Honorees for the Hannah Neil World of Childrens Award

Honorees Make Personal Sacrifices to Help Children
Six children’s advocate individuals are finalists for $100,000
Kellogg’s Hannah Neil World of Children Award.

by Sarah Grondin
Columbus Wired Reporter

As recent media attention seems to be on the issues in Afghanistan, including bringing the plight of women and children of that country, and the tragedies of September 11th, Kellogg's takes some time to pay special attention to the wonderful individuals who have been fighting the plight of children around the world for most of their lives.

The statistics are astounding and make you think....

* More than one in four children struggle to receive the food they need for healthy survival. 35,000 of the world's children die each day from malnutrition and preventable diseases.

* In the past decade, more than 2 million children have been killed due to war. 1 million children were orphaned, more than 20 million displaced, and 10 million were psychologically traumatized. Approximately 800 children are killed or seriously maimed by landmines every month, some which are still in the ground from past wars.

* More than 130 million children worldwide do not attend school. 120 million children work full-time, sacrificing their opportunity to be educated. Youngsters, including children between age 5 and 11, are forced to work in unsafe and sometimes hazardous conditions.

* Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, 4.3 million children under the age of 15 have died from the disease. About 600,000 infants will be infected through mother-to-child transmission in 2001. So far, a cumulative total of 13 million children, the majority in Africa, have lost their mother or both parents to AIDS.

As staggering as these statistics may be, they are sadly true. Fortunately, there are people willing to dedicate their lives to improving these conditions. The Kellogg's Hannah Neil World of Children Award was established four years ago for the purpose of recognizing such selfless people.

Their hope is that the stories will inspire and encourage other child advocates around the world, regardless of their degree of service. This year's Award Celebration, being held in Columbus, Ohio, on December 7, 2001, include six incredible stories of individuals who have tirelessly sacrificed time, energy and money in an effort to implement and support programs and services designed to aid these needy children.

*The Honorees for the $100,000 2001 Kellogg's Hannah Neil World of Children Award*
	Honoree Abubacar Mamadbhay Sultan from Maputo, Mozambique In 1986, 24-year-old Abubacar Sultan left his safe teaching job to begin his mission to help the children of Mozambique. Committed to rescue those children who had been forced to fight in war, Sultan helped to start the Children and War Project in 1988. The program helped to reunify children who had been torn from their families and gave counseling to those children who had experienced great traumas during war. Sultan entered the most dangerous war zones of that time in effort to save the children of his country. The program successfully reunited 20,000 children with their families and trained 7,500 volunteers to help in the effort. Post-war, Sultan implemented a program called Wona Sanana (or the "seeing children" project) to gather information about the health and welfare of the children after the war, which would point out the needs of these post-war children. Information was collected for more than 13,000 children and gave Sultan the opportunity to develop a birth registration and identification project, a program which gave awareness to the government of Mozambique of the existence of these children, thus allowing the government to give them aid. Beyond the borders of Mozambique, Sultan has spoken internationally on such issues as children's rights, the plight of child soldiers, and the effects of war on such children. He has worked with numerous organizations internationally in the UK, helped to improve education programs worldwide by uniting experts to work together, and works with a network of children's rights organizations in Portuguese speaking countries. Most recently, Sultan has contributed to help the children of war-torn Angola, in a situation similar to Mozambique in the late 80's. Among other awards, Sultan was the recipient of the Reebok Human Rights Award in 1991.
	Honoree Mrs. Andal Damodaran of Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India Currently the Honorary general Secretary of the Indian Council for Child Welfare in Tamil Nadu, Mrs. Damodaran has dedicated the past 28 years of her life to helping children in her country. She works to prevent both female infanticide, a major concern in India, and fights the exploitation of children through child labor. Women in India have been taught that their female child is a detriment to the family and the economy, and that she has a low position in society. Because of this, India is known as the "heartland of sex-selective abortion". Mrs. Damodaran created the Programme for Prevention of Female Infanticide, which has reduced the number of these deaths from 200 in 1991 to only seven in 2001. The program offers counseling for expectant mothers, self-help groups for women, and encourages positive attitude about the female child, empowering the women of India. In the arena of child labor and exploitation, Damodaran has freed nearly 3,000 children from child labor with two programs, The Project for Children in the Beedi Industry (cigarettes), and The Child Labour Project. Both programs teach parents, employers, and administrators the importance of encouraging education in place of labor. In addition to helping these children, she has also provided education and care for street children, developed 110 daycare centers for low-income women, started a rehab center for handicapped children, and a home for destitute children. Damodaran was the first Asian and woman to be elected president of the International Forum for Child Welfare, is currently president of the Indian Council for Child Welfare in New Delhi, and has helped to found several non-government organizations for childcare and development.
	Honoree Helmut Kutin of Innsbruck, Austria Helmut Kutin has spent 34 years of his life working with SOS-Kinderdorf International (SOS-KDI), placing war orphans, abused, neglected and abandoned children in adoptive homes throughout the world. He began his work in 1967 in Vietnam, helping to construct the first Vietnamese SOS Children's Village in Go Vap (Saigon), now known as Ho Chi Minh City. Kutin worked with this and other facilities in Vietnam until 1976, when North Vietnamese seized government control, turning the Children's Village into an orphanage and forcing him to leave the country. Kutin began work throughout Asia, building more than 50 SOS Children's Villages in less than 10 years, as well as many schools, training centers, and Mother and Child centers and clinics. The Villages in Go Vap and Da Lat, Vietnam, were eventually reopened, and a new Children's Village was built in Hanoi in 1987. Today, these beneficial villages exist in almost 30 Asian countries. Kutin is personally responsible for 423 SOS Children's Villages in 131 countries. Kutin is currently the president of SOS-KDI and was a finalist for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.
	Honoree David Hyung-bok Kim of Eugene, Oregon, USA As a college sophomore, Kim began his work with Holt International Children's Services 45 years ago. Over the years, he has served abandoned children in more than 25 countries. Kim implemented a foster home program in Korea, developed a small center for children with diabetes in Korea, and helped to expand Holt services to include Thailand, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe between the 60's and 80's. He has developed several foreign-born adoption programs, which are programs designed to give adopted foreign children a sense of pride and dignity, teach them and their families about their heritage and culture, and even offer programs for children over 18 to visit their countries of birth. Kim also served as US representative to the Hague Conference on International Law, and helped in the passing of historic legislation guaranteeing automatic U.S. citizenship to foreign-born children adopted by U.S. parents. Kim is currently the president emeritus for Holt International and has helped 200,000 children to find permanent, loving homes through intercountry adoption.
	Honoree Dr. Sharadkumar Dicksheet, Brooklyn, New York Born in Maharashtra, India, Dr. Dicksheet performs an annual mission to provide free corrective plastic surgery to children in India who suffer severe facial deformities. These deformities are common in India, and rarely do children have the opportunity to have the deformities fixed. Many have died or will die of starvation or are abandoned or killed by their parents because they are considered a curse to Indian society. Dicksheet founded The India Project - Plastic Surgery Camp in 1968 and has since performed more than 54,000 surgeries. A team from the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, who have themselves performed an additional 2,420 surgeries, aids him. There is no overhead for the program, so during the off-season, Dicksheet dedicates his time and efforts to seeking contributions for medicine, equipment and supplies for the camps. All of the physicians including Dicksheet pay their own travel and lodging for the annual trip. Dicksheet is a four-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and recipient of India's Diwaliben Mehta Award, the 2001 Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Medical Integration Council and CHEMTECH Foundation, the 2000 Bombay Chamber of Commerce Award, the 1998 Vanguard Award, and the 1997 Humanitarian Award of the American Society of Aesthetic Surgery.
	Honoree Sanphasit Koompraphant of Bangkok, Thailand Thailand is a center for child trafficking for the purposes of sexual abuse, forced prostitution and labor, and forced labor in inhumane conditions. Sanphasit Koompraphant was one of the first to expose these issues. He is the director of the Center for the Protection of Children's Rights (CPCR). The organization was founded in 1982 to assist those children in Thailand who had been exploited and abused through child labor. Koompraphant has implemented rescue operations for children who have been sexually abused and sold into prostitution. With CPCR, he has also established three shelters for children who have been rescued or released from abusive situations, providing them with physical and psychological care, rehabilitation programs, and in some cases, reintegration with their families and communities. He has started training programs for professionals concerning child abuse treatment and prevention, and organized several child abuse awareness and prevention campaigns in local facilities. He is also involved in Thailand's government, helping them implement laws regarding human rights and child abuse cases. He has worked with UNICEF, World Vision International, Save the Children alliances and the National Council for Youth Development, and many other organizations dedicated to issues of needy children around the world.

Each of these Honorees for the Kellogg's Hannah Neil World of Children Award has accomplished much in the way of helping needy children. They have helped to save lives and thousands of children have been blessed by their hard work and dedication. Let them serve as an example to Columbus and the rest of the world of the unconditional capacity of human kindness and selflessness.