by Shine Global | Jan 18, 2011 | Hero of the Month, News
By Liz Murray
16th January 2011
I was three years old when I first realized that my mother and father shared strange habits. They would retreat into the kitchen of our New York apartment and spread spoons and other objects across the table while communicating in quick, urgent commands. I was not supposed to bother them, but I watched from the hallway.
Water was needed – just a few drops from the tap – and so were shoelaces and belts. Then, at the very last minute, they would shut the door, blocking my view entirely.
One evening, when the door was closed on me again, I didn’t budge but sat and waited outside. When my mother finally emerged, I raised my arms in the air and said, in a singsong voice, ‘Al-l-l do-ne’. Taken off guard, my mother asked disbelievingly, ‘What did you say, pumpkin?’
‘Al-l-l do-ne,’ I repeated. She yelled at my father: ‘Peter, she knows!’ and Daddy laughed while Ma stroked my hair. Thrilled to have found my place in their game, I sat outside the kitchen whenever they spread the spoons from then on. Eventually, they left the door open.
I have just one black and white photograph left of my mother when she was younger. She was 17 when it was taken and beautiful with wispy curls and eyes that shone like dark marbles. But I also know that by then she had been using drugs for four years. The eldest of four children, she was raised by an alcoholic father and mentally ill mother and she had started smoking grass to escape the violence and abuse of her home life. Later, she ran away and, between sleeping rough and earning her living through prostitution, she moved on to speed and heroin.
Daddy was one of her dealers. They began hanging out together when she was 22 and he was 34. Daddy was also the child of a violent, alcoholic father but his middle-class mother had tried to secure her only child’s future by holding down two bookkeeping jobs in order to send him to private school. Midway through a psychology degree, however, he had abandoned his studies for the drug trade.
He and Ma connected immediately, but instead of going on dinner dates they would take cocaine to Central Park, where they would sprawl in the moonlight and get high anchored in each others arms.
A year or so after my parents met in 1977, my elder sister Lisa was born. By the time I followed in September 1980, Daddy was serving a three-year prison sentence for a fraud racket involving prescription painkillers. Amazingly, instead of falling apart, my mother proved to be a sober and houseproud single parent. But once Daddy returned home, dirty dishes sat untouched in the sink for days and we rarely went to the park any more.
Ma was legally blind due to a degenerative eye disease she’d had since birth. This meant she was entitled to welfare and our lives revolved around the first day of every month when her payment was due. On that day, food would be abundant. Lisa and I would dine on Happy Meals in front of the TV to the sound of spoons clanking on the kitchen table. We knew what they were doing.
Within five days, the money would be gone and for the rest of the month we lived on egg and mayonnaise sandwiches. Lisa and I hated them, but they got us through the hours when our stomachs burned with hunger.
I started school in the summer of 1985 and, from the outset, I tried to be a good student. It just didn’t work out that way. Maybe getting more sleep would have helped, but there was too much going on.
At nights, Ma would go to the local bars and beg until she had gathered the five dollars she needed for a hit. Daddy would then slip out to a dealer while Lisa screamed at both of them: ‘We didn’t eat dinner, and you’re going to get high?’ I knew what she was saying made sense. But things weren’t always so clear for me. Ma and Daddy had no intention of hurting us. They simply did not have it in them to be the parents I wanted them to be.
I remember once Ma stole five dollars sent to me from my father’s mother inside a glittery birthday card. I was furious and demanded that she gave me back my money. She responded by flushing the hit she had bought down the loo. ‘I’m not a monster, Lizzy,’ she cried. ‘I can’t stop. Forgive me, pumpkin.’ So I did.
I forgave her again when she sold the Thanksgiving turkey provided by the church so that she could buy another hit. And I forgave her when she attempted to sell Lisa’s winter coat. The drug dealer refused to take a child’s coat on principle, so Ma went back out later the same night and sold the toaster and my bike to get her cocaine instead.
At school I was clearly different. My dirty clothing hung heavily off my body and I was aware of the stench I gave off, so I knew the other pupils must have been aware of it, too.
‘Who cares what people think?’ Daddy said. But the shame gnawed at me. I pleaded with Ma and eventually she allowed me, against what she called her better judgment, to stay at home sometimes.
One morning, on one of the days I didn’t go to school, there was a knock at the door. I was the only one awake. From the hallway, I heard a woman and a man talking. They knocked again before sliding a piece of paper under the door. When they had gone, I picked it up. The letter ordered the parent(s) or guardian of Elizabeth Murray to phone a Mr Doumbia regarding her truancy from school. I ripped it into tiny pieces and shoved it in the bin.
As well as being blind, Ma turned out to have the same mental illness that her mother had had. Between 1986 and 1990, she suffered six schizophrenic bouts, each requiring her to be institutionalised for up to three months. The combination of her illness and her and Daddy’s chronic drug use pushed their relationship to breaking point. As their fights became increasingly bitter, Lisa and I locked ourselves in our rooms, her with her music, and me with my books – or rather Daddy’s ever-growing supply of unreturned library books. Slowly I read through his collection of true crime, biographies and random trivia. Eventually, I began reading fast enough to get through one of his books in a little over a week.
Just after my 11th birthday, I woke in the early hours to find Ma sitting at the end of my bed, a beer bottle in her hand. ‘I love you, pumpkin,’ she was saying as tears streamed down her face.
‘Ma, please, what’s wrong?’
‘Lizzy, I’m sick, I have Aids.’
A hot quiver shot up from my stomach. ‘Are you going to die, Ma?’
Abruptly, Ma stood up and reached for the door.
‘Forget it, Lizzy. We’ll be just fine,’ she said before walking out. I cried to her to come back. But she didn’t reappear.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1346184/From-homelessness-Harvard-University-How-Liz-Murray-turned-life-around.html#ixzz1BPDCOQR4
by Shine Global | Dec 2, 2010 | Hero of the Month, News
By Michael Quintanilla – Express-News
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
“Desperate Housewives” actress Eva Longoria has won Screen Actors Guild, ALMA and People’s Choice awards, but the recognition she finds most humbling these days is for her activism and philanthropy.
On Oct. 6, she’ll be honored in Memphis, Tenn., with the prestigious Legacy Freedom Award presented by the National Civil Rights Museum for her philanthropy and humanitarian efforts. She’s one of three women who will be honored at the Memphis Cook Convention Center event.
But before Parker joins fellow honorees in Memphis – Nobel Peace Prize recipient Dr. Wangari Maathai of Kenya and Dr. Dorothy Cotton, who is known for her work in social change – the actress will put on her poker face for an Eva’s Heroes benefit: the third annual Tony and Eva Parker’s Celebrity Casino Night, Saturday at Pedrotti’s North Wind Ranch in Helotes.
Inspired by her sister, Lisa, Parker founded Eva’s Heroes, an organization that helps developmentally disabled children and young adults, four years ago. Parker also is a leader with Padres Contra El Cancer (Parents Against Cancer) and an advocate for migrant farm children, the subject for a documentary she’s working on called Harvest. And there’s her namesake’s foundation that raises money for personal charities and causes around the world, such as her campaign to house Haiti earthquake victims.
The celebrity-filled casino night will be attended by several Spurs players, local personalities and Parker’s Hollywood chums Roselyn Sanchez, Terry Crews, Robin Antin and Leeann Tweeden. Phil Hellmuth, 11-time world champion poker player, will be back as the Texas Hold ‘Em tournament emcee. For more on the event, go to www.evasheroes.org or call 210-694-9090.
We caught up with Parker between scenes of a movie being shot in Los Angeles; just the day before she was filming in Mexico.
Q: I heard you were filming in Mexico. How did that go?
A: Crazy, busy. But, yes, I’ve actually filmed two movies this summer. One is called Without Men that was shot here in L.A. and in Santa Barbara. It’s an independent film based on an amazing novel, Tales from the Town of Widows. All the men go off to war and die, so the women have to figure out how to make a new society. In the other movie, Cristiada, I play Andy Garcia’s wife. We shot part of it in Durango. It’s a period piece in the 1920s in Mexico, when the government overthrew the Catholic Church. I love historical fiction and never imagined that I would do a period piece. And I always dreamed of working with Andy Garcia.
Q: How has the economy played into your fundraising for Eva’s Heroes? Do you find that people are still just as giving?
A: It’s interesting that you say that because we have found in hard economic times the people that suffer the most are charity groups because nobody has that extra income to spend on philanthropy. We have been really lucky that we have held steady throughout the economy’s dip. But it doesn’t mean that we’re not nervous that we’ll never reach our fundraising goal. It’s a daunting task to fundraise in any economic climate. But we have managed to have some really loyal supporters who are loyal to the cause, loyal to the message and are loyal to the kids.
Q: How can one who isn’t famous or rich help? You don’t have to be a celebrity.
A: I say that all the time. Most philanthropists are all around us. You can give of your time. You can donate clothes to the Salvation Army. You can spend time at a soup kitchen. There are so many things you can do to make a difference in people’s lives, especially if you are blessed as I am. And I am not talking about money or fame. I am talking about how I am blessed with my health. I am blessed with amazing parents. I am blessed with an amazing family. I am blessed with a great husband. So I count my blessings in that way. I have so much love and energy and spirit to give to others. I think that can be found in everyone.
Q: Where were you when you received word about the Legacy Freedom Award?
A: I think I was working in L.A. and going, “Huh?” I feel like I am still so young in my activism life. I’m not saying I am a young person, but I am so young in seeing what I want to be able to accomplish in civil rights for Latinos, civil rights for women, civil rights for children’s health care.
Q: Where does your drive come from?
A: My philanthropic drive definitely comes from my mother. My Latino pride – my Mexican-American pride – comes from my father, who always taught me to never forget where you came from, and I never do. There are a lot of privileges that I have and so many people fought before me so that I could have it. So I want to continue their fight to make a better life for those who want it and earn it and need it.
To read more visit http://www.mysanantonio.com/entertainment/article/Longoria-Parker-s-work-off-screen-in-spotlight-676878.php
by Shine Global | Nov 17, 2010 | Hero of the Month, News
8 November 2010
BBC News
Since opening the doors to his famous Koto – Know One Teach One – restaurant in Hanoi in 2000, he has helped around 400 homeless children to become industrious cooks.
At his non-profit hospitality training centre he has passed on both cooking and life skills.
“I came to Vietnam never wanting to start a project as big as Koto, I just wanted to make a difference,” he recalls.
“I look back now and realise that it has given me this incredible joy.”
Hand to mouth
Born in Ho Chi Minh City to a single mum with six children during the Vietnam war, Mr Pham lived in Australia from the age of eight before he returned to his homeland in the early 1990s.
It was there his Koto project was born after he stumbled across a group of children selling coconuts on the streets in 1996.
“I found these street kids carrying coconuts and working 16 hours a day,” he explained to the BBC World Service’s Outlook programme. “They were living from hand to mouth.
“So I took them and 60 other kids to dinner for the next two weeks.”
But it was another three years before the idea for his restaurant first came to fruition.
“At the time I thought I knew better,” he admitted. “I gave them fish everyday for that period but then they pulled me aside.”
“They said: ‘Look we trust you now but you can’t keep on looking after us this way. We’re going to need a job. We need you to show us how to fish for ourselves’.”
From there, his Koto project was launched. Children not only learned how to cook but were taught lessons in life too.
“The first thing http://asnu.com.au/viagra-online/ you receive is housing and medical checks along with vaccinations,” Mr Pham explained.
“You learn about team building and life skills programmes, vocational training and English, which gives you the confidence to meet people.”
Presidential visit
Interest in his restaurant gathered pace and within months former US President Bill Clinton dropped by for a bite to eat with an entourage of 80 reporters.
So suspicious were the Vietnamese government following Mr Clinton’s stop-off that they feared Mr Pham was a member of the CIA.
“I think I was under watch for about three or four years after that,” he laughs. “But I’m glad we went through that phase because I’ve got the green light now to go on and do the wonderful things that Koto is doing.”
To read more please visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11701796
by Shine Global | Oct 26, 2010 | Hero of the Month, News
Christy Porter has given literally millions of pounds of fresh, local produce to the some of the neediest citizens in the Golden State. A former photojournalist and daughter of a Kentucky coal miner, Christy founded Hidden Harvest in 2001 with very limited resources. This unique program employs the working poor (at above prevailing farm wage) to glean or “rescue” the produce left in farmers’ fields after their harvesting is complete. Christy and Hidden Harvest also “rescue” hundreds of tons of produce each year from area packing houses. Christy’s hidden harvest is the nearly 30% of field crops that go unpicked due to fluctuating market price or cosmetic imperfections.
To date (June 2010), Hidden Harvest has donated free of charge, including refrigerated delivery, over 8 million pounds of fresh local produce and now serves over 44,000 low income people each month via their 60+ client agencies that serve the poor and hungry. Additionally, more than $40,000 in wages each year goes back into the pockets of the working poor for their harvest labor. Hidden Harvest also operates twelve “Senior Mini Markets” each month within low income senior housing complexes. These farmer’s market style produce displays allow poor and fixed income seniors to “shop” for free for some of the freshest vegetables and fruits in the Coachella Valley. In 2011, Hidden Harvest will celebrate their tenth anniversary and will have “rescued” over ten million pounds of produce that would otherwise have gone to waste and given it a second life on the plates of the hungry in eastern Riverside County and beyond.
Honored with Outstanding Executive Director for San Bernardino and Riverside Counties in 2007, the same year she received the prestigious Minerva Award from California first lady Maria Shriver. In winning ht eminerva Award, Christy Porter joins the ranks of Dr. Jane Goodall, Oprah Winfrey, Nancy Pelosi, Sandra Day O’Connor and many other remarkable and heroic women. In March, 2010 Christy received the Executive Director of the Year award (along with a $25,000 cash stipend for Hidden Harvest) from The Desert Community Foundation.
Christy was recently profiled in People Magazine in the “Heroes Among Us” section.
Visit http://www.womensconference.org/christy-porter/ to leaarn more about Christy Porter and the Minerva Award and to read the letter from former president Jimmy Carter commending her work.
Visit www.hiddenharvest.org to learn more about the organization, their programs, and how you can help.
by Shine Global | Oct 15, 2010 | Hero of the Month, News
08 October 2010, Friday
ABDÜLHAMIT BILICI – STRASBOURG
Hayrünnisa Gül addressed a session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Strasbourg on Thursday, promoting the rights of children with disabilities, becoming the first Turkish first lady to address such a session.
The first lady began her speech by saying that there is still a lot that needs to be done for children in the world in terms of human rights. “Those with disabilities do not live in isolation as if on far off islands in the ocean anymore, but we all know that they are still confined to the four walls of their homes in some countries, which is why we are sometimes not even aware of them,” she noted. We must remember that children are not disabled by choice, she continued, and added, “However, they have to live with their disability.”
Mrs. Gül is well known for advocacy of children’s rights, especially concerning children with disabilities. Last year, she launched a nationwide campaign aiming to empower the disabled through education.
The title of the campaign was “Education Enables.” “A better society can be achieved by protecting children with disabilities, [and] not leaving their parents to cope with them alone. We must provide them with opportunities for education when they are young, thus, allowing them to be active individuals in society,” she stated at the PACE session.
The first lady continued her speech by providing the audience with information about “Education Enables.” She said the campaign aims to raise public awareness about the fact that children with disabilities can receive education with others in the same environment and in the same schools. “In this way, our children will learn to accept each other as they are; they will learn about tolerance and how to live together despite their differences,” Mrs. Gül noted.
During the session she was accompanied by Lokman Ayva, a member of PACE and a lawmaker from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party). Ayva is visually impaired. Mrs. Gül praised Ayva for his efforts towards expanding the rights of people with disabilities.
“People may be born with a disability or become disabled later in life. However, this is not a hindrance to success. The best example of this is deputy Lokman Ayva. His efforts towards extending the rights of people with disabilities deserve the highest praise and appreciation. I would like to, on behalf of all our citizens with disabilities, offer my thanks to him once again,” she said.
The first lady concluded her speech calling on everyone to fulfill their responsibilities in fighting discrimination, including discrimination against people with disabilities. “Only in this way can we ensure that the fundamental values of human rights, democracy and the principle of the rule of law prevail throughout the world,” she added.
To read more please visit http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-223808-102-turkeys-first-lady-promotes-disabled-childrens-rights-at-pace-session.html
by Shine Global | Oct 8, 2010 | Hero of the Month, News
NEW YORK, USA, 4 October 2010 – Millennium Development Goal 7 calls for ensuring environmental sustainability by 2015. Among the young people working towards this goal is Rosicléia da Silva, 15, from the Amazon region of Brazil. She spoke with UNICEF Radio recently.
Rosicléia lives with her parents and two older sisters in the village of Palmares, located within the city of Tailândia. She has been an environmental activist in her community since she was barely a teenager, and is now a major local advocate for replanting trees in an area hit hard by deforestation.
She believes that every day, people in her community can help act to preserve the environment around them.
“It’s very simple, just with basic things like waste sorting and using less water,” said Rosicléia. “Just because you don’t have money doesn’t mean that you cannot preserve the environment.”
Plagued by deforestation
For years, Tailândia and other parts of the Amazon region have been plagued by illegal logging and rampant deforestation. For Rosicléia, violence and social ills in the region are intertwined with her environmental concerns.
“The biggest handicap is people themselves,” she said, reflecting on the obstacles to environmental change in her community. “Because many people come only to work and don’t actually live here, they think they don’t belong to this place. And so they don’t preserve it.”
Rosicléia said her community has problems with garbage disposal, as well as a lack of health facilities and a weak educational system. “The economic problems can be summarized like this: There are many things that other cities have that we don’t,” she added.
International attention
To help address these issues, Rosicléia began her activism in the public grade school she attended. There, she coordinated the implementation of Agenda 21, a comprehensive plan of environmental action to be taken at the global, national and local levels.
Since then, Rosicléia’s work has resulted in international attention. She has participated in many conferences, including the 2009 Junior 8 Summit in Rome. As a representative of Brazil, she was among 56 teenagers from 14 countries who were selected to attend the summit, which has been conducted regularly by UNICEF since 2005 to add a youth perspective to the annual ‘G8’ meetings of world leaders.
In spite of efforts by activists like Rosicléia, however, Brazil remains one of the world’s largest polluters. And unlike the situation in most countries, where the burning of fossil fuels is the primary culprit, deforestation and other land-use activities are responsible for 75 per cent of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions.
To read more please visit http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/brazil_56295.html
