Efren Peñaflorida
For the past 12 years,
Peñaflorida and his team of teen volunteers have taught basic reading and writing to children living on the streets. Their main tool: A pushcart classroom. Stocked with books, pens, tables and chairs, his
Dynamic Teen Company recreates a school setting in unconventional locations such as the cemetery and municipal trash dump. Today, children ranging from ages 2 to 14 flock to the pushcart every Saturday to learn reading, writing, arithmetic and English from
Peñaflorida and his trained teen volunteers. The group also runs a hygiene clinic, where children can get a bath and learn how to brush their teeth.
Peñaflorida hopes to expand the pushcart to other areas, giving more children the chance to learn and stay out of gangs.
Hope was 14 years old when her uncle raped her. "He trapped me to the ground and covered my mouth with his hand," said the 18-year-old from Zimbabwe. "He threatened to kill me if I ever told anybody."
So, she kept quiet.
"After a while people around the villages started saying that I looked pregnant," she said.
Hope was not only pregnant, but her uncle had infected her with HIV.
Like many young girls in Zimbabwe, Hope was the victim of a widely held belief that if a man with HIV or AIDS rapes a virgin he will be cured of his disease. This so-called virgin myth, perpetuated by Zimbabwe's traditional healers, has led to the rape of hundreds of girls, according to UNICEF. Some of those victims are too young to walk, much less protect themselves.
Betty Makoni has fought for nearly a decade to protect her country's young girls from sexual abuse. And she's witnessed some of the worst cases of the myth in action.
Through her
Girl Child Network (GCN),
Makoni has helped rescue 35,000 girls from abuse -- including Hope; thousands more have found an empowering community and a public forum in which to speak out.
In 2000, she quit her teaching job to volunteer with GCN full time. "I decided to become an advocate because I walked my own journey to survival," she said.
The following year
Makoni successfully procured a piece of land and opened the organization's first empowerment village, designed to provide a haven for girls who have been abused. Girls are either rescued or referred to the village by social services, the police and the community. The healing begins as soon as a girl arrives.
"In the first 72 hours, a girl is provided with emergency medication, reinstatement in school, as well as counseling," said
Makoni.
Makoni says nothing will end her fight for the rights of women and girls. "This is the job I have always wanted to do, because it gives me fulfillment. And in girls I see myself every day."
credit : cnn.com
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