayra Avellar Neves

Marcha contra la Violencia

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Defying the dangerous situation, Mayra goes to the neighbourhood meeting, where she meets the Dutchman Nanko van Buuren for the first time. She wants to do something. He is the director of IBISS, a relief organization that is devoted to the most underprivileged groups in a large number of favelas. “I recall she was the only child at the neighbourhood council, and she said: ‘Can I tell you what we, the children, think of this now?’” The meeting is the start of a productive collaboration. Mayra starts to do voluntary work for the relief organization. She visits parents and tries to convince them that their children have to go to school.

She believes it is the only way to break through the vicious cycle of poverty and violence. “Without an education, they run a bigger risk of being recruited by drug gangs,” she says emphatically. The standard of living is low in the favela.

People live in small, brightly coloured houses built up against a steep rocky mountain. They have installed sewers, water and electricity themselves. It’s a jumble of alleyways, climbing high onto the mountain.

When Mayra’s school is forced to close due to the continuing violence, she does not take it lying down. She is determined to attend another school. With the help of her parents, she finds one outside the district, o asfalto. ‘On the asphalt’ is the name for the nicer neighbourhoods outside of the favelas. Mayra is overwhelmed - for the first time in her life, she experiences being in an environment free of violence. It makes her think.

Why are these areas so different? Why can children go to school in the nicer areas and not in the poorer favelas? Why does the police patrol so close to the schools? She decides to take action and organizes a protest march for children and teenagers against violence, the Marcha contra la Violencia, the March against Violence.

The march, which in itself is risky, goes off peacefully and becomes a huge success. Hundreds of children dressed in

white march past armed police patrols singing battle songs.

They get a lot of media attention. And most importantly: it is effective. The police promise they will no longer patrol near schools. Mayra is pleased: “We convinced the police and the gangs to call a cease-fire when the children go to school and the parents go to work. Children have a right to education.”

Peace on the Rock It is a courageous act for a young girl to stand up to the violence around her. The success of the protest march teaches her that protesting and making yourself heard can make a difference. She proves to herself and the children in the favela that change is possible, even if the situation seems hopeless.

And she goes on. Inspired by her results, Mayra emerges as a resolute leader and organizes another protest march a year later, the Marcha por la Paz, the March for Peace. This time she appeals to the whole of Vila Cruzeiro to stand up for the fundamental rights of slum dwellers. In her own words: “Everybody has a part to play in improving human rights, in particular the rights of children as the future generation. We can and must stand up for these children, whose rights are being violated and whose lives are at risk.”

This second march goes off peacefully as well. The majority of the residents join in and carry banners with the text Paz na Penha, Peace on the Rock, which refers to the rocky mountain Vila Cruzeiro is built on. The message is crystal clear: no more violence. The residents show courage by joining the march and it gives people hope to see how many are brave enough to make themselves heard. “I realized a lot of people wanted to participate even if it didn’t render immediate results. They stand up and are aware of their rights, and that is the first step to bring about change,” Mayra says. “I want to change people’s attitudes. I want to show what we can achieve, not what we can’t achieve. I refuse to accept this level of violence and believe it can change.”

International Children’s Peace Prize Her brave actions for the right to safety and giving hope to children in a poor and extremely violent environment earned Mayra the International Children’s Peace Prize, which she received from Nobel Peace Prize Winner Desmond Tutu in 2008. She is seventeen years old. She was nominated after IBISS submitted her name. The festive ceremony in the Hall of Knights in The Hague is graced with Brazilian sounds. Desmond Tutu praises her. “This is a fantastic young person. She lives in a favela, a slum, in a large city in Brazil, in a neighbourhood torn by violence. So much violence that children cannot play outside, cannot lead a normal life. And she stood up and spoke loudly: NO. No to violence. No to tyranny. No, I have rights too!”

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Giving her speech, Mayra can’t hold back her tears and makes an emotional plea: “The desire for peace may be the most important wish in my neighbourhood. Do not pity us. Pity the world. In the midst of so much violence I can face reality.

We cannot allow so much injustice to affect so many people.

We cannot wait until someone else takes the initiative. We have to do it ourselves, because only then can we live with dignity.” Mayra shows her pride for her country by tying fitas do bonfim, colourful ribbons from the Bahia church, to her dress. Triumphantly, she lifts the statue the Nkosi above her head with both hands. “It’s very heavy,” she laughs. “I’m very happy with it. I’m proud to be an example for the children in my country.”

It’s the fourth time the prize has been presented, and it’s gaining importance and getting more exposure. The winner reaches millions of people globally, thanks to international media attention. At the press conference after the ceremony, Desmond Tutu, who was named the patron of KidsRights that year, is asked for his opinion on the International Children’s Peace Prize. He answers: “If you ask me it is the nursery for the next Nobel Peace Prize Winners.” The Nobel Peace Prize Laureates have accepted the Children’s Peace Prize with open arms and stand by the young winners one hundred percent. Mayra is invited to the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in December of that year. In her speech, she again draws attention to the violence in the favelas in Rio de Janeiro

Mayra Avellar Neves

The Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs Celso Armorim, Mayra, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Thandiwe and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General on Violence against Children (SRSG) Mara Santon Pais, at the UN, New York.

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and how this affects children. She shows us that there is hope and that people are prepared to fight for a better future: “Our voices will be heard as long as we have many voices. I will not quit. I will only stop fighting on the last day of my life!” she says passionately.

Children’s Peace Prize Winner Thandiwe Chama attends the presentation as well. She and Mayra are both to become engaging ambassadors for children’s rights, speaking on behalf of KidsRights at international conferences. Together they interview rock star Bono and actress Penelope Cruz on the Eiffel Tower in Paris during the Nobel Peace Summit.

The following year, in 2009, they speak at a side event of the UN Summit in New York on the topic of ‘Violence against the Girl Child’ in the presence of the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Celso Armorim. “Progress is not possible as long as girls are prosecuted, abused and humiliated. We have to support girls who stand up for themselves. It’s up to us to ensure their voices are heard,” says former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, one of the speakers at the summit.

Mayra agrees wholeheartedly and says: “Many people say that girls don’t need to study because we will end up in the kitchen anyway. I totally disagree. We have to be pioneers again in woman’s emancipation, something that should have been completed a long time ago. And it demands studying, demands knowledge, demands knowing who we are and where we stand in society.”

Favela Força 2010 is an important year for Mayra. She goes on tour in the Netherlands with her theatre group Favela Força, which literally means ‘the power of the slum’. She’s been involved with this musical theatre group, formed by young residents of Vila Cruzeiro, for some time. The group wants to make their neighbourhood more peaceful and make young people aware of their rights in a light-hearted manner. They show a different side of slum culture by showing their perspective of life in Vila Cruzeiro. This perspective is usually at odds with the predominantly negative reporting about the favelas by the media. Mayra is a passionate member of Favela Força.

She develops her skills by taking African dance classes.

It’s in keeping with her African roots, which are becoming increasingly important to her. The group of youngsters are performing outside Brazil for the first time. Besides doing the tour, she flies to South Africa to speak at the KidsRights Millennium Goal Conference in Johannesburg on 9 July of that year. Thandiwe and Baruani Ndume (Children’s Peace Prize Winner of 2009) speak at the conference too.

Mayra’s life changes in 2009 when she writes the entrance exams for university. She starts her Masters of Social Sciences at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. The scholarship fund of KidsRights finances her studies. She is the first member of her family to attend university and thinks studying is a privilege. “I believe it’s important to learn about the past and what went wrong then. If we do not learn that, we can’t change the future.” Mayra moves into a little apartment near

in the purchase of a minivan for Favela Força, so they can tour Brazil.

the university. She wants to be an example to other children.

She hopes to complete her studies in December 2014, and aspires to be a scientist or be a teacher, so she can pass on her knowledge to other youngsters.

Future

In addition to her studies and performing with the theatre group, she’s involved with the Meninas Mâes programme, for teenage mothers. She encourages teenage mothers to learn a trade and be independent. It enables the girls to improve the quality of their own lives and those of their children. She is also one of the producers of a documentary about the life of girls in Vila Cruzeiro. The documentary touches on the issue of teenage mothers, but predominantly addresses the discrimination of young people based on the colour of their skin or origin. Mayra shows how youngsters in her favela are victims of police brutality and social exclusion. Another project that deals with social exclusion is Vila Cruzeiro on Line. By teaching children computer and technical skills, they increase their chances on the job market. This project is housed in the IBISS community centre and was established by the project fund of the Children’s Peace Prize. They also invest

In other words, a lot has been achieved. Mayra’s social activism has created new opportunities for the children and teenagers in her neighbourhood. She sets an excellent example, especially for girls in Vila Cruzeiro and beyond.

That is a positive change. But life in the favelas is still not safe.

Drug gangs still control the streets in many slums. There are practically no good schools and hospitals in these poor areas, and many people are still killed every week. Rio de Janeiro is still one of the most violent cities in the world. The Brazilian government started a pacification programme in 2014. In preparation for the FIFA World Cup in the summer of 2014, special militias cleaned up thirty favelas and drove away the drug gangs. Police and army worked together closely in this operation. They demanded protection money from residents and installed checkpoints at access roads of the favelas. A lot of violence was used. At least forty-five people were killed and many more injured in the first two months of 2014. It’s

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Mayra with Penelope Cruz and Bono during the Nobel Summit in Paris.

debatable whether the residents are better off with the militias or the drug lords. Time will tell.

Mayra Avellar Neves

It’s promising that the children of the favelas can fly their kites from the lajes, the high flat roofs, in Vila Cruzeiro after school. The blue sky over the district is filled with hundreds of colourful kites. At least it gives the children a powerful feeling of freedom, even if it only is momentarily.

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“Together with the people of the slums, I will build that what the authorities most fear: knowledge.

We are capable citizens and together we will build knowledge to change our reality.”

MAYRA AVELLAR NEVES

“Just look, just look, there’s a little angel who comes and wipes the tears from God’s eyes.”

DESMOND TUTU 79

2008 WHO: Mayra Avellar Neves

LOVES: Dancing, acting and singing in theatre group

FIGHTS FOR: The right to a safe environment and the

INSPIRATION: Desmond Tutu.

(1991)

importance of education for children and young people in the favelas.

Art. 38 Children’s Rights Treaty, protecting children in combat situations.

Art. 28, Right to education.

MOTTO: “Education is the key to breaking the viscous

cycle of poverty and violence: together we can gain knowledge to change our reality.”

CHANGEMAKER: Organized freedom marches against

violence in the slums with aim of reopening schools and making people aware of their basic rights.

Favela Força.

STUDIES: Social Sciences, Federal University

of Rio de Janeiro.

IN TEN YEARS TIME: Teacher or scientist, perform with

the theatre group and social activist.

MESSAGE TO CHILDREN: “Everybody has a part to play in improving human rights, in particular the rights of children as the future generation.

We can and must stand up for these children, whose rights are being violated and whose lives are at risk.”

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2009 Baruani Ndume

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“If you see something, do something! I don’t feel fear, I will not stop.”

Baruani Ndume

BARUANI NDUME

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Tanzania

Baruani Ndume 2009

“Life in Nyarugusu Camp is hard for refugee children, especially orphans like me. There was never enough food and clothes, and I had to do gruelling work such as carrying heavy loads of firewood. My health was frail and my schoolwork suffered. I accepted the situation – what choice did I have, after all – until one day, a group of people visited my school to teach us about children’s rights. It was a revelation to me; at nine years old, I’d never even known children had rights. For the first time, I dared to speak up about my difficult life. That made a huge difference, as it improved a great deal afterwards.”

Baruani Ndume, in his early twenties, gazes out over the sea on the Tanzanian coast in Dar es Salaam. “Did you know this is the first time I’ve seen the sea? It gives me a deep sense of freedom. The open space, the wind.” He has been given permission to leave the Nyarugusu refugee camp near Lake Tanganyika on the north-western border of Tanzania to travel to Dar es Salaam for the interview. A welcome diversion he obviously enjoys. “My friends said, wow, you’re going outside!”

His first experience with children’s rights inspires the young Baruani to fight for them. He learns all he can about them and listens to the stories of other children. “That day, I learned how good and important it is to speak from the heart, and that no one should be afraid to speak up. If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more – in other words, if you can’t point out what is wrong, nothing will change. It’s a skill that can be learned and which we practise with the children in the ‘Child Voice Out Programme’ I have developed for the children’s parliament. We take away their fear of speaking in public by letting them talk about who they are, what they are called, what year they are in at school, and so on. It boosts their self-esteem.”

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Baruani Ndume 88

“If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.”

BARUANI NDUME

Escape through a gap Baruani has lived in Nyarugusu for fourteen years. When he was seven, he fled the violence perpetrated by Rwandan soldiers in his native village in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Kivu province. “The soldiers shouted, rounding up everyone in houses, including my mother and me. Then they locked the door and set fire to the house. We feared for our lives. I was so small I was able to squeeze out through the gap under the door. I rattled at the door, but it wouldn’t open. “Run away! Run away!” my mother shouted, and don’t look back. In tears, I did as I was told and ran away. I stayed in hiding for a long time. When I dared come out again I saw a large group of people standing on the road, so I joined them. One of them was a grandmother, Mrs Tchakubuta, whom I knew from my village. She said, “Why don’t you come with me.”

It was a traumatic experience. Baruani’s life was turned upside down in an instant. From one moment to the next, he became an orphan and a refugee. His father had already been killed in the civil war when Baruani was four, and his younger brother Obedi went missing on the black day when the soldiers invaded the village. He is the only one left.

After a long, exhausting walk, Baruani arrives at Nyarugusu in November 1999. The amenities are basic, as the camp was meant to be temporary. Today, it has been running for almost twenty years. Schools, churches, marketplaces and football pitches have been built, and two-thirds of the over 60,000 refugees who live there are children or young adults. Incredibly, just about all children under eighteen were born in the camp.

Life goes on.

Life in a refugee camp In many respects, it is a tough life. As a refugee, you are not allowed to work, nor leave the camp without permission. This leads to boredom among the adult population, especially the men, and ultimately has such negative effects as drug addiction, alcoholism, assault and abuse.

Each registered refugee is given a ransom card. Food is handed out once a week, always the same: cornmeal, salt, oil and peas or beans. The food has to be distributed fairly for everyone to get one meal a day out of it. On top of that, water needs to be fetched daily.

But the hardest thing is living without a future. Most of the people don’t dare to go back to the country they were born. Of

Refugee camp Nyarugusu, Tanzania.

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the originally 100,000 refugees, 40,000 have returned home or been taken in by another country during the years, leaving around 60,000 refugees still waiting for better times.

Despite the various peace treaties that were signed, most recently in Dar es Salaam in 2004, the situation in Congo is still far from peaceful or safe. The Congo Civil War, also known as Africa’s World War, is one of the longest-running conflicts in Africa. Sparked by the Rwanda genocide in 1994, it has involved nine African states. Of the many interests at stake, one of the most important is gaining control over the country’s abundant natural resources, such as diamonds, minerals, rubber, gold, silver and copper. The different militia groups fighting for these areas have a hold on the country’s politics and economy.

According to the IRC (International Rescue Committee), the war has claimed over 5.4 million victims and has uprooted an estimated 2.5 million people.

Baruani does not like to dwell on the past; it’s too painful, and pointless. He prefers looking ahead. “Growing up in a refugee camp means growing up without a future. I can’t erase my past, but I try to improve my future. And I tell all the children that

they should do the same. It’s the only way of getting out of here.

Empowerment is more important than food. The first step is standing up for yourself, making your voice heard. It’s crucial for children to speak about their frustrations and problems, as I myself have experienced. And you must go to school. Education is your key to the future. Whether or not you have a classroom – in the first years, we attended our lessons under a tree – the important thing is that you go.”

The voice of the radio Making your voice heard has been a recurrent theme in Baruani’s life. He takes what started as a campaign for children’s rights at his school further with his activities for the children’s parliament, into which he is chosen as a speaker on 12 February 2008. He develops a marked talent as a mediator and advisor and takes every opportunity to talk to children, who tell him stories about domestic abuse. “They tell me, ‘Baruani, I’m not given a blanket, and I’m cold’. Or ‘My foster mother sells my food on the market, I’m hungry’. Or worse, that they are maltreated, beaten, abused. I then go to their parents and tell them that children have rights. That what they are doing is wrong, that you have to listen to children, support and look

after them. It isn’t easy. At first, the parents didn’t take me seriously. Some of them said, why should we listen to you, this is none of your business. I felt threatened more than once. But I’m not afraid, I’ll never stop.”

Baruani Ndume

The children’s parliament works in the same way an adult parliament does. It has ministers and committees, with their own portfolios, and 122 child members. Several years ago, Baruani was made chairman. He’s very happy with the post, which he feels allows him to help, and to change things by discussing them. “We meet every day to discuss everything that happens in the lives of children here. We talk about food or school, as well as more serious problems such as child abuse and arranged marriages of young girls. We find solutions together, and try to discuss them with children and parents. Often successfully. Talking things over leads to more understanding.”

They have the use of a youth centre, but, true to African tradition, they often hold the meetings outside, forming a circle of white plastic chairs on the red sand under the trees.

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In the same year, he’s given the opportunity to literally make his voice heard to many refugee children and parents. He launches the radio programme Sisi Kwa Sisi (children for children), on Radio Kwizera. There is a great need for information and education among the refugees, and the radio is the perfect means of communicating information in a quick and targeted way.

Under Baruani’s inspired leadership, Sisi Kwa Sisi is entirely made by members of the children’s parliament. Each week, twenty child reporters equipped with pens and notebooks set out to interview other children and discuss all the problems, challenges and frustrations they are faced with. Baruani makes compilations of the stories on a small cassette player, presenting each of them with great enthusiasm. It’s a resounding success.

Every Sunday from 5pm to a quarter to six, thousands of children and adults are glued to the radio.

Baruani, a natural at the microphone, takes pride in the programmes success. “Sisi Kwa Sisi has helped hundreds of children find and reunite with the families they lost in the war. That makes me very happy. During the programme, the children say their names and where they used to live, and appeal to people to get in touch if they know their families.”

The listener ratings are shooting up, not just in Tanzanian refugee camps but much further afield, in Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. Baruani has become a camp celebrity. “The children have nicknamed me Mr BBC,” he laughs, “and Mr Radio Free Africa. I’m glad that people listen to me and the other children.

It’s not a given – usually, the adults take over. But now it’s the other way round, the adults are hearing what children find important. They have to accept that children have rights.”

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Baruani Ndume 92

Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai presents the Children’s Peace Prize to Baruani in the Hall of Knights The Hague.

“This prize is just fuel to my fire for advocating for children’s rights.”

BARUANI NDUME

International Children’s Peace Prize Making his voice, and those of the other children, heard, has become his mission in life. He has turned his own loss and grief and his difficult situation into something positive for himself and other children. Instead of letting it get him down, he has managed to stay cheerful, and laughs a lot. “No matter how hard things get, you should laugh every day. Humour is a vital weapon against grief and pain, it keeps the heart light,” he smiles.

In 2009, World Vision Tanzania nominates him for the International Children’s Peace Prize, for his struggle to defend children’s rights. To his great surprise, he is the winner. “I was over the moon. I never expected to win such a prize. Surely, these things were reserved for children who lead a better life, in a good country; not someone like me, a refugee, an orphan, living in a ‘bush camp’? I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I was a winner, not a victim. I was very excited and happy.”

On 3 December 2009, Baruani is presented with the International Children’s Peace Prize at the Hall of Knights in The Hague by the Kenyan Nobel Laureate Professor Wangari Maathai. He kisses the trophy three times, then lifts it high above his head. Thinking back to that day, he glows with pride.

“The prize changed my life. It was like winning the World Cup – I had to kiss the trophy to believe it was actually happening.

Every morning since that day, I have looked at the statuette and touched it carefully. It makes me feel good and it helps me do my work. It reminds me of something big. I feel like a tree, people notice me, I’m visible.”

The prize has brought him recognition. People seek him out to ask for help. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres and Tanzania’s Interior Minister Lawrence Masha visit him to offer their congratulations. Wangari Maathai has also kept in touch. “Yes,” Baruani beams, “Mrs Maathai once called me in the camp, and said, ‘Hello Baruani how are you, do you remember my kisses? I want more of them! We both laughed.” In 2010, he is one of the speakers at the Millennium Goal Conference in Johannesburg, together with Desmond Tutu and Graça Machel Mandela. He speaks on the subject of ‘Violence and Children’.

In Nyarugusu, he develops new initiatives. He sets up two football teams, for girls and boys. They practise on a small pitch under the trees every evening, in football shoes provided

by KidsRights, and have already played matches against other teams. With the financial aid of the Children’s Peace Prize project fund, he opens a library and a computer room. He

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has also started running a small cinema, which he hopes will generate additional income for the foster family he has lived with for the past fourteen years: his old neighbour, her daughter Kiza Masudi and her family. Ten people in all, sharing a tiny house.

In February 2014, he launched a project he devised himself, ‘Say What You See’. “It teaches children to pay attention to what is happening around them. For instance, if they see a child being bitten, they have to tell someone. They mustn’t tolerate it. It’s important that you don’t just stand up for yourself, but for others too.”

Future goals

Baruani Ndume

His personal life has seen great changes in recent years, when he became the proud father of his son Augustin in 2013 and successfully completed his secondary education in the summer of 2014. He has also been taking English lessons. He hopes to enrol at a French-speaking university in an African state, or perhaps even in Europe. Studying is his ticket to a future outside the refugee camp.

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Radio broadcasting has become Baruani’s passion. He wants to be a good journalist fighting for children’s rights, and is convinced he can achieve a great deal that way. “‘If you see something, do something’ is my motto. You can reach a wide audience by speaking on the radio or on television. You can talk about children’s rights in Great Britain and people in Cape Town or Zimbabwe can hear you and take action.”

Baruani enjoys travelling and giving talks, and puts a lot of thought into finding ways of improving children’s lives.

He has become a staunch advocate of children’s rights.

He considers it his work, and never gets tired of listening to their stories. “I feel this is what I must do, it’s my daily duty, I can’t just stand by and watch. I’m grateful. Helping children is a gift of God. It has been God’s plan to bring me to the radio. Life growing up in a refugee camp is very tough, especially for orphans, who have the fewest rights and are the most vulnerable. I know what that feels like, and I want to help them – I want to give them a voice that can be heard throughout the world.”

Baruani at the controls in the radio studio of Nyarugusu.

2009 WHO: Baruani Eustache Ndume

Date of birth unkown.

FIGHTS FOR: The rights of

refugee children.

Art. 22 The Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Refugees have the right to special protection and help.

MOTTO: “If you see something, do something! If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more!”

CHANGEMAKER: Improved the situation

of children in the refugee camp Nyarugusu. Children’s Parliament, radio programme Sisi Kwa Sisi.

LOVES: Football, reading, history,

geography and Facebook.

INSPIRATION: Nelson Mandela.

STUDIES: Wants to study journalism at

the university.

IN TEN YEARS TIME: Work as a journalist

for children’s rights.

MESSAGE TO CHILDREN: “Children, enjoy going to school and develop your talents! Parents, support and protect the children, they often have good ideas!”

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Baruani Ndume

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CHANGEMAKERS

“THOSE OF US WHO HAVE BEEN PRIVILIGED TO RECEIVE EDUCATION, SKILLS AND EXPERIENCES AND EVEN POWER MUST BE ROLE MODELS FOR THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERSHIP.” WANGARI MAATHAI

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2010 Francia Simon 101

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Francia Simon

Dominican Republic

Francia Simon 2010

“Look, this is my room; I recently moved into this student house in the city. I’m starting a course on Diplomacy and International Law in September and I’m really looking forward to it.” Francia Simon, 19, in skinny jeans, a pale pink headband and bright fuchsia nail polish, proudly shows off her room, which is almost entirely taken up by two beds. In one of the corners is a small table with kitchen utensils and textbooks. “I even have my own bathroom,” she points out excitedly. It seems like an everyday situation many young students the world over take for granted: you fly the nest and start your own life. For Francia however, it is no less than a turning point in her life, a dream come true.

She has lived in Santo Domingo, the bustling capital city of the Dominican Republic, since July 2014. The contrast with her native batey, the village of Cuchilla, couldn’t be greater. Her mother’s blue-painted house is a four hour’s drive from the metropolis. The impoverished village lies hidden among endless fields of swaying sugarcane near the Haitian border.

Around 340 families live there. Most adults are migrants or refugees from Haiti who speak Creole and Spanish.

Their children were born in the Dominican Republic. They live under dire circumstances in barrancones, ramshackle houses without floors, sewers or running water, and work in the fields harvesting sugarcane. It is heavy work and badly paid. Francia is one of the few people in her village to go to university, and that is down to her own courage and decisiveness.

After completing Escuela Primera, primary school, Francia wants to go to secondary school, ten kilometres outside of Cuchilla. She’s fourteen at the time. As she is not officially registered, however, she’s told she can’t be admitted.

Instead of accepting the rejection, Francia starts making enquiries. “I went to the register office to find out how to

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Francia Simon

Francia with her mother and brother in front of their house in Cuchilla.

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get a birth certificate. I thought it would be simple for me, having been born in the Dominican Republic, but that turned out not to be enough. My father is Dominican, but never registered me. He left us when I was nine. My mother couldn’t do it because she’s Haitian. I found out I needed a legal guardian, so I asked my aunt, who is Dominican. Acting as my guardian, she registered me, and I was given a birth certificate.

I then enrolled at the school and got started.”

The invisible

The incident touched a nerve with Francia, and made her think. “If you’re not regis-tered, you don’t have a name or any rights. Without documents, you have no access to education or healthcare, you can’t open a bank account or start a business. In fact, you can’t do anything.

You’re invisible. You don’t exist, you have nothing and can do nothing.

I was so angry when I realised this, that we were left in the lurch by our own country. Officially, most inhabitants of Cuchilla don’t exist!”

And Cuchilla is not alone. This is a global problem. Each year, an estimated 51 million babies are not registered, 40 per cent of all births. In the Dominican Republic, 22 per cent of children under five were not registered at birth. They are

known as the ‘invisible’, not recognised as citizens by the state or protected by law. It makes them vulnerable to social exclusion as well as other dangers like human trafficking and prostitution. Parents are often unaware of this, and of the importance of being registered. On top of that, many families have difficulties accessing the register because of illiteracy, language barriers, prohibitive costs, or the fear of parents who themselves don’t have birth certificates to make themselves known to the authorities.

Her outrage at this injustice grows when she learns of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“I found out that every child has a right to a name and a nationality. It is a basic right, as defined in article 7.1. Once I knew this, I decided to dedicate my knowledge and energy to helping other children in Cuchilla get their birth certificates.”

She goes around all the houses in her community, asking everyone about their papers. Then she tells parents and children about their rights, and helps them put in an application to the register office. It isn’t always easy. “Because of my age and small stature, they thought they could just send me away, a chiquita (little girl) like me,” she says, eyes flashing with anger, “but I wasn’t intimidated, I put on a serious, almost angry face, and asked for an appointment. I also encountered a lot of racism – light-skinned children had little

trouble getting their birth certificates, while dark-skinned ones wouldn’t get them at all. After this had happened a number of times, I got in touch with a lawyer, who agreed to help me for free. In other cases, I asked the mayor to mediate.

I’d then have to find three witnesses who could testify to the fact the child in question was born in the Dominican Republic. In this way, I have obtained state recognition for 136 adults and children from Cuchilla and the neighbouring village Cuatra.”

The right to happiness

It is a remarkable achievement, though Francia herself sees nothing unusual in taking action to help others. “If you see something that needs to be done and is within your knowledge and power to do, you have to do it.” From an early age, she has been used to getting her hands dirty. Life in the batey is tough, and her mother had to look after the family by herself. “I had a difficult childhood. I suffered a lot.

My mother worked long hours at a coffee plantation in the mountains and left us on our own most of the day. My two eldest sisters looked after my brothers and me. I didn’t like that. I hated the thought of her carrying those heavy baskets of coffee. She’d come home with a sore back and hips, and a headache. From the cold on the mountain. I always worried about her, trying to help where I could. When we moved to Cuchilla, we built a new house together from zinc plates, bamboo and concrete. It was hard work.”

Besides fighting for the right to a name and nationality, she also devotes herself to helping Haitian refugees. On 10 January 2010, a devastating earthquake hits Haiti, killing many thousands of people and leaving over 1.5 million Haitians, one sixth of the population, homeless. Many of them are taken in by towns and villages in the neighbouring Dominican Republic, including Cuchilla. Francia meets refugee children in her church and organises games and sports events for them. She also helps refugees find a place to stay. Doesn’t it sometimes get too much? She laughs at the suggestion. “No, no, I have never thought of giving up this work. This could happen to me and my family, and I hope there will be someone to help us if it does. Everyone has a right to be happy. It is the reason I started to help, and will go on doing so.”

International Children’s Peace Prize

In recognition of her help to these children, and above all of her tireless struggle for the rights to a name and nationality, she is presented with the International Children’s Peace Prize on 29 November 2010. A role model for other children, she has brought the great problem of the ‘invisible’ onto the agenda of her country with her actions.

When she hears about the nomination, her first response is

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rather sober. “I said, bueno, not realising what it meant. I’d never even heard of the Netherlands. Only once it was all explained to me and I was given the plane tickets did I realise what this meant. It came as a great surprise. The country left a deep impression on me, everything was so different. But above all, it was incredibly cold! I’d never felt anything like it in my life.”

Francia Simon

During the ceremony at the Hall of Knights, she feels as if she is in a film. “I was very happy and not at all afraid. The number of people in the audience did surprise me though; they had all come especially for me. The prize was presented

by Noble Laureate Rigoberta Menchú, who was very nice to me and called me ‘the flag for thousands of children.’ I was moved by her beautiful words and still think of them often.

I also met Baruani, the winner of the year before, and we’ve kept in touch through Facebook.” At the ceremony, Francia wore an eye-catching, gleaming gold medal around her neck.

She laughs, glowing with pride. Yes, that’s the football medal I had to just won at a tournament between four communities at home. Another important prize”.

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Back in her own country, Francia is welcomed warmly by her batey. People are grateful to her, and proud of her prize.

She enjoys the attention, though it can sometimes get too much. “Yes, I met lots of people when I came back, everyone wanted to talk to me. The Mayor welcomed me, and my story was in the papers. The first few days, I hid away at home; I was overwhelmed by all the new impressions and needed to process them first. But of course I understand, people put me on a pedestal and have high expectations of me and the great things I’ll do for the community.”

Esperanza

Does it weigh on her sometimes? Francia laughs. “No, I feel blessed by God – I wouldn’t be anywhere without Him. And I enjoy helping others. It makes me feel good.” She has been blessed in a different way, too: she has become a mother.

Francia laughs even more. “Yes, I grew up very quickly. I have a beautiful daughter, Esperanza, and I’m very happy with her.”

She has lost touch with the father, but faces her future as a single mother with confidence. “I know it’s difficult, but not impossible; after all, my mother did it too. She is everything to me, she looks after Esperanza when I’m at the university in Santo Domingo. My mother supports me all the way. She is illiterate, and understands what my education means to me. I miss both of them terribly, and hope to be able to visit home as much as possible.”

The situation in Cuchilla is much better now than it was when Francia was a girl. Thanks to the registration documents, more children go to secondary school. Francia is delighted with all

“It’s important to not get caught up to think it’s all going to be better someday, tomorrow: it’s important to say it’s going to be better today. If I can help a person today, that will help me live more fully.

Consequently, you then realize that to help someone is not a dream out there but is something that is very doable.”

RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ TUM

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Francia Simon

Francia after the ceremony in the Hall of Knights, from left to right: Rigoberta Menchú, Kailash Satyarthi, Baruani Ndume and former Chairman of the House of Representatives Gerdi Verbeet.

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the changes. “The money from the Children’s Peace Prize project fund has brought a lot of good to the community. Half of it has been used to build and improve houses. People who haven’t been in Cuchilla for a while hardly recognise it, it’s become so beautiful. In addition, twenty-two families were given goats and two families cows. That’s good, it supplements their income – the work at the sugarcane plantation is only seasonal. It stops after the harvest.”

Now that she’s studying, Francia doesn’t live in the batey anymore, but that doesn’t mean she has given up her crusade for birth certificates. On the contrary. Since receiving the prize she has managed to get forty children registered and is still helping the community from afar, in Santo Domingo. “I have entrusted care of the files to two aid organisations active in Cuchilla. I call them regularly to ask how things are going, and lend a hand when needed.”

Future leader

The Universidad Católica in Santo Domingo is in walking distance of her student flat. Under the trees in the square, students are sitting in the sun chatting with each other.

Francia is looking forward to studying. “I see it as the logical next step in my work for children’s rights. My studies give me a platform for speaking, bringing issues to light and hopefully making a change. Not just in my country, but abroad too.” She is ambitious and very confident. “I see myself as a leader, and in ten year’s time, hope to have become a prominent leader at a higher level. I also hope that more young people will come forward to improve our country – I have no faith in our political leaders. In this country, everything is about politics, and elections. Where we live, the owners of the sugarcane plantation are in charge. When they decide they need a road, the government will build one. If we, the inhabitants of Cuchilla, ask for a new road, it won’t be built. They’re just not interested. The government is always looking for voters. They make all kinds of promises, but if they win, nothing comes of them. It’s even worse if they lose, then they turn their backs on us entirely. They don’t care about us, and I find that upsetting.”

Francia’s strong sense of justice, her passion to help people, her power of persuasion and her perseverance have made her what she is today: an inspiration to young adults and children in her own country and far beyond. She has named

Inge Ikink interviewing Francia.

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her daughter Esperanza, which means hope. “I don’t want her to have the difficult childhood I had,” Francia says. “I want to break the cycle. I hope she will be able to go to school and train for a profession. It might not be easy, but she’ll make it. I made it too. That’s my message to all children. It doesn’t matter how many obstacles you encounter, or whether you stumble and fall on the way. What really matters is that you keep your head high, look to the future and carry on. Then you can do anything!”

Francia Simon 112

“It is my wish to go around the world looking for children without a birth certificate, to help them get it, so that they can achieve their goals of becoming engineers, architects, etc. I hope my story spreads around the world so that all the families can get their birth certificates.

I want to fight for children because I am an advocate for their rights.�

FRANCIA SIMON

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2010 WHO: Francia Simon

(1994)

FIGHTS FOR: Right to a name and a nationality.

Art. 7.1 Convention on the Rights of a Child right to a legally registered name and nationality.

MOTTO: “If

you see that something needs to happen and you have the knowledge and power to change it, then you have to do it!”

CHANGEMAKER: Emphasizes the importance of

being registered and helped obtain 176 birth certificates.

LOVES: Singing, football and friends.

INSPIRATION: My mother and Rigoberta Menchú.

STUDIES: Diplomacy and International Law at the

Catholic University of Santo Domingo.

IN TEN YEARS TIME: Prominent leader in the area of

children’s rights.

MESSAGE TO CHILDREN: “It does not matter how many

obstacles you encounter and stumble over.

Keep your head up high, look at the future and keep going!”

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Francia Simon

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CHANGEMAKERS

“IT’S IMPORTANT TO NOT GET CAUGHT UP TO THINK IT’S ALL GOING TO BE BETTER SOMEDAY, TOMORROW: IT’S IMPORTANT TO SAY IT’S GOING TO BE BETTER TODAY. IF I CAN HELP A PERSON TODAY, THAT WILL HELP ME LIVE MORE FULLY. CONSEQUENTLY, YOU THEN REALIZE THAT TO HELP SOMEONE IS NOT A DREAM OUT THERE BUT IS SOMETHING THAT IS VERY DOABLE.” RIGOBERTA MENCHÚ TUM

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2011 Chaeli Mycroft

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From left to right: Chelsea, Tarryn, Chaeli, Erin and Justine.

South Africa

Chaeli Mycroft 2011

Conqueror, dancer, music lover, ability activist, writer, speaker, winner International Peaceprize 2011.

This list is taken from the Twitter profile of Michaela “Chaeli” Mycroft. An impressive profile and remarkable qualifications, all the more so because Chaeli is confined to a wheelchair.

But as the term “ability activist” suggests, she’s a person who focuses on what she can do rather than what she cannot.

Chaeli was awarded the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2011 for her great perseverance, positive attitude and her struggle for the rights of disabled children in South-Africa.

It’s a glorious afternoon in Cape Town, South Africa. Chaeli is on her way to a lecture at the University of Cape Town.

The imposing university complex takes up half of the hill it stands on. The view of the city and Table Bay as seen from the steps leading up to the main entrance is breathtaking, with the famous Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for eighteen years, visible in the distance. Chaeli routinely navigates her way to the lift in the building in which the Faculty of Social Sciences is located, and arrives at the lecture room of Professor of Social Development Eric Atmore shortly afterwards.

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He gives an interesting lecture on children’s rights in South Africa. Chaeli is in her second year studying Political Science and Philosophy. With the help of her personal assistant Nthabiseng Magqutulu, she has lived independently on campus for a year, and is enjoying it immensely. She’s the first student in a wheelchair at the university, but Chaeli is used to being the first in many things she does. In 2013, for instance, she was the first disabled person at the Cape Town Cycle Tour, pulled along in a special buggy by racing cyclist and student Grant Kruger. Together, they completed the 109-kilometre tour around the Cape. “It was fantastic, I never thought I could go that fast, it was very exciting,” Chaeli says enthusiastically. “I love a challenge, I’m always on the lookout for new possibilities.”

Chaeli Mycroft

Sunshine Pots

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It’s typical of her. Chaeli was born with cerebral palsy, a disorder of the brain that affects movement. As a result of this, she has limited use of her arms and legs and her speech is slightly impaired. But this has never stopped her doing the things she wants, on the contrary. It has made her more determined. Her mother Zelda, a former English teacher with excellent diction, has always been aware of Chaeli’s qualities and never stopped encouraging her to push her boundaries. “She has a sharp mind and is always looking for solutions. When she started therapy at two years old, she had to haul herself up large exercise blocks. When she found she couldn’t do it, she used her teeth to climb up. She also learned to write this way, a skill the doctors thought she’d never master. And now she’s going to university. I’m incredibly proud of her.” Chaeli is well-known in Cape Town because of her campaign to fund her motorised wheelchair. She was nine years old when she, her sister and three friends started collecting money for it. Chaeli has told the story of their success many times. “It’s what set the ball rolling, my dream of greater freedom was born from this initiative. I wanted to drive everywhere independently, without having to ask someone to push my wheelchair. But motorised wheelchairs are expensive, and a child-sized one wasn’t available here, it had to be imported.”

“We couldn’t afford it, so my sister Erin (eleven at the time) and three friends, the sisters Tarryn, Justine and Chelsea Terry (fourteen, ten and seven) decided to raise the money.

We sold handmade cards and Sunshine Pots, painted flowerpots with sunflower seeds. We needed 20,000 rand (about 2,000 euros). Then the unthinkable happened, we succeeded – and in a very short time, too. Within seven weeks, we had raised the money and I was driving my own wheelchair. It was great!”

Chaeli Campaign

Chaeli is not really that surprised by her campaign’s success, she always thought they would make it. And she was right.

But that’s not all, the donations keep coming long after the target is reached, so the girls decide to continue their campaign. They want to use the money to buy wheelchairs and other disability aids for children with disabilities. It leads to the foundation of their own non-profit organisation, the Chaeli Campaign. Their motto is “Hope in Motion”.

Within a decade, it has developed into a smoothly-running organisation involving the whole family. Her mother Zelda, the CEO, is the mainstay of the organisation while father Russel runs the office and does the accounts.

Zelda drives the car to the front door, expertly helps Chaeli into the passenger seat and stows the wheelchair in the boot.

Today, they are visiting the Philippi slum, an uninterrupted row of tiny houses lining the roads like colourful bunting lead

up to it. At a primary school, they give a light-hearted talk, explaining to the children what it is like to be in a wheelchair or unable to see. To the children’s delight, they are allowed to try out the wheelchair under supervision of social worker Olwethu Nqevu, who has been part of the Chaeli Campaign for years. Then they are blindfolded. When asked if they could be friends with a girl or boy who was blind or in a wheelchair, they all shout at the top of their voices, “Yes!” It’s an effective way of creating a better understanding of disabled people at an early age. When it is over, Olwethu lifts Chaeli on her back and carries her back to the car through the narrow roads of the slum. Neither she nor Chaeli see anything unusual in this.

“We don’t have special wheelchair ramps or other facilities yet in South Africa,” Chaeli says with a cheerful laugh.

Inclusion The Chaeli Campaign is the first professional organisation founded by children that helps disabled children in South Africa. “Black children with disabilities are condemned to a life at home,” Chaeli explains. “Their parents are ashamed of them. There’s so much ignorance and fear. That’s why we visit slum communities to teach them about therapies and special facilities. But it’s just as important, if not far more so, to change the mentality. Not just of the disabled children, who can do so much more than they think, but of the whole community – they must come to see differently-abled people as normal human beings. We make a point of saying differently-abled rather than disabled, because we want to focus on ability, not disability.”

The campaign is all about inclusion and acceptance, and highlighting people’s talents. It is a positive approach. So much more is possible than may seem at first sight. According to its philosophy, there is no reason disabled children can’t attend an ordinary state school as long as the school is prepared to do its part. “The first reaction of people who see me in my wheelchair is often a whispered ‘oh, how sad,’ or the more direct question, ‘what’s wrong with your legs?’”

Chaeli goes on. “And that’s just the point, there is absolutely nothing ‘wrong’ with me, I just need help with certain things.

Such as the lift at the university. I can look after myself, but I need someone to push the button. The secret is making plenty of friends, who’ll queue up to push the button for you,” she laughs. “People need to review their assumptions, but most are more than happy to help. I’ve asked all first-year students to give me a hand with things like opening doors or taking books out of my bag. I’m always the first to joke about the situation, that usually breaks the ice. You need a good sense of humour when you’re disabled or it will get you down, and that’s a waste of time. Humour is my most effective armour.”

Chaeli gives talks at schools and public meetings, and visits projects. But not only does she approach others, they seek her

“I think we need to make a conscious decision to see the light in every person we meet. I think we need to be more positive about each other and see each others’ potential. If we see the light in each other, I believe we would live in a much brighter world.”

CHAELI MYCROFT

out, too. Or rather, they come to Chaeli Cottage, a private house in one of Cape Town’s suburbs where the organisation has its offices. It also serves as a venue for workshops and as a meeting place for parents and children. In 2014, the foundation acquired the house next to the cottage with the aim of linking the two and starting a preschool in it.

It’s yet another step forward. There’s still a long way to go in South Africa, which has a relatively high number of disabled children due to poverty and lack of healthcare and food.

Of its 45 million inhabitants, over 10 million are disabled, compared to one million of the 17 million people living in the Netherlands.

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Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mairead Maguire and Chaeli, The Hague.

Chaeli Mycroft

International Children’s Peace Prize

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On 21 November 2011, Chaeli is awarded the Children’s Peace Prize for her remarkable work for disabled children in South Africa. She fights for the rights of a group of children who are often forgotten. The prize is presented to her by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Maguire. In her powerful speech, Chaeli calls for more mutual understanding: “I think we need to make a conscious decision to see the light in every person we meet. I think we need to be more positive about each other and see each others’ potential. If we saw the light in each other I believe we would live in a much brighter world.” The ceremony ends with a moving rendition of the South African national anthem, Nkosi sikeleli’ iAfrika, which has both Chaeli and her mother in tears.

‘They were tears of happiness,” Chaeli says, thinking back to that special moment. “It was such a wonderful recognition of the work my family, friends and I have done together.

Without their incredible support, I’d never have been able to do it. The prize has been a great opportunity to spread our message further afield.” “By winning the Children’s Peace Prize, Chaeli has given a voice to children who cannot speak out or stand up for themselves,” Zelda adds with pride.

After the ceremony, Chaeli is interviewed many times, appears on radio and television and is frequently invited to give talks. In 2012, she is invited to the World Summit

Chaeli with former US President Jimmy Carter, Chicago.

of Nobel Peace Laureates in Chicago, the United States.

She receives the first Medal for Social Activism from Nobel Peace Prize laureate Frederik Willem de Klerk, the former president of her country. “It was a wonderful experience,” she says. “I gave a speech about my work and was showered with attention. Many important world leaders and former presidents were there. I had my autograph book with me and got many people to sign, including Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and Jody Williams. She’s famous for her work for the international campaign against landmines. We had an interesting conversation. She has a disabled brother and is familiar with much of what I’d talked about in my speech. She really appreciates my work as an ability activist.”

Independence In the same year, she flies to Paris by invitation of UNESCO, to speak about the importance of involving disabled people in decisions about education. It’s the first time Chaeli travels without her mother, though her sister Erin goes with her.

Another step towards more independence.

Then she begins her studies at the University of Cape Town.

Living away from home is a strange new sensation, but Chaeli soon gets used to it. She makes new friends and immerses herself in her studies. She also finds time to train for the Cape Town Cycle Tour, and actually participates in 2013 and 2014.

Her fondness for sports also shows in her love for wheelchair dancing. She has been ballroom and Latin dancing for years and has entered in competitions. She and her partner won

Chaeli receives a medal from Nobel Peace Prize Winner F.W. de Klerk, Chicago.

Chaeli talking to former US President Bill Clinton, Chicago.

second place in Latin dancing at the Wheelchair Dance Sport World Championships in the Netherlands.

In August 2014, the Chaeli Campaign celebrates its 10th anniversary. In that short time, the organisation has achieved remarkable things.

It has helped 30,000 children, providing 400 children with therapy, wheelchairs, hearing aids, or dietary supplements every year. Chaeli is proud of all their achievements, but especially of the Ambassadors’ Programme that started in 2009. “We encourage young children to start a project of their own,” she explains. “Most of them have disabled siblings.

They take a one-year course in which we teach them how to think of and set up an aid project. We kill two birds with one stone: not only do the children develop social entrepreneur skills, the ambassadors also raise awareness among other children by talking about their projects at school. We also teach them what to do when someone has an epileptic fit, for instance. I think it’s great that we have been able to instil this knowledge and courage in our ambassadors.”

The garden of the cottage has been transformed into a festive venue as volunteers and benefactors from the very beginning join the anniversary celebrations. The Terry sisters are there, too. They can’t believe they have worked for the Chaeli Campaign for ten years already. Justine, now nineteen, says, “What makes this such a beautiful story is that this campaign was started by five ordinary girls, not superheroes or anything. We hope that our story will inspire others.

It’s not about making millions of rand, but about believing in a dream.” Are they still friends, after all they’ve been through? “We grew up together, we’re as close as sisters. We were friends before the Chaeli Campaign, and we’ll always stay friends,” Chelsea, who’s sixteen, laughs. Chaeli is an inspiration to many. Does that include them? “It’s strange thinking of her in that way because she’s our friend, but yes, of course she is! She fights for what she believes in, and we admire that.”

Future At the party, Chaeli is radiant. She’s grateful for this milestone. At the same time, she feels a need to distance herself from the Chaeli Campaign. “I don’t always want to be the child of the wheelchair campaign,” she laughs. “I must find new directions. Studying is one of them. I hope to be able to travel more, to see how disabled people are treated in other countries, what help they get and what the infrastructure is like. Perhaps I can become an advisor in this wide field after I graduate. I want to inspire people to look further than the handicap and show them that disabled people are ‘normal’.

I want to learn to drive and find a suitable car. I’ve got the number plate already, it’s attached to my wheelchair.

“I may give the impression I’m always upbeat and positive, but that’s not true. I’ve struggled in the past, and I’m sure I will again. But I’m surrounded by people who believe in my abilities and appreciate my contribution to society. They are

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my anchor. They go along with all the crazy things I want to do. With a positive attitude and this kind of support, anything is possible. We’re slightly mad, but that’s okay – as long as we’re mad together, we can do great things.”

In August 2015, Chaeli faces her next challenge. She wants to be the first disabled woman to climb the Kilimanjaro.

She’s adding “soon-to-be-Kilimanjaro-climber” to her Twitter profile. And she’ll succeed, without a doubt.

WHO: Michaela ‘Chaeli’ Mycroft

(1994)

FIGHTS FOR: The rights of

Chaeli Mycroft

disabled children.

Article 23 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The right to special care of children with disabilities.

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MOTTO: “Hope in Motion.”

CHANGEMAKER: Calls herself

an ‘ability activist’. Fights for a change in mentality, to make the world recognise that differently-abled people are normal human beings and focus on what someone can do rather than what they cannot.

LOVES: Challenges, wheelchair dancing,

blogging, writing and music.

INSPIRATION: Jody Williams and Malala.

STUDIES: Political Science and Philosophy at the

University of Cape Town.

IN TEN YEARS: Hopes to continue her struggle for a better world for disabled people. Would like to travel and become and adviser in the field of improving facilities.

MESSAGE TO CHILDREN:

“You can achieve so much more with the support of people around you, your family and friends.”

WEBSITE:

www.chaelicampaign.co.za

2011

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Chaeli Mycroft 130

“It starts with believing. I believe in my abilities; I believe wholeheartedly that I can make change happen – that I can change lives. If people with disabilities can’t believe in themselves or if others don’t believe in them, I will believe in them – and hopefully my positivity will spread and encourage more positivity. This might seem insignificant to some but it’s still change.”

CHAELI MYCROFT

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2012 Kesz Valdez 133

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Kesz Valdez

Philippines

Kesz Valdez 2012

“Children, listen to me. I want you to know that you are valuable. You have dreams and talents, and you all deserve a bright future – so use your talents, and follow your dreams.”

The speaker is Kris ‘Kesz’ Valdez, a modest fifteen-year-old Filipino boy. He is addressing his audience in a calm, soft voice in the Muzon district of Cavite City, a medium-sized town in the Philippines. A silent, orderly group of around 100 four- to twelve-year-olds are listening to him and his ‘officers’ Zhenkie, Mako, Johnlery, Ivha and Junrey. After the talk, they raise banners with some of the most important children’s rights displayed in colourful letters and illustrations, and recite them with the children, in English and Filipino: the right to be protected against child abuse; the right to express their own views; the right to play; the right to nutritious food.

Then Kesz and his friends sing a song, I Love Your Smile, and the kids join in by pretending to wash their hands and brush their teeth. Everyone’s having a great time. When the song is over, each child is given a small plastic bag with a bar of soap, a toothbrush and biscuit in it. They patiently stand in line until it is their turn, then run back to their mothers, clutching their bags excitedly.

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To pay it forward

Kesz Valdez

It’s the ‘Wealthy Healthy Outreach’, a programme

by Kesz’s C3 foundation, Championing Community Children. Almost every free Saturday, Kesz and his friends, all of whom are C3 volunteers, go to Cavite City’s poor neighbourhoods. This morning they’re in Muzon, about an hour’s drive from Manila and idyllically situated on Manila Bay. The sun has come out and the temperature in between the small, tightly packed houses is rising, but the young volunteers carry on with unwavering enthusiasm.

After Muzon they go to Poblete, a community that lives largely by fishing. The huts stand in the water on poles, looking like rows of elegant flamingos, and the view of the blue sea is spectacular. But this appearance is deceptive.

Life in these pole villages is hard. An average family has six children and often shares a hut with their grandparents.

They have less than 200 pesos (just over three euros) to live on a day. The water between the houses is littered with floating plastic and domestic waste. A remarkable number of people are lounging about – no work. Kesz and his friends are welcomed warmly. He puts on a small woven scarf before starting his talk. “This,” he says seriously, “reminds me that I’m here to serve the children; it’s a kind of uniform.” The Wealthy Healthy Outreach programme is again performed enthusiastically. The children love it, it’s a welcome diversion from their daily routine.

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Many of these children don’t go to school because their parents want them to help with the fishing. They need the extra hands. The future does not look rosy. When they become teenagers, many of the boys will join one of the numerous street gangs terrorising the neighbourhoods, and, after an adolescence marked by crime and violence, almost invariably slip into the same kind of life their parents led before them. Or they go from bad to worse.

Kesz is convinced that education is the key to breaking this vicious cycle. He takes a stand for these children, and the countless street children who inhabit the dusty roads of Cavite City in droves.

Kesz knows what he’s talking about: as a former street child, he has first-hand experience of the tough life on the streets. “I want to give them hope,” he says with simple determination. “Some good-hearted people showed me love and changed my life, and I am just paying forward”.

‘To pay it forward’ is an expression he uses a lot. It means that he wants to share the good things that have happened to him with others by doing good deeds. It’s a direct reference to his remarkable life story. For though he may only be fifteen, he has experienced more than many people will in a lifetime.

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Kesz Valdez 140

“Looking back, the fire that burned my skin and flesh is the same fire that started a flame in my soul. A flame that would warm cold hearts, a flame that would shed light to the path of the lost, a flame that would spark hope, lighting an entire sea of darkness and desperation.”

KESZ VALDEZ

Baptism by fire

Kesz is the third in a family of nine children. The penniless Valdez family lives, with several hundred other families of ‘squatters’, next to a large rubbish dump in Cavite. The dump marks the end of habitation on the peninsula, the rubbish piled up high along the coastline of Manila Bay. Right next to it is another human terminal: the Himlayang Cemetery, home to the poorest of the poor families. In this dismal place, Kesz is born in 1998. His father, who barely earns enough to support his family, spends his money on drink and drugs. At the age of only two, little Kesz is sent out to collect rubbish. Armed with an iron hook and a bag, he crawls over the rubbish heap, looking for plastic bottles and copper wire. At the end of the

day, his findings are sold for a pittance, which disappears in father Valdez’s pockets.

Convinced that Kesz is bad luck, his father beats him regularly.

At four, he runs away from home to escape from his violent father, and tries to survive on the street. “It was a difficult time,” he sighs, “I slept in an empty tomb at the graveyard at night, it was cold... it felt like living in darkness.” At an age when other children go to school for the first time, Kesz learns to steal and beg. He learns how to survive on the street. One day, disaster strikes. “I was playing with some friends and was accidentally pushed into a pile of burning tyres. I had severe burns on my back and arms.” His injuries are so serious that

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he needs hospital treatment. Unable to pay for this, his mother takes him to Harnin Manalaysay, a social worker who has looked out for the boy before. Harnin is the founder of Club 8586, an organisation that has provided support for Filipino street children for almost three decades.

Harnin takes Kesz to hospital, then lets him stay at his house to recuperate. For good, as it turns out, as Kesz’s mother lets Manalaysay know that the family doesn’t want the boy back.

He stays at Harnin’s, who becomes his legal guardian. It is to change the life the street child completely – for the first time ever, he has enough to eat, wears shoes and goes to school.

And he is loved. Harnin’s mother, lola (grandmother), looks

after him. When he is afraid at night, he crawls into bed with her. It’s a turning point in more ways than one, says Kesz, who consistently calls his guardian Mr Harnin. “Falling into the fire left me seriously injured and in a lot of pain. But it has also been my salvation. It feels like a baptism by fire. I used to know nothing, I thought it was perfectly normal to have festering wounds on your feet. I never brushed my teeth, never washed my hands, was always hungry and drank out of dirty puddles in the street. I’ve learned a lot since moving here. Mr Harnin has taught me everything I know, and I thank God every day that he has brought him into my life.”

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Kesz Valdez

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Kesz’s rescuer ‘Mr Harnin’ with Kesz in the Hall of Knights, The Hague.

Kesz Valdez

Seven shoeboxes

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Besides Kesz, there are other former street children living with Manalaysay. One of them is Efren Peñaflorida, thirtytwo. He is the inventor of the mobile classroom, kariton klasroom: a pushcart filled with textbooks, notebooks and pens. The slim karitons are perfect for navigating the narrow roads of the Cavite slums. The project is so successful that Peñaflorida is awarded the CNN Hero of the Year Award in 2009. Another member of the household, Emmanuel Baguan, twenty-one, also turned his back on his old life on the streets, where, as a member of one of the many gangs, he threatened to go off the rails completely. Baguan founded the M.Y. Rights organisation and developed a colouring book about children’s rights for primary schools. The book is popular in the Philippines.

Both organisations, including four others promoting children’s rights, are part of Harnin’s Club 8586. His way of helping others is proving a breeding ground for young humanitarians. He is the mentor of both enterprising boys.

It’s an inspiring environment for young Kesz – only six at the time – who asks to be allowed to help with the mobile school. Harnin Manalaysay isn’t sure at first. “I thought he was rather young to help,” he says, “but asked him what he was good at. Kesz answered enthusiastically that he was very good at washing his hands and brushing his teeth.

So he went along to the slums with the karitons and, in a serious manner, taught children the basics of hygiene and why they are important.”

In this way, Kesz gets involved in community work at an early age. His seventh birthday on 26 December 2005 is another turning point. From the moment they can talk, most children are familiar with their parents’ question, “What would you like for your birthday?” Kesz first heard it when he turned seven. His answer is remarkable for a child his age. “I want other children to get what I’ve got: sandals, toys and sweets.” This is how ‘Gifts of Hope’ is born, seven brightly-wrapped shoeboxes filled with sandals, toys and sweets for the boys, and seven more for the girls, which Kesz takes to Cavite’s street children. It instantly becomes an annual birthday tradition, with another box added each year. But Gifts of Hope has such an impact that Kesz decides to distribute more boxes with the help of his friends. In 2006, he sets up his own foundation, the Championing Community Children, C3 for short.

Giving hope

Today, in 2014, Kes’s foundation has helped over 10,000 children in Cavite City. The organisation is growing, recruiting volunteers at schools and in the communities, where C3 does the Outreach programme. There are forty

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Kesz distributes ‘Gifts of Hope’.

Kesz Valdez

permanent volunteers, including the seven ‘officers’ who run C3, and around 100 volunteers who occasionally lend a hand in one of the fourteen communities C3 operates in. Gifts of Hope is funded by sponsors and by selling home-made ice cream and pastillas (milk sweets). Kesz runs the programme with unflagging enthusiasm and shows no signs of wanting to stop. “My country counts over 250,000 street children. I want to reach them. When I look into their eyes, I see myself.

I know what they are going through, I want to give them hope, encourage them to go to school and improve their lives.

Children living on the street or walking over rubbish looking for useful things in a dump can easily hurt themselves.

Hardly any of them wear shoes. We dress their wounds and give them sandals.”

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Junrey Custodio, a somewhat timid boy of fifteen, remembers exactly how he felt when Kesz gave him a Gift of Hope. “I was about ten years old and only went to school occasionally. I usually had to help my lolo (grandfather) to fish. I live with him, my lola (grandmother), my aunt and uncle and their children in Poblete. My parents are divorced. My father was a drug addict, and he beat me and my mother. She left me with my grandparents. Kesz gave me a box with sandals, a pen, notebooks and sweets – and he didn’t even know me.

I’d never before been given a present for myself. It was great.”

He reflects for a minute and says, “I am very, very, very happy now; Kesz has changed my life. He helped me go to high school, and soon, I will be the first of my family to go to university. I’m proud of that. I’ve also made some good friends by volunteering for C3. I used to commit small robberies with a street gang, but I’ve stopped doing that. School is the key to a better future. My lolo didn’t want me to go to school, he needed me for the fishing. But my lola did. She is proud of me now, she believes I’ve become a better person.” He has kept the sandals as a reminder of this great change in his life.

Voice of the voiceless

In 2012, Kesz is nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize. When he learns he has actually won it, he is amazed and delighted at the same time. On 19 September 2012, he is presented with the prize at the Hall of Knights in The Hague by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who says that Kesz, like all winners of the Children’s Peace Prize, shows the incredible resilience of the power of the human spirit, and is a worthy voice of the voiceless. Kesz confesses he’d never heard of Tutu, but now he knows of the important work he has done in South Africa. “He isn’t afraid of speaking up and encouraged me to do the same, now and in the future. He told me to put the publicity generated by the prize to good use and that people would start paying attention to me, just as they had to him. Before he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, no one ever listened to him. But whenever he opened his mouth

Kesz, Junrey (r) and other C3 officers give toothbrush instructions in Muzon, Cavite City.

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afterwards, people behaved as if they heard an oracle speak, he told me. He’s a great role model for me.”

In The Hague, Kesz gives an impassioned speech on the importance of health for children. “If you’re healthy, anything is possible! You’re better at thinking, playing, going to school and loving the people around you. Remember that every day, 6,000 children die unnecessarily of illnesses resulting from poor hygiene – a situation we can change! Let us work together to help street children improve their health and create a better life for themselves. Your health is your wealth!”

Back in the Philippines, the prize really does open doors for Kesz. Cavite’s mayor, Ramos, puts on a grand reception

and a festive parade in his honour. His story is reported in newspapers and on television, and he receives an official invitation to lunch with President Benigno Aquino, which gives Kesz the opportunity to discuss his projects with him.

The president is especially impressed by C3’s initiative to plant vegetables and fruit trees, such as guava and mango, in the communities, an idea that is both simple and effective.

The crops thrive in the tropical climate of the Philippines, and the constant supply of food provided by the vegetable gardens means the children don’t have to beg, Kesz argues.

He is invited to give talks on his life and projects at Manila University and large corporations such as Microsoft in Singapore. The Philippine’s national TV network even makes a dramatised documentary about his life, ‘I am Kesz’,

Kesz Valdez 148

“Hey you oldies, listen to the children, listen to the children... and act!”

DESMOND TUTU

broadcast primetime on 23 March 2013. He becomes even more well-known as a result, and many more people sponsor him with money and goods.

Pride

People in Cavite City are proud of their honorary citizen, but his hero status also generates negative reactions. He is approached for help and money in the street. His father gets in touch, thinking Kesz has won a fortune in prize-money, but gets nothing, it’s tied up in the Children’s Peace Prize project fund. Kesz tries to take such incidents in his stride, though he finds it difficult. “I consider it an honour for the street children and for my country that I was awarded the Children’s Peace Prize, but just walking the streets and answering people’s questions in a friendly manner can be a challenge.” Sometimes he is faced with downright hostility, such as the time he and his officers present an Outreach on the rubbish dump he was born. He is greeted with contempt. “I’m still not comfortable going there, it reminds me too much of the past, when I lived ‘in the dark’. I find it painful to see so many children still living the way I used to. Not everyone is hostile, but some people who know me from the past are. They begrudge me my luck and happiness. It hurts, but I understand it. We’ve decided not to go there anymore.”

His C3 friends say that Kesz is still the same Kesz they have always known. Psychology student Zhenkie Tubianora, 17, has been friends with Kesz for years and has been involved in C3 from the beginning. “Kesz hasn’t changed,” she says. “He just carries on with what he’s doing and treats all of us the same as before. He’s modest. I’m very proud of him. When he was nominated, we all prayed he would win. We were overjoyed when he won the prize, and had a huge celebration.”

Father Ray Pacheco works as a priest in Exodus, one of Cavite City’s poor neighbourhoods. Kesz has been visiting his neighbourhood with his Wealthy Healthy Outreach for years, much to Father Ray’s satisfaction. “The children respect him, they listen to him. He’s trying to motivate a whole generation of young people by sharing his knowledge, giving them hope and encouraging them to go to school so they can build a better future for themselves. That’s invaluable. People here are poor, they need to be inspired to be able to see a way ahead.

The government doesn’t help us, all politicians are corrupt, the money ends up in the wrong pockets. The poor people here don’t get a penny. We have to look out for ourselves. Kesz’s work gives us a glimmer of hope.”

Change the world

Life is hard in the Philippines. According to Kesz’s website, the Philippines ranks as the 14th largest food producing country in the world, while seventy-five per cent of its children are undernourished and sixty-five per cent of the population

live under the poverty line. The figures are alarming, and to make things worse, the area is hit by hurricanes almost every year. The images of the devastation wrought by super typhoon Haiyan (known as Yolanda in the Philippines) on 8 November 2013 are still fresh in everyone’s mind. The impact is catastrophic, with over six thousand inhabitants dead, thousands missing and over 11.3 million affected by the disaster. The United Nations estimate that 675,000 people have become homeless. Kesz and his C3 volunteers are among the first to arrive at the scene a day later. He comes bearing Gifts of Hope again, this time for children who have lost everything. Their family, their home. Five thousand Gifts of Hope are distributed in the disaster area. His housemate Emmanuel Baguan also takes immediate action. He arranges for hundreds of bicycles to be brought to the area – a stroke of genius, as it is almost impossible to get around any other way.

“You’re never too young to help,” is Kesz’s motto. Practising what he preaches, he works tirelessly to improve the street children’s lot. The money from the International Children’s Peace Prize project fund has been used to support three street children projects, one of which has helped 1,200 children in Manila. Kesz is pleased with this, but hopes to expand further in the Philippines. A similar project has been launched in Indonesia, and he would love to get Gifts of Hope started in African countries. People see him as a young hero, a title he himself dislikes. “To me, doing this feels normal, just like going to school, going out with friends or posting photographs and messages on Facebook,” he laughs modestly. His urge to ‘do good’ is strong.

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Kesz can’t help it, nor does he want to – he feels obliged to pay forward. In the future, he wants to carry on his work helping street children. He hasn’t yet settled on a future profession, but knows he wants to go to university, with the support of the Kids Rights study fund. For years, he was determined to become a doctor and set up clinics in poor neighbourhoods, but he has recently had another calling: becoming a journalist.

“You get to go everywhere and talk with everyone. As a news reporter, you can shed light on problems and bring about change by telling the stories of people who can’t speak up for themselves.”

But though he doesn’t need to decide quite yet what he wants to become, he already knows that he is, and will always be, a changemaker. “Definitely,” he laughs. “We can change the world, one heart at the time”.

Kesz Valdez

2012

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WHO: Kesz Valdez

(1998)

FIGHTS FOR: The rights of street children (the right to health, family, housing and education).

Art. 24 Convention on the Rights of the Child: right to health and health services.

MOTTO: “Your health is your wealth!”

CHANGEMAKER: Gives ‘Gifts of

Hope’ to street children and teaches them that washing hands and brushing teeth are vital.

Founded the organization: C3, Championing Community Children.

LOVES: Going out with friends, watching movies and Facebook INSPIRATION: Harnin Manalaysay, Lola, Malala and

his friends of C3.

STUDIES: Aspires to study journalism or medicine.

IN TEN YEARS TIME: “Continue to do what I do now: help children,

I hope to study for a better world.”

MESSAGE TO CHILDREN:

“Whether you are young or old, have status in the world or not, try to make a difference. It can change the world. We owe it to the next generation. And don’t lose hope!”

WEBSITE:

http://c3champ.visualtribeinc.com

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Kesz Valdez

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2013 Malala Yousafzai

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Malala Yousafzai

Pakistan

Malala Yousafzai 2013

“They cannot stop me, I will get my education. If it is at home, school or any place.” Malala Yousafzai made these remarks in Mingora, Pakistan when she was eleven years old. They characterize her determination, her passion for education and her strong sense of justice, and are at the core of her social activism, which has made her world famous. “I want to live in a world where education is valued in every corner of the world and no one is excluded. The challenges are enormous, but at the heart of the solution is one simple thing: the right of every girl to be educated.”

She speaks these words when she is sixteen in The Hague, where she receives the International Children’s Peace Prize. That same passion and sense of justice are still very much present.

Only five years have passed, but she has experienced enough to last a lifetime.

Malala is the most famous Children’s Peace Prize Winner to date. Children and adults all over the world know her, especially girls. What does that mean to her? In the midst of the circus of her life, she remains calm and determined in her campaign, as she calls it. “I’m doing well,” is the first thing she tells me. “I go to school in Birmingham. I missed quite a few classes because of all the interviews, travels and my work for the Malala Foundation, all of which caused my results to suffer. But now I want to completely focus on my studies, because I have exams this year. Education is important for everybody, for every child, including myself,” she laughs. “I have this big dream and ambition to help my country, Pakistan; I want to focus on education, not just in my country, but elsewhere as well. Around the world 57 million children can’t go to school, 32 million of which are girls; that has to change.

Malala is giving the interview in the central library in Birmingham, which she ceremoniously opened a year previously. She has decided to no longer conduct interviews at home, because it disrupted family life too much.

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It illustrates how busy her life has become now that she is a world famous social activist. Every day she receives numerous requests to give talks or to appear on television programs. There aren’t many people in the world who haven’t heard about the dramatic attempt on her life on 9 October in 2012. As a result of the attempt, she moved to Birmingham, and no longer lives in Mingora, Pakistan. And why? Simply because she wants all girls in her country to go to school. It is their basic right and she keeps fighting for it, relentlessly and passionately.

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Second life

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“I don’t think about the attack very often, I can’t remember it anyway. I do get flashbacks sometimes; they come out of nowhere. And I’m reminded about it every time I look in the mirror,” Malala says calmly. “I survived, and the way I see it, Allah (God) has given me a second life to continue my struggle.”

Her life changed dramatically since the attack, which, miraculously, she survives. The bullet goes through her left eye socket into her shoulder and narrowly misses her brain.

Doctors in Pakistan and later in Birmingham help her recover.

She spends two and a half months in hospital and undergoes surgery. A part of her skull is replaced with an implanted titanium plate and she gets a hearing aid in her left ear.

After months of recovery she is doing so well, that she can do what she loves most; go to school. It’s just in another country, another city and another school.

Malala grew up in Mingora, a city in northern Pakistan. She describes her Swat Valley as a heavenly realm of mountains, waterfalls and crystal clear lakes. Her family is of Pashtun ethnicity. They are a hospitable and proud people, but they are traditional too. In their culture, girls don’t usually go to secondary school. Her father, Ziauddin has other ideas. He believes that girls, in particular his daughter, should go to school and be educated. He has realized his dream of starting a secondary school for both boys and girls. Malala attends her father’s Kushal School and is one of the best students in her class. Her brothers attend the same school. Mother Tor Pekai has never been to school.

by Mullah Fazlullah, sow fear. They don’t want girls to go to school and blow up 150 schools in 2008 alone. These are frightening times for Malala and her family, though it also marks the birth of her activism.

“My friends and I did not understand what was so wrong about going to school. My father said the Taliban are afraid of pens,” Malala says indignantly. “He organized a march for peace at school and encouraged us to speak out about what’s

“I was just one target for their bullets, there are many others, whose names I don’t know. It is for them that we must continue our campaign to ensure that all children al around the world have the chance, have the access, have the right to go to school.”

MALALA YOUSAFZAI

going on. We were interviewed with a few other pupils. My father encouraged me, and said, ‘You are a child and you have the right to make yourself heard.’ That is how I ended up on a talk show of BBC Urdu. I was nervous, because I knew all of Pakistan could hear me, but I plucked up my courage and said: ‘How dare the Taliban deprive me of my fundamental right to education?’ People congratulated me afterwards and my father told me I should go into politics.”

Afraid of pens

Blog

The family leads a relatively normal life, until the political climate changes. After 2007, Swat is in the grip of radical Muslims who form an MMA-government, and gradually the situation becomes grim. Televisions and CDs are banned because they are haram, in violation with Islamic law. Women are no longer allowed to go to the bazaar, and their freedoms are restricted. A ‘moral’ police is established to check if people are abiding by the rules. Anyone who disagrees with them is publicly flogged or executed. The men with beards, led

When Malala is given the opportunity to write a blog on the BBC Urdu website, her entries get a lot of attention.

With the help of journalist Abdul Hai Kakar, she writes under the pseudonym Gul Makai (Cornflower, who is a heroine in a Pashtun folk tale) about everyday life and the terror of the Taliban. “He told me about the diary of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who went into hiding with her family in Amsterdam during the Second World War. That inspired me. I was eleven years old and wrote a lot about

QUOTES FROM BLOG: DO NOT WEAR COLOURFUL DRESSES - 5 JANUARY 2009 “I WAS GETTING READY FOR SCHOOL AND ABOUT TO WEAR MY UNIFORM WHEN I REMEMBERED THAT OUR PRINCIPAL HAD TOLD US NOT TO WEAR UNIFORMS AND COME TO SCHOOL WEARING NORMAL CLOTHES INSTEAD.” “SO I DECIDED TO WEAR MY FAVOURITE PINK DRESS. OTHER GIRLS IN SCHOOL WERE ALSO WEARING COLOURFUL DRESSES. DURING THE MORNING ASSEMBLY WE WERE TOLD NOT TO WEAR COLOURFUL CLOTHES AS THE TALIBAN WOULD OBJECT TO IT.”

I MAY NOT GO TO SCHOOL AGAIN - 14 JANUARY 2009 “I WAS IN A BAD MOOD WHILE GOING TO SCHOOL BECAUSE WINTER VACATIONS ARE STARTING FROM TOMORROW. THE PRINCIPAL ANNOUNCED THE VACATIONS BUT DID NOT MENTION THE DATE THE SCHOOL WAS TO REOPEN.” “THE GIRLS WERE NOT TOO EXCITED ABOUT VACATIONS BECAUSE THEY KNEW IF THE TALIBAN IMPLEMENTED THEIR EDICT [BANNING GIRLS’ EDUCATION] THEY WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO COME TO SCHOOL AGAIN. I AM OF THE VIEW THAT THE SCHOOL WILL ONE DAY REOPEN BUT WHILE LEAVING I LOOKED AT THE BUILDING AS IF I WOULD NOT COME HERE AGAIN.”

INTERRUPTED SLEEP - 15 JANUARY 2009 “THE NIGHT WAS FILLED WITH THE NOISE OF ARTILLERY FIRE AND I WOKE UP THREE TIMES. BUT SINCE THERE WAS NO SCHOOL I GOT UP LATER AT 10AM. AFTERWARDS, MY FRIEND CAME OVER AND WE DISCUSSED OUR HOMEWORK. TODAY IS THE LAST DAY BEFORE THE TALIBAN’S EDICT COMES INTO EFFECT, AND MY FRIEND WAS DISCUSSING HOMEWORK AS IF NOTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY HAD HAPPENED.” “TODAY, I ALSO READ MY DIARY WRITTEN FOR THE BBC IN URDU. MY MOTHER LIKED MY PEN NAME GUL MAKAI. I ALSO LIKE THE NAME BECAUSE MY REAL NAME MEANS ‘GRIEF STRICKEN’.”

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school, for example about the day I was no longer allowed to wear my much-adored school uniform and colourful dresses.” Newspapers start to quote her stories and more people read her blog. Happy with these developments she becomes aware of the power of the printed word. Her father Ziauddin is aware of the dangerous situation: “Yes, of course it was a risk, but I believe that not speaking out is a greater risk, because that would mean surrendering to slavery and terrorism.”

Around this time, the New York Times asks her father to help make a documentary for their website, to show the world what’s happening in Pakistan. Eventually Malala is the main focus and she is followed on her last day at school before it closes on 15 January 2009.

It marks the end of Ziauddin’s dream. Fourteen years of hard work and idealism are literally locked away. The city becomes a war zone.

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Nomination Children’s Peace Prize

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A month later the ban is lifted and the girls are allowed back to school, as long as they wear a burka. But the situation in Swat continues to be dangerous. After looking the other way for a long time, the Pakistan government and the army finally take action seven months later in July 2009. The army announces they have driven out the Taliban. But Falullah and his men have entrenched themselves in the mountains and resume their actions. Malala and her father continue to speak out for the right to education and make regular news appearances.

In recognition of her bravely writing the blog and speaking out for education, Malala is nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize in October 2011. She vividly remembers how happy she was. “I thought it was a great honour. Suddenly I received international attention, people from the other side of the planet supported us. It was amazing. And the responses in our country were huge.

People were honoured, and proud of me.”

Ziauddin is disappointed when Malala does not win: “I was convinced she would win, every father naturally thinks his child is the best, but Malala did not believe that. She thought Chaeli was the right winner and she was the first one to congratulate her when she won on 21 November 2011. The nomination was big news in our country. Malala became a symbol of resistance against the Taliban.” Prime minister Yusuf Raza Gilani thinks it’s a pity that Malala did not win either. Three days later he awards her the newly established Youth Peace Prize, which is renamed the ‘Malala Prize’.

“The KidsRights Prize opened many doors,” Ziauddin continues. “Up to then we had some say in what the media

wrote about us, but now that was over. It became a huge media-hype in Pakistan. She received many requests for speaking engagements and people wanted their picture taken with her.” All the attention is good for the cause, but makes the situation more dangerous for Malala and her family. One day the Pakistani journalist Shehla Anjum visits the family Yousafzai. She lives in Alaska en saw the New York Times documentary. “She told my father the Taliban had made a death threat aimed at me and showed it to us on the computer,” Malala says. “I wasn’t worried then, but my parents were. It was strange, we always thought my father would be at risk and now the focus shifted to me, a child. I did start locking the big gate to our house at night. It was weird. We’d been safe when the Taliban were in Swat, but once they left we were no longer safe.”

Between life and death The attempt on the fourteen-year-old’s life is global news. The Taliban claim responsibility for the attack and declare that Malala is a Western-oriented girl who always contradicts them. President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan calls it an “attack on civilized people.”

All over the world, people are perplexed. President Obama calls the attack “barbaric” and “tragic”. Secretary-General of the UN Ban Ki Moon condemns the “horrific and cowardly act” of the Taliban and calls on the Pakistani government to arrest and punish the perpetrators. Thousands of people send cards and presents to Malala in the hospital. There are enough to fill twenty-five boxes. Pakistan is in shock. There are demonstrations everywhere and countless prayers are said. Ziauddin is overwhelmed: “The day after the attack, masses of people took to the streets with banners, something that had never happened before. The banners said ‘Shame on you, Taliban.’ It was unthinkable to say that in Pakistan.

The word Taliban is never said out loud, let alone in the same sentence as shame. It was unique.”

In early February 2013, Malala makes her first public announcement after the attack. In a video message, which is shown globally, she shows the world her will is not broken: “Today you can see that I’m alive, that I can talk and that I can see. I can see everybody. Every day I get a bit better.

And that is because everyone prayed for me. Because of those prayers, Allah has given me a second life.”

She recovers so quickly that she can go back to school a month later. She goes to The Edgbaston High School for Girls. It’s a happy day for her; she can wear a school uniform again, carry her book bag and walk to school as a free person.

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Malala Yousafzai

Malala at the ceremony in The Hague with Nobel Peace Prize Winner Tawakkol Karman.

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Benazir Bhutto’s scarf As it turns out she does not have much time to go to school regularly. She gives interview after interview and becomes an icon for the right to education for girls. On her sixteenth birthday in July, she travels to New York to speak to 500 young leaders at the United Nations. She gives a passionate speech lasting twenty minutes, in which she stands up for the right to education and for women’s rights, but she also champions peace in Islam and the power of forgiveness.

Her eloquent words travel across the globe again. “Let us pick up our books and our pens,” she says. “They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution.” She receives a standing ovation.

She was excited. “It was a bit scary to be in that famous place in front of so many people, but I knew what I wanted to say and I thought: this is your platform Malala, you are speaking on behalf of all the children in the world who can’t go to school.” She specially wore a white head scarf that belonged to former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was assassinated in 2007. “I was given the scarf by her children, who gave it to me as a symbol of hope. I was very proud to wear it over my favourite sjalwar-kameez (traditional pair of pants and a tunic). When I received it I tried to smell her, to sense her.

She is a big source of inspiration for me, she was a great female leader.”

Her family is there to watch her speech as well. Her mother, visibly moved, is comforted by Yoo Coon-Taek, the wife of Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, who is seated beside her in the assembly. “She told my mother she specially wore a green dress, because green is the colour of the Pakistani flag.”

12 July is officially declared ‘Malala Day’, and Ban Ki Moon calls Malala “my daughter of the UN.” It is a big birthday present for the sixteen-year-old Malala.

Her little brother Atal is bored during his sister’s speech.

He picks his nose and afterwards asks Malala: “I don’t understand why you’re so famous. What have you actually done?” Malala finds it very funny. “He thought the Statue of Liberty and Central Park were much more interesting.” Her father, who is surprised at her success, does not agree with her style of speaking. In Pakistan, he learned to speak by raising his voice and by talking with emotion. His daughter finds strength in simplicity, which she does with ease. “That is my style, but my father recently held a TED Talk in which his way of speaking looks remarkably similar to mine, so he’s learning from me now,” she says with a smile.

International Children’s Peace Prize On 6 September, Malala receives the International Children’s Peace Prize in The Hague, from Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Tawakkol Karman from Yemen. An independent Expert Committee unanimously chose her as the winner. There are no other nominations. The report of the jury says: “Malala has proven that children can make themselves heard at a young age and change the world. Even after the attempt on her life she showed courage by choosing to relentlessly continue her efforts.” She feels she’s been acknowledged. “After the attack I had a choice,” she says, “stop or continue my campaign. I chose to continue. The way I see it, even death supports my cause, so I don’t have to be afraid anymore. I feel stronger and braver. I have support.

I’m not alone. Hundreds, thousands of people stand with me. And when I heard about the Children’s Peace Prize for the second time I thought: this is MY prize. It felt like coming home. I’m very happy with it.”

Malala’s first nomination for the Children’s Peace Prize in 2011 made bigger headlines than actually winning it in 2013.

“The nomination brought international recognition, and to be honest, it really launched my national and international campaign,” Malala says. We can only speculate whether the attempt on her life would have been made if she had not

been nominated. Ziauddin is clear: “The nomination brought opportunities and risks, the Pakistani Peace Prize brought opportunities and risks, my encouragement and support for Malala brought opportunities and risks. I did not stop her because I believe it is her right make herself heard. Many have encouraged her as we all felt uncomfortable about the situation. But in the end all Pakistanis are responsible.

Because why was she given so much attention? Because they had had enough. Here is a girl who speaks from the heart, let’s support her, she represents so many people. That is the real reason. We have lived through a very critical phase in her life, but thank God, it worked out in the end.”

Queen and President Malala’s fame takes her to unusual places and gives her the opportunity to speak to important people and celebrities.

Her calendar of October 2013 shows a list of extraordinary meetings and events. First of all she launched her autobiographical book I am Malala one year after the attack.

She wrote her remarkable life story with journalist Christina Lamb. A few days later, she heard she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize; she is the youngest nominee ever. When she does not win, she reacts matter-of-factly: “I don’t think I deserve that prize yet. Only when I have reached my goal, sending as many children to school as possible, I may deserve it.”

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Malala visiting President Obama, his wife Michelle and their daughter Malia, in the White House.

Malala with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, after her historic speech at the United Nations in New York.

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That same month, she visits President Obama and his family at the White House and drinks tea with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace. Malala is surprisingly calm and grounded. “I’m honoured to have met these people, they are important people to know, because they are the leaders who can bring about change. The queen was very nice.”

What did she discuss with President Obama? “I confronted him about the drone attacks by his country on Pakistan.

Innocent victims are killed, which leads to feelings of vengeance and hate. In addition, terrorists may be eradicated but not terrorism itself. I told the president that I believe you can only stop terrorism with education. You can’t stop a war with a war. There have been hundreds of attacks since 2004.” And, did he answer her? “The President gave political answers,” she smiled knowingly. “But he did say the number of drone attacks would decrease.” Did she have her picture taken with the president? A selfie, perhaps? “Well, that would have been quite difficult, he’s so tall. I would have had to stand on a chair or he would have had to sit down. But no, there was no time for a selfie,” Malala laughs. “I gave my book to his daughter, Malia, she’s about my age. She gave me some honey from the bees at the White House. It was a nice meeting.”

Mother goes to school Leaving the library, Malala is stopped several times by people who want to take her picture. She poses friendly and patiently.

Doesn’t she get tired of the adoration? “It’s part of the job,” she says resignedly, “I don’t feel like a star, though people sometimes treat me like one. But I’m really just an ordinary girl.”

At home, the Children’s Peace Prize can be seen prominently on the mantle piece in the living room. “Malala has won over twenty international awards,” Ziauddin smiles, “from the Sakharov Prize to the Pride of Britain, but the Children’s Peace Prize is the most important one.”

Her hospitable mother Tor Pekai has prepared an elaborate Pakistani lunch. She doesn’t like English food. She did go out to diner with her husband recently at a small Bengali restaurant in the neighbourhood. It’s a simple pleasure, but very special for her. She has recently started going to school every day and is learning English. “Mama, say something in English,” Malala asks her mother cheerfully. “My name is Tor Pekai,” she starts off bravely. “I am from Pakistan, I have three children and I live in Birmingham,” she finishes with a beaming smile.

Malala is proud of her mother. “Now that she’s learning the language, she can go shopping and read the prices at the chemist. She doesn’t feel so lonely anymore. She’s a quick study and asks me for help with her homework. Isn’t that great?” Her mother’s emancipation affects her father too.

“Sometimes he helps in the kitchen by doing the dishes or setting the table. It’s a step in the right direction,” she jokes.

“But we still have my two brothers. I have my work cut out with them. I always talk about democracy, but I can be a real dictator at home and tell them they have to finish their homework on time. I like to fight with them, we almost never agree on anything.”

Future The playful exchanges with her brothers keep Malala grounded. They are a warm family that already had a good bond, but the events surrounding Malala has made that bond even stronger. They had to deal with the fear of the attack and the involuntary move to another country where everything, absolutely everything is different. Just imagine it. Malala really had to get used to the United Kingdom. “Everything here is different. In the beginning I had no friends at school and I did not understand the jokes. They did not get my sense of humour either. I missed my friends terribly. Fortunately,

I call and Skype my best friend Moniba in Pakistan twice a month so we can tell each other our ‘breaking news’. She tells me about the situation at school, about our classmates and how everything is going in Mingora. I love to hear those stories. We laugh and bicker a lot. I do miss her.”

She hopes to write her exams in 2015 and then go to university. “I hope I’m good enough to be accepted to Oxford or Harvard. I’m thinking about studying history. I am mainly interested in 20th century history. History helps us understand what is happening in the world. My dream and ambition is to go into politics and become prime minister of Pakistan one day. That is how I can serve my country. I always wanted to be a doctor, which is a great profession too. But as prime minister, I can be the doctor of the whole country,” she smiles knowingly. Isn’t it a dangerous choice? After all, her hero Benazir Bhutto was killed. “You know, the Taliban have already attacked me with bullets, I’ve been there already.

Everybody will die one day, nobody lives forever. The most import thing is that the mission I stand for continues. I will carry on my work. I am not afraid to die.”

In addition to her studies she wants to devote herself to her foundation, the Malala Fund. Its aim is providing education

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for all children, all over the world. The 100,000 euro award money in the Children’s Peace Prize project fund is therefore spent entirely on building two secondary schools in Shangla, Pakistan.

On her seventeenth birthday, she was in Nigeria to talk to the parents of some of the girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram. She regards the girls as her sisters. It was a moving meeting. She also spoke to president Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria and insisted that he talk to some of the girls who had managed to escape.

It’s her fervour and passion that drive her to do this. She’s looking forward to turning eighteen years old, so she can travel the world as a grown up woman for the projects of her fund. Nobody can ignore Malala. She has made an incredible journey, from schoolgirl to international symbol for children’s rights, in particular for girls. Making her voice heard has taken her far and will take her even further. The Taliban bullets have not silenced her. On the contrary, her voice is more powerful than ever.

On the 10 October 2014, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to Malala and the Indian Kailash Satyarthi for their fight against oppression of children and young people, and their call to education for all children. Malala is the youngest Nobel laureate ever.

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“I don’t mind if I have to sit on the floor at school. All I want is education. And I am afraid of no one.”

MALALA YOUSAFZAI

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2013

WHO: Malala Yousafzai

INSPIRATION: Benazir Bhutto

(1997)

and Chaeli.

FIGHTS FOR: The right to education for children, and

STUDIES: Wants to study history or political science

girls in particular.

Art. 28 The Convention on the Rights of the Child.

at the university.

IN TEN YEARS’ TIME: Active for the Malala Fund and

in politics.

MOTTO: “One child, one teacher, one book and one

MESSAGE TO CHILDREN:

CHANGEMAKER: Fights for a world where everyone

“It is the right of every boy and every girl to get educated. Let us pick up our books and our pens.

They are our most powerful weapons.”

pen can change the world.”

can go to school. Believes that education lies at the heart of change. Stands up for the importance of education for girls.

LOVES: Table tennis, cricket, reading, listening to

Pakistani and Indian music and fighting with her brothers.

WEBSITE: www.malalafund.org

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Malala Yousafzai

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CHANGEMAKERS

“EDUCATION IS THE KEY TO THE EMPOWERMENT OF GIRLS AND WOMEN. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT FOR ALL CHILDREN TO GO TO SCHOOL SO THAT THEY HAVE ACCESS TO THE INFORMATION THAT WILL ENABLE THEM TO BE ACTIVE PARTICIPANTS IN THE WORLD. THE INTERNATIONAL CHILDREN’S PEACE PRIZE SHOWS THAT EMPOWERED GIRLS CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE BY RAISING THEIR VOICE.” TAWAKKOL KARMAN

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2014 Neha Gupta

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Neha Gupta

USA

Neha Gupta 2014

Most young children in the United States spend their days at school, doing sports, and playing with their friends. Neha Gupta from Philadelphia is no different. But in addition, she founded her own organisation, ‘Empower Orphans’, when she was nine. She has since improved the lives of thousands of children, and inspired thousands more to join her in taking action and helping others. The now eighteen-year-old Neha is to receive this year’s International Children’s Peace Prize for her work. The prize will be presented to her by the Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu at the Hall of Knights in The Hague on 18 November 2014.

“At an orphanage, I started chatting with a girl my own age, eight years old. She wore tattered clothes and her face was covered in a thick layer of grime. She gave me a tour of the orphanage and showed me her room – well, not her own room exactly, at least not the way I’m used to, but a bare, empty room with a blanket on the floor that she shared with ten other girls. Surprised, I asked her ‘Where’s your bed?’ She told me she slept on the floor, on that single blanket, and that it was sometimes very cold in the winter. I was shocked, thinking of my own, warm, king-size bed at home.”

“I wanted to talk about something nice, so I asked when her birthday was. She didn’t know. The other children told me later that she’d been found on the side of the road as a baby and taken in by the orphanage. When I asked which school she went to, I was in for another shock. She cast her eyes to the ground and said timidly, ‘I don’t go to school. They won’t have me because I don’t have any money. I’ve heard it’s great fun and I’d love to go, but I don’t think that will ever happen.

I was struck dumb, remembering with shame the many mornings on which I’d dawdled and complained about having to go to school. And now I was talking with a girl my own age

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Neha Gupta

Neha sells her toys at the garage sale at home in the US.

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who would have loved to go, but was simply not admitted.”

Neha talks about that moment, which changed her life for good, on Skype. She’s just come from a lecture at Pennsylvania State University, where she has studied since September.

Visiting orphanages is nothing unusual to her. Ever since she was little, she and her parents have spent the summer holidays visiting her grandparents in India. A child of two cultures, she is truly metropolitan. Doing volunteer work for the community is a Gupta family tradition, and for as long as she can remember, Neha has accompanied her parents to the Baal Kunj orphanage to play with the 200 children living there. The day on which she had that conversation with the girl at the orphanage made a deep impression on her, and has permanently changed her perception of the world.

“I was very upset and saddened by her story, and couldn’t put it out of my mind any more. Back home in Yardley, I told my parents I felt so sorry for her, having to grow up without the love of her parents, without money, an education or health care. All the things I do have, and take for granted. It was all

the more upsetting because she was my age. We were the same, yet very different. I wanted to help her and the other children, I wanted to do something!”

Garage sale

Neha organises a garage sale and recruits her friends to go from door to door asking for toys and other things. They make 700 dollars for the orphanage in India. Delighted, Neha carries on collecting money, accumulating 5,000 dollars in just a year. On her next visit to the orphanage in the summer, she brings boxes full of books to set up a library. “I love reading, and my family always tells me how important it is to get an education, so I thought giving the children there a library would be a good start,” she explains. The books, which range from math textbooks to children’s stories, are in Hindi and in English. The money also goes towards buying food, clothes and blankets for the children, who are surprised and overjoyed. They thank her in traditional Indian fashion by placing cheerful garlands of colourful flowers around her neck.

The project is a great success, and inspires Neha to do more for her Indian friends. She sets up her own foundation, ‘Empower Orphans’, at the age of nine. Her parents and grandparents support her initiative. She does everything she can to raise money, such as babysitting and selling handmade greeting cards and other craft objects made by the children in India, but it doesn’t take her long to realise she could achieve more with the help of more people. “Yes,” Neha laughs, “sales weren’t bad, but if you can get a group of fifty volunteers together to organise a fundraising event that draws hundreds of people, you’ll make a lot of money much more quickly.”

Snowball effect

Within five years, Neha, her friends and volunteers manage to raise over 200,000 dollars and help more than 15,000 poor, abused and orphaned children in India – staggering figures, and an incredible success. She’s running projects in Hariana in the north of India where her paternal grandparents live, and in Mumbai, home of her other grandparents. The list of projects

“I know I will continue to grow in the knowledge, courage, and conviction necessary to become a strong leader, one who, as Ghandi said, can ‘be the change in the world you wish to see.’”

NEHA GUPTA

on her website is steadily growing, and so is the number of volunteers working on them. Wherever Neha goes, she is able to motivate volunteers, whether it’s at her school or in her neighbourhood. It has a snowball effect: her friends get their friends to sign up too, and before long, thousands of – mainly young – people in the US and India are doing volunteer work for Empower Orphans. “It’s important to me that young people contribute to improving the world,” Neha says, “and in particular the lives of their peers. Sympathy is a good thing, but I want as many people as possible to take action by helping Empower Orphans or starting their own organisation.

Look around you, and you’ll find there’s plenty to do. I do the same, and things just grow from there.”

Though proud of all her projects, she does have her favourites.

One of them is the sewing workshop in India. “Orphans have to leave the orphanage at sixteen,” Neha explains. “Their lives hinge on that moment. With nowhere to go and no education, many are likely to end up on the street, or worse, in prostitution. That’s why we set up a sewing workshop, where thirty girls can be trained as seamstresses. At the end of their training, they get to keep the sewing machine so they can make a living. One of the girls I know, Meena, has started her own business and now supports her family. There was even enough money to pay for electricity, so her brother Ram was able to learn for his electrical exam in the evenings. Both of them now make money for the family. Last summer, she invited me to her home to thank me. It was very moving, we both cried. And the best thing is, Meena herself has become an Empower Orphans volunteer. She now helps other women start their own business. To me, it’s proof that just one person can make a difference.”

Poverty in the US

As she gets older, she realises that India isn’t the only place where children grow up in poverty – it happens in her own city in the United States, too. “As a child, I didn’t know enough of the world,” Naha says. “I thought only children in India had a difficult life, but there is poverty among children in America as well. It’s just defined differently. Many children in India suffer from anaemia, are frail and prone to illness because they don’t get enough to eat, while here in the US, the poor eat fast food.

Children here have a right to education by law, while in India you only get an education if you can afford it. Those are huge differences. But even if you have plenty of food and access to education you can be underprivileged – which is also a kind of poverty.”

Following this insight, she decides to take action for the underprivileged children in the US, and again, she is successful. Collecting money and goods with her volunteers, she makes a real difference. A school in Philadelphia, for instance, is presented with a library, an orphanage in Bucks County with bicycles, and a centre for abused children, ‘Miss Kids’ in Montgomery County, receives 150 soft toys. They provide 5,000 families with nappies, and the Philadelphia St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children is given toys and a computer room so children are able to play and make contact with the outside world if they get bored or lonely. “I love seeing the smiles on their faces,” she says enthusiastically.

“The computers allow the children to live as if they weren’t ill, it gives them courage and entertains them. A twelve-yearold boy who had suffered a heart attack wouldn’t speak to the nurses or doctors for a week. But when he was given a tablet

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computer, he grabbed it and immediately started to talk. Isn’t that great?”

Youth participation

Neha Gupta

Neha fights for the rights of children all over the world.

The motto of her foundation is ‘Empathy, Opportunity, Equality’. It sounds like an echo of the famous phrase Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité’, which roughly translates as ‘freedom, equality, brotherhood’. She fights for the equality of all children, the equality of rights. She believes sympathy is good, but taking action is better. Her mission is to appeal to young people all over the world, inspiring them to join her. It’s a plea for youth participation, as stated in article 12-17 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

“I want to leave behind a better world than the one we have now,” Neha says with passion. “I truly believe that children can and must leave their mark on this world. Start young!

Take action helping children your own age, children who don’t have a voice but are willing to listen to other children.

You’re not that different from them, and you can learn from one another. I call on all children to start their own organisation or help to raise money.”

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In the nine years of Empower Orphans’ existence, the organisation has achieved a great deal. According to Neha’s website, it has raised 1.3 million dollars and has helped 25,000 children. Her organisation is well-known in her native city and throughout the state. Neha herself has benefitted from it too. “Working for my organisation has shaped my life and has taught me a lot,” she says. “The experience, satisfaction and happiness this work has brought me are a great gift. It has given me confidence that I can win people over. I’ve learned a lot about finances and how to handle the media in interviews. In the beginning, I had difficulties explaining what I stand for, but I’ve become very good at that. Of course I’ve also been brushed off, but you just have to pick yourself up and carry on. I remember going door-to-door trying to sell craft with a friend once, and coming home frozen stiff with five dollars in our pockets.

That was an important lesson to me.”

Plans for the future

In September 2014, Neha started studying at Pennsylvania State University. She’s doing a pre-medical Bachelor’s degree course at the Schreyer Honor College, a programme for talented students. She lives on campus, a four hour’s drive from her parents in Yardley, and has great plans for the future.

“I want to become a paediatrician. I dream of starting my own practice in the US, and also travelling across the world and helping children in India. A bit like Médecins Sans Frontières, but with my own organisation. I’ve only just begun, so I’m still

acclimatising and getting myself sorted. It’s a big change, but I’m enjoying myself very much.”

Despite the short time she has lived on campus, she’s already managed to kindle enthusiasm for her work in India among her fellow students. She’s planning to organise a ‘health camp’ in India during the summer break, for which she is hoping to get some medical students on board. “We students can inform people about the importance of good health. I also want to employ some doctors who can examine people and, if necessary, vaccinate them. My neighbour across the corridor and I are also planning a project in Paraguay, where he comes from. He would like to do something to help vulnerable children.”

She’s hoping that Empower Orphans will start operating in other countries and become a global organisation. The focus is likely to shift towards medical projects, but the realisation of more training centres in India, where young people can train to become electricians, mechanics or seamstresses, is also high on the agenda. She also wants to inspire as many young people as possible to take action, and appeal to adults to trust in the young.

All those projects, the huge number of volunteers, the many new plans – do they leave her with any spare time? Neha laughs out loud. “I’ve just updated my calendar for the coming months, and it certainly looks like I’m going to be busy. All my weekends are taken up with studying and working for Empower Orphans. Having said that, I do have some time for having fun with my friends. They mean a lot to me and always

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support my work. I love photography and tennis, but don’t get much time for that now.”

International Children’s Peace Prize

Neha was in India with her father when she heard she’d won the 10th International Children’s Peace Prize. “I was very surprised and happy when I heard it, and felt very honoured.

It’s going to be a marvellous opportunity to make the voices of forgotten children heard throughout the world, and to talk about children’s rights and youth participation. I’m looking

forward to meeting the other Children’s Peace Prize winners.

They all do an incredible job, and with so much passion. They really make a change in the world.”

The winners of the Children’s Peace Prize are undeniably changemakers. To mark the 10th anniversary of the International Children’s Peace Prize, they are all coming to the Netherlands in November 2014 to work together for the first time and discuss the issues they are facing in their respective countries.

Neha is modest about it, but she, too, is a changemaker,

Neha Gupta

and deserves her place among these extraordinary young laureates. She’s an inspiration to children and young people in India and the United States, and we will certainly hear more about her in the future.

2014

184 WHO: Neha Gupta

(1997)

FIGHTS FOR: The rights of

orphans and other underprivileged children in India and the USA. Art. 20 The Convention on the Rights of the Child, Children deprived of family environment.

Art. 12 Respect for the views of the child.

CHANGEMAKER: Takes action to help children of her age and calls on youngsters across the globe to do the same. You are not different.

Children must make their mark on the world.

LOVES: Travelling, photography, reading and tennis.

INSPIRATION: Sanjay Gupta

and Malala.

STUDIES: Medicine, pre-med, University of

Pennsylvania.

IN TEN YEARS TIME: “Open my own practice as a paediatrician, travel the

world and help children in India.”

MESSAGE TO CHILDREN:

“I’m convinced that children can and must make their mark on this world. Start doing that early! Take action to help children of your age, children who have no voice, but who do want to listen to other children.

You are not different. You can follow each other’s example.”

WEBSITE:

www.empowerorphans.org

“From empathy to action!”

NEHA GUPTA

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Neha Gupta

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CHANGEMAKERS

“BE THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD.”

MAHATMA GANDHI

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2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

Nominees

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2005 Nkosi (12) –South Africa

Om Prakash (14) – India

In 2005 the first International Children’s Peace Prize was awarded posthumously to Nkosi Johnson for his commitment and dedication to give a dignified existence to children and mothers in South Africa who are infected with HIV or have contracted AIDS. Nobel Peace Prize Winner Mikhail Gorbachev presented the prize to Nkosi’s foster mother Gail Johnson and his foster brother Thabo, during the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates.

In 2006 Om Prakash from India won the International Children’s Peace Prize. He received the prize when he was fourteen years old from Nobel Peace Prize Winner F.W. de Klerk, former president of South Africa. Om Prakash won the prize for his struggle against child labour and for rescuing children out of slavery in India. He was rescued after working under extreme conditions from age five to eight. Since his emancipation Om Prakash has pled and fought for the rights of children to freedom and education. To date, he has helped 500 children obtain a birth certificate. The certificate gives children in India the right to free education.

In his short life Nkosi called attention to children with HIV and AIDS. In his famous speech during the thirteenth International AIDS Conference in Durban in 2001, he asked the world to accept children and adults with HIV or AIDS like they would others. As Nkosi put it: “We can walk, we can talk, we have needs like everyone else. Do not fear us, we are all the same!” That year he wanted to open Nkosi’s Haven with his foster mother. A place where mothers and their children with HIV or AIDS would not have to live apart. Unfortunately he did not live to see Nkosi’s Haven grow.

He died of AIDS at age twelve.

No other nominees were selected this year.

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2006

After completing secondary school at the age of eighteen, Om Prakash started a small computer shop. He soon discovered he wanted to continue his studies. In 2012 he started studying Computer Application at the Poornima University in Jaipur, where he lives on campus.

No other nominees we selected this year.

2007 Thandiwe (16) – Zambia In 2007 the International Children’s Peace Prize was awarded to Thandiwe Chama from Zambia. She received the prize at the age of sixteen from Nobel Peace Prize Winner Betty Williams and Sir Bob Geldof for her fight for children’s rights in her country, in particular the right to education.

When Thandiwe was eight years old her school was closed, because there were not enough teachers. Thandiwe found this unacceptable and she demanded education for herself and her sixty fellow pupils. The Cecup School subsequently accepted them. After Thandiwe realized she could change her environment, she went to a government official to plead for a new school building, so children would no longer have to learn outside in the sun. Thandiwe has been fighting for the right to education for children, including the poor and the sick, ever since.

She has closely witnessed the devastating effects of HIV and AIDS. Children are dying from the disease, children do not go to school and lack good nutrition. Thandiwe takes action on behalf of the children who fight against HIV or AIDS and she mobilizes others to do the same. She involves the community by taking fruit to sick children in the hospital.

She also encourages children and parents to be tested for HIV. In addition to all these activities, she completed secondary school in 2013. She would love to become a nurse.

Meshack (17) – Democratic Republic of Congo As a child Meshack fled the war in the Democratic Republic of Congo. He ended up in a refugee camp in Tanzania with 57,600 other children. It was here that he became a real leader, using his knowledge of children’s rights and command of different languages. He also organizes activities to support the situation of children in the area.

Klodeta (12) – Albania Klodeta dreamed of going to medical school to become a doctor. Because Klodeta is physically disabled, it wasn’t simple to travel to school. The mountain road leading up to it was long and often extremely cold. Yet she made the journey every day, walking on crutches. She also worked on a programme called ‘Different, but equal’, to support 350 other disabled children.

Her perseverance has made her an example for many children.

Her message is: “You can do it if you want to.”

Chizaso (16) – Zambia Chizaso lost both parents when she was young. She’s been living in an orphanage since she’s nine years old. Chizaso spread her message through theatre as a teenager. In her shows she portrayed her thoughts on child abuse by dancing, singing and acting. This is how she taught people that children – girls in particular – have the same rights as anyone else in the world.

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2008 Mayra (17) – Brazil

Lovetta (15) – Liberia

In 2008 Nobel Peace Prize Winner Desmond Tutu presented the International Children’s Peace Prize to Mayra Avellar Neves when she was seventeen years old. She received the prize for her continuous battle against the constant violence in the Brazilian favelas (slums) of Rio de Janeiro and her own favela, Vila Cruzeiro, in particular.

Lovetta was born during the First Liberian Civil War. She fled the country with her father. Lovetta grew up without her mother. She travelled through several countries and ended up in a refugee camp in Ghana. Here she dedicated herself to other Liberian children who had fled, by building a school and publishing a magazine. She also spoke out for the rights of young refugees.

When Mayra was eleven years old her favela was blocked by so many checkpoints that schools and hospitals had to close.

Teachers and doctors could no longer enter the area. Mayra refused to accept this and found another school outside the favela: she demanded her right to education. When Mayra was fifteen years old, she mobilized hundreds of youngsters to participate in a protest march against violence. Their primary demand was that the police would stop patrolling around schools when children were going to and from school. This protest took a lot of courage because the march took them past many police patrols. Over 300 children attended this Walk for Peace. The police agreed to their demands and children were able to go back to school.

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Mayra has studied Social Sciences at the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro. After her studies Mayra would like to become a teacher, so she can pass on her knowledge and experiences.

Meshack (17) – Democratic Republic of Congo Meshack was nominated in 2007. He was nominated again in 2008.

Baruani (15) – Democratic Republic of Congo Baruani was nominated in 2008 and won the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2009..

Rishika (18) – India Rishika fought for the rights of vulnerable children, victims of child labour and against child prostitution. Her secondary school encourages children to be actively involved in projects for the community. With the help of her school, Rishika rescued child slaves and child prostitutes from their perilous positions.

She also taught children and presented a petition to local government against child trafficking and child prostitution.

2009 Baruani (15) – Democratic Republic of Congo In 2009 sixteen-year-old Baruani Ndume received the International Children’s Peace Prize from Nobel Peace Prize Winner Wangari Maathai. Baruani has been living in the Nyarugusu refugee camp since he fled the Democratic Republic of Congo at age seven. He tried to transform this life experience into positive actions by helping other refugee children. He started his own radio show Sisi kwa Sisi (Children for Children) that is broadcast on Radio Kwizera in Tanzania, Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. In his show he discusses problems and challenges refugee children encounter in the camp. It gives many children a lot of support to talk to someone and to be able to share experiences. Baruani also leads a children’s parliament in the camp; an alternative way to give a voice to the young. With his radio show Baruani helps reunite children with their families. On the show children make an appeal to people who know their families.

He also started two football teams; a boys’ team and a girls’ team. These teams play against children who live outside the camp. This is how Baruani brings two groups of children closer together.

Baruani would like to study journalism.

Fatema (12) – Afghanistan At a very young age Fatema promoted the right to education in Afghanistan, a country where it’s not taken for granted that girls go to school. To stand up for the right to education for girls in this country is not just special, you need to have guts. She also fought for more female teachers at school and protested against corporal punishment in classrooms and made some good progress in these areas.

Rasmita (15) – India When Rasmita was small she got polio, which paralysed her left leg. Rasmita is from a rural religious community where they believed the paralysis was caused by a curse; so she was not allowed to go to school. Rasmita did not just ensure she went to school, but she also founded the Good Friends Club to get more disabled children to go to school by talking to people in the village about disabled children and their abilities.

Daniel (18) – Macedonia Daniel fought for extra vulnerable children who were in danger of being victims to human trafficking. He also advocated the rights of the Roma, the community he belongs to. Daniel talked to children about the importance of tolerance between different communities. He founded the organization Peace Parade with the aim of preventing discrimination.

Emanuel (16) – Philippines Emanuel advocated the importance of education for all children in the Philippines. He did not just realize this by talking to children, but also by teaching kids who had little to no access to schools. Emanuel transformed a large pushcart into a mobile school, which he and his friends used to transport teaching materials to other children.

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2010

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Francia (16) – Dominican Republic

Tatiana (15) – United States

Francia Simon of the Dominican Republic won the International Children’s Peace Prize at age sixteen. The Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize Winner Rigoberta Menchú presented the prize.

Francia campaigns for the right of children from Haiti and the Dominican Republic to a name and nationality. Without a birth certificate you have no access to essential rights like education and healthcare.

Tatiana is fighting to reduce child illiteracy in Africa. At a young age she gathered books which she sent to Botswana, Lesotho and other countries, to give children the opportunity to learn to read and write. She did this from her own passion for reading and the desire to let other children enjoy books as well. Until 2010 Tatiana had distributed 20,000 books.

Francia was confronted with the fact that she may not go to school because she had no birth certificate. She reacted by doing thorough research and was very determined to achieve her own registration. She succeeded and was granted permanent access to secondary school. Since then Francia has used her knowledge and strength to help other children without a birth certificate. She has helped over 130 children obtain an official registration of name and nationality. Now these children exist in the eyes of the law and they will increase their chances for a more secure and happy life.

Getahun (16) – Ethiopia

After the Haitian earthquake of 2010 Francia helped children who, often without parents, had fled to the Dominican Republic. She arranged accommodation for example. With some other people Francia organized sports activities and games for the children.

As a young leader Emmanuel champions the right to education and breaking out of poverty. He achieved this by teaching children to save up, so they could pay their school fees. He also let a chicken hatch chicks and then sold ten chickens. From those earnings he bought a bicycle, which he decided to rent out. He used those proceeds for him and his brother to go to school. Emmanuel demonstrates that children can use small projects to improve their living conditions.

In November 2011 Francia gave birth to her daughter Esperanza. They live with Francia’s mother and brother. Francia started her university studies for Diplomacy and International Relations in September 2014.

Getahun wanted to stop the violence against children in Ethiopia. It was violence like physical abuse at home or at school, child labour and marrying off young girls. During the traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony in his neighbourhood, he talked to adults to raise awareness about the issue and he established a children’s parliament in order to protect children’s rights in his community and nationally.

Emmanuel (14 ) –Rwanda

2011 Chaeli (17) – South Africa

Liza (17) – Palestine

In 2011 the International Children’s Peace Prize was awarded to the South African Michaela, ‘Chaeli’, Mycroft. At the age of seventeen she received the prize from Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Mairead Maguire, for her fight for the rights of disabled children in South Africa through her own project: the Chaeli Campaign. Chaeli was born with cerebral palsy, which limits the function of her limbs. Whereas others see boundaries, she sees opportunities: her positive attitude inspires many people.

When she was nine she started a project with her friends to raise money for a motorized wheelchair. In just seven weeks she had raised more than enough, so she decided to help other disabled children. This project transformed into the Chaeli Campaign, a professional organization that helps over 3,000 disabled children annually to obtain equipment and physiotherapy. The organization also promotes the rights, acceptance and inclusion of disabled children. Chaeli has started an ambassador programme to help other children who have been inspired to start their own projects.

Chaeli has been studying Social Sciences at Cape Town University since 2013. She is the first student in a wheelchair to live on campus.

Liza promotes peace between young Israelis and Palestinians through sport. She particularly advocates the improvement of the position and participation of girls and women in Palestinian society. Liza organized football matches as a way to break the viscous cycle of aggression and violence. By bringing people together she hopes to contribute to peace. She introduced women’s football in Palestinian society by starting a girls’ football team.

Malala (13) – Pakistan Malala was nominated in 2011. She won the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2013.

Nikolay (17) – Armenia Nikolay participated in several trainings about human rights and democracy. He was so inspired he organized discussions and presentations for other children. It was his aim to inspire them to take action and initiate change in Armenian society. In 2011 Nikolay had already reached over 200 children with his workshops. He shared his ideas and knowledge through social media and his website.

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Winfred (14) – Uganda Winfred wanted to put an end to violence against children at school and in society. She conducted her own research: Winfred investigated cases of child abuse and registered acts of violence against children. She set up the Kamuli Children’s Counselling Club to help abused children. She also introduced a children’s court where conflicts between children could be resolved without adult interference.

2012

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Kesz (13) – Philippines

Amina (15) – Ghana

The Filipino Kesz received the International Children’s Peace Prize at age thirteen from Nobel Peace Prize Winner Desmond Tutu. He won the award for fighting for the rights of street children in his country. When he was very young, Kesz lived on the streets and the rubbish dump of Cavite City. He was in constant danger of getting hurt or falling ill. After he was badly burned on the rubbish dump at age five, a social worker took Kesz into his home and gave him a loving and safe life.

Amina was almost taken out of school at the age of twelve when she was forced to marry someone. Her teachers prevented this with help of local authorities and Amina has been fighting for the right to education for girls ever since. Amina started the Achiever’s Book Club, an organization that lobbies for children’s rights. She also wrote petitions for constitutional amendments.

But Kesz did not forget the other street children. When he turned seven years old he did not want birthday presents for himself but slippers for street children so they would not cut their feet. That is how Kesz’s organization Championing Community Children (C3) was born. Meanwhile a lot of people have joined Kesz, and C3 is a resounding success. Kesz gives trainings on hygiene, children’s rights and healthy eating with the Wealthy Healthy Outreach project. Children learn for example how to brush their teeth and to wash themselves.

They also learn how to pass this information on to other street children. The organization has helped over 10,500 children in forty-eight different communities. The team has treated over 3,000 wounds and has handed out over 4,000 toothbrushes.

Anwara (16) – India

Besides helping and supporting street children, Kesz is doing well at school. After secondary school he wants to study medicine or journalism at a university.

Anwara lives in the West Bengal region in India. She was given to a local human trafficker after her father died. She was forced to work as a maid until she was rescued in 2008. From that moment she decided to fight against human trafficking and child marriages and has already helped many girls and families in her area.

2013 Malala (16) – Pakistan On 6 September 2013 the Pakistani Malala Yousafzai received the International Children’s Peace Prize from Nobel Peace Prize Winner Tawakkol Karman. Malala won the prize at age sixteen because of her fight for the right to education for all children, in particular girls. When Malala was eleven she wrote, under a pen name, about her passion for learning and the oppression of the Taliban. Hundreds of girls’ schools had already been bombed or burned down and on 15 January 2009 the Taliban declared that girls were no longer allowed to go to school. Malala told the world what it was like to be locked up at home without having to go to school, while she really wanted to go to school.

able to go to school in the world before 2015. Globally there are still 32 million girls who can’t go to school.

Malala is back at school. Not in Pakistan, but in the United Kingdom where she now lives with her family. She still fights passionately for the rights of children in Pakistan and particularly education. Malala wants to become a social activist and political leader.

No other nominees we selected this year.

In May 2009 life in the Swat-region became too dangerous, which forced Malala’s family – like many others – to flee.

When government forces took control of the area three months later, the Malalas returned to a town that had been ruined by violence. The first thing Malala did was check if her books were still in her room. And they were. The schools that had not been destroyed were able to open their doors again. But the danger of militant attacks had not disappeared.

Malala fearlessly picked up her campaign where she left off.

She held a press conference in which she emphatically asked the government to reinstate education for children in the Swat Valley. In 2010 she became the chairperson of The District Child Assembly, a youth forum that protects the rights of children, based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. In 2011 Malala was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize. When she did not win, the Pakistani Government decided to award her the first National Youth Peace Prize.

On 9 October 2012 Malala sat in the school bus on her way home, when armed Taliban fighters boarded. They shot the fifteen year-old in her head and neck. The attack was immediately claimed by the Taliban; they called her campaign an ‘obscenity’. Malala survived the attack. She was rushed to the United Kingdom for treatment, where she recovered with her family by her side. The world was shocked by her story and outpourings of support from political leaders, movie stars and school children were sent to her. Three million people from all over world signed a petition of the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, an appeal to grant girls access to school in Pakistan and the rest of the world, and for all children to be

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2014 Neha (18) – United States

Alexey (17) – Russia

Eighteen year-old Neha is of Indian descent, she was born in New Zealand and lives in Philadelphia, United States. During annual visits to her grandparents in India, Neha went with her parents and grandmother to an orphanage in Northern India to play with the children and help out. At the age of nine she realized that the orphans had significant fewer opportunities in life than she had. It is difficult for orphans to go to school, stay healthy and develop. In order to help these children she raised money and started her foundation Empower Orphans when she was nine years old.

Alexey is the face of the struggle against discrimination of homosexual- and transgender youngsters. He is the driving force behind Project Children-404, an online community for young homosexuals and transgender people. Alexey inspired other youngsters by organizing a protest. He is openly gay.

Even though he’s been attacked twice, it does not stop his fight against oppression.

In the past nine years her organization has raised over 1 million dollars and has helped 25,000 orphans and underprivileged children. Not only does Neha help children in need in India, but also in the Philadelphia area where she lives in the US. Neha also supports and inspires children in other countries with their efforts to help vulnerable children. That is why Neha is not just a Changemaker, she’s creating an international movement of Changemakers. Neha is studying medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Andrew (13) – Ghana When Andrew was eleven years old, he swung into action for Somali children stricken by famine. He raised money in his neighbourhood with his project Save Somali Children From Hunger. He also raised awareness for the food crisis in the Horn of Africa. At the moment he is working on a food project to ensure children in Ghana get three nutritious meals each day.

Manifest Youngsters The KidsRights Youngsters is a youth-led advocacy platform that aims to realize children’s rights, as outlined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The platform was launched in both the Hague and London November 18 and 19, 2014.

What?

We are the International Children’s Peace Prize winners. We have joined forces in ‘The Youngsters’, a unique advocacy platform run by us, to realize children’s rights around the globe.

We urge our world leaders to constantly put our rights at the heart of their agendas, nationally and internationally, from the development to the implementation stages.

Sustainable development starts with educated, safe and healthy children, who are able to grow up in safe and peaceful societies.

We are ready to help. Let’s work together.

Why? Whilst progress has been made through the Millennium Development Goals in the last 15 years, urgent unfinished business remains. Adult deadlines equal lifetimes for children.

Realizing children’s rights more effectively calls for the perspective, personal experience and authority of children and youth themselves.

We know best what we need in order to live happy, healthy, safe and fulfilling lives.

We have lived through the challenges of child labour, getting an education, health problems, disabilities, living on the streets, getting a name and nationality and being refugees.

How? We need decision-makers at all levels to collaborate with children and youth, investing in inclusive leadership and strong youth-adult partnerships.

As the Youngsters we want to contribute to the development and implementation of the new development agenda, on all levels and as equal partners. Through our national and local efforts and online, we shall reach out to increasing numbers of children around the globe to support our calls to action for children’s rights.

This way, the Youngsters form the crucial link between (inter)national decisionmaking processes and local realities of children worldwide. We shall enrich current discussions from a child and youth perspective and help find and improve solutions.

Children can make change. Everybody can make change. Now we ask you…

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Our Journey It was a great privilege to be accepted into the lives of the ten Children’s Peace Price Winners, their families and friends.

We shared in their dreams, doubts and pain. We laughed uncontrollably, discovered how connected we are and that we have become a part of each other’s history.

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We made the first three trips with our whole family to the Philippines, India and the Dominican Republic.

Kesz showed us where he grew up, on a cemetery next to a garbage dump in a suburb of Manila. Entire families still live there in tombs.

It’s impressive to see how he modestly yet determinedly approaches the street children with a group of con-temporaries.

We feel the contrast at the same time: he is an unwanted child and we are a happy family.

India feels like coming home, we have visited the Bal Ashram near Jaipur before. Kailash Satyarthi and his wife Sumedha hug us and the rescued children, former child slaves, dance like mad to Rajasthani music that evening.

Children’s Peace Prize Winner Om Prakash gives us an incredible welcome. The whole village turns out and I, Marc, am lifted on a horse and enter the village like a kind of Santa Claus. We are adorned with colourful garlands. What little food there is, chapattis (a flat bread), is shared with us.

At first glance the Dominican Republic looks like a holiday destination. Francia Simon tells us about life on the sugar cane plantations, where families have worked as serfs, without papers or any rights, for generations. Proudly she shows us her boarding room. It has a bed and a cupboard. She has a future now that she’s studying at the university.

It’s quite an experience for our children. They have travelled

a lot with us in the past, but this time it’s quite different.

They enter the heart of the people. There are hilarious moments too. In little rural villages in the middle of barren Rajasthan smart phones are pulled out and Facebook friend requests are made.

Baruani grew up in a refugee camp in Tanzania. He’s been granted permission to travel and to meet us in Dar es Salaam.

We witness his happiness when he sees the ocean for the first time. He confides in us and tells us how his family died in the war in Congo. We are shocked.

In Zambia, Thandiwe receives us in her modest home with her family. She apologizes for the lunch, some milie-meal and tiny peace of meat; “This is all we can afford.” Her shame makes us feel ashamed.

She shows us around endless townships. Most people are unemployed, while HIV/AIDS is rampant. Her stories make us realize the gravity and size of the problem. So many young people have HIV/AIDS. It weighs down on us. What’s to become of the next generation? We realize our children live a carefree life. We are impressed by her fighting spirit and hope.

In South Africa Chaeli proudly shows us her campus. She is the first ever disabled student at Cape Town University.

Enthusiastically she shares her plan to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in 2015. “The sky’s the limit,” what an incredibly positive attitude. The reunion is a warm one. She has made us look at disabled people differently.

Since the opening of Nkosi’s Haven in Johannesburg, Nkosi’s foster mother Gail Johnson has tirelessly moved mountains.

There is an entire village that takes care of mothers and children, who have HIV/AIDS, complete with a laundry room and a bakery. She traded in her glamorous life in PR and put it in service of the poorest of the poor. She wrote history with Nkosi for the rights of children with AIDS. With our mouth hanging open we listen to hers and Nkosi’s story. An incredible story.

It’s very heart-warming to see Malala and her family again.

Malala’s father, Ziauddin literally embraces us. At the table in their home Tor Pekai, Malala’s mother, overfeeds us. The conversation is thrilling and inspiring. In the meantime Malala enjoys fighting with her little brothers and she tells us about meeting President Obama.

We talk about everything that has happened since her nomination for the Children’s Peace Prize in 2011 and winning it in 2013. It’s an incredible journey and it’s very special to be a part of this piece of history.

We travelled thousands of miles, in and out of planes, in and out of cars in a very short timeframe. Sometimes it felt like being in a time machine. It was very special to do this together, a special walk down memory lane of the history of KidsRights, which we have shared for over a decade.

We meet the new winner via Skype. She’s a cheerful and enterprising Indian-American girl, who uses her enormous drive to realize one project after the other and encourages other young people to jump into action too.

That’s why 1 book here = 1 book there 2 x reading pleasure.

It’s a special group of kids. They experienced something as a child, which touched them and motivated them to take action.

They did so with enthusiasm and strength and perseverance of a child who would not let anyone stop him. They did not take it lying down and wanted to bring about change. And change they did! It was a privilege to meet them and to speak to them.

It was an even greater privilege to write their stories.

It gave us new insights and energy of ten men!

It was more than simply travelling to children who won the Children’s Peace Prize. It was a warm welcome and proof that despite great differences in background, religion and culture, we have a lot in common: we feel the same way, we fall in love the same way and have hopes and dreams for the future. What unites us is stronger than what divides us. As Nkosi said: “We are all the same.” Which is why it’s important for this book to be distributed widely and that it reaches as many children and their families as possible. It’s a book that offers a perspective for change and calls for it as well.

If you are moved while reading these stories, realize that your purchase simultaneously moves someone somewhere on this planet. In a township in Cape Town, or on a camel cart in Rajasthan, or at a school in a suburb in Manila. Which is why we wish this book, Changemakers, happy and distant travels.

Marc Dullaert Inge Ikink

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Word of thanks

Colophon

A huge thank you to everybody who contributed with heart and enthusiasm to publish this book.

Both in the Netherlands and the countries of the ten Children’s Peace Prize Winners. Thanks a million!

Changemakers is a KidsRights publication ISBN 978-90-79679-33-1

Board KidsRights Foundation Marc Dullaert – Chairman Scipio van der Stoel – Secretary Erik van de Merwe – Treasury Jacqueleine Ruepert Roland van der Hoek Hans Geels Alexander Kohnstamm – Honorary Board member KidsRightsteam Amsterdam Cindy de Visser – Manager Operations Ellen Vroonhof – Programme Manager Laura Lasance – Child Participation & Advocacy Manager Yuri von Raesfeld – Donor Administration Myrthe Geerts – Communications Officer Lydia van der Putten – Projects and Advocacy Officer

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Accountability All the statistics used in the ten stories originate from KidsRights’ reports, unless stated otherwise. Mayra Avellar Neves’ story is based on previous conversations between Mayra and KidsRights and from press reports.

Any travel- and accommodation expenses made to realize this book have been paid for privately.

Additional sources: Story on Nkosi Johnson: “We are all the same”, Jim Wooten, The Penguin Press, USA, 2004 Story on Malala Yousafzai: “I am Malala”, Malala Ypusafzai with Christina Lamb, Little, Brown and Company 2013.

Author: Inge Ikink (www.kunstkracht10.nl) Translation: Vivien D. Glass (http://glasstrans.l/?home-nl) & Ferhaan Kajee (www.vldb.nl) Composers: Inge Ikink & Marc Dullaert Design: Albertine Dijkema (www.a10design.nl) Production: Elise de Bres (www.vldb.nl) Photography: ANP/Robin Utrecht 6, 79 Associated Press/Themba Hadebe 25 Erwin van den Berg 136, 139, 140-141, 145, 151, 152 Marcel van den Bergh 148 Roy Beusker 92, 109, 110, 126 Dennis Brussaard 56, 58, 122, 129, 198 Evert-Jan Daniels 9, 78, 142-143 Des Featherstone 124, 129 Kimberly Gomes 59, 61, 64-65 Nkosi’s Haven 12-13, 20, (23), 24, (26), (28), (30, 31), 193, Joël van Houdt 62 Inge Ikink 23, 26, 28, 30-31, 32-33, 134-135, 147, 202-203 Jerry Lampen 186-187 Tanya Malott 158, 169, 170-171 Claudia Martinez 104, 111, 113, 114-115 Pim Ras Cover, 131, 163, 164 Reuters/Novum 18-19, 27, 38-39, 54-55, 70-71, 84-85, 102-103, 156157 Dre Urhahn 12-13, 75, 194 Robin Utrecht 72, 80-81, 86 White House, Pete Souza 165 © Kidsrights, 2014 All rights reserved. www.kidsrights.org KidsRights has made every effort to credit the sources and rights of copyright material used in this book. The rights of images with no source belong to KidsRights. In the event of a copyright query, please contact KidsRights.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without permission of the copyright holder.

While every effort has been made in the realization of this publication, the author, editors and publisher cannot be held liable for the outcome of any occurring mistakes and incompletion due to the absence of any (printing) errors and incompleteness.

Inge Ikink The10 International Children’s Peace Prize Winners tell their remarkable stories

International Children’s Peace Prize Winner 2014 Neha Gupta, United States

CHANGEMAKERS Ten children who have changed the world. Ten interviews.

Ten incredible stories for young and old…

Every year the International Children’s Peace Prize and the message of the young winner reach hundreds of millions of people all over the world. This year it is awarded for the tenth time, a milestone and a good reason to visit the winners in their countries to talk about their lives, their plans for the future and to listen in amazement.

Desmond Tutu on the importance of the Children’s Peace Prize:

“If you ask me it is the nursery for the next Nobel Peace Prize Winners.”

International Children’s Peace Prize Winner 2013 Malala Yousafzai, Pakistan Nobel Peace Prize Winner 2014