One Person CAN Make A Difference

Women Worldwide

"One person can make a difference and every person should."

- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

The CNN Hero Awards

As anyone who has watched the CNN Hero Awards show will attest, you don't need superpowers or millions of dollars to change the world, or even save lives. These awards are shining examples of how one person can make a difference in other's lives.

The 2009 CNN Hero Award results are posted. Watch the video and read about the Top 10 Heroes, plus the hundreds more who were submitted.

The 2009 Winner, Efren Penaflorida, gives Filipino teens living slums an alternative to gang membership through an education dispensed from a pushcart classroom.
Betty Mokoni founded the Girl Child Network to give safe haven to young Zimbabwe girls who were raped, rescuing more than 35,000 girls since 2001.
Jorge Munoz drives a school bus all day, then comes home to make and deliver meals to the homeless in Queens.
Brad Blauser quit his job as a civilian contractor in Iraq to assemble and deliver pediatric wheelchairs to disabled Iraqi children in the wartorn country.
And, so many more wonderful stories of individuals who have singularly made a difference in their communities. Please visit the CNN website and read their stories!

The 2008 Top 10 CNN Heroes are still posted, also. Read how each Hero made a difference.

Heroes Around The World

Women Worldwide will be searching for individual heroes and posting stories here. Stay tuned!

How One Woman Makes A Difference
Five years ago, Lisa Shannon watched the Oprah show and learned about the savage, forgotten war in Congo, played out in atrocities such as mass rape. Today, she's rebuilding lives there.

She adopted a Congolese woman through Women For Women International. One day she went to the Congo to meet the woman she helped: Generosa. Generose’s story is numbingly familiar: extremist Hutu militiamen invaded her home one night, killed her husband and prepared to rape her. Then, because she shouted in an attempt to warn her neighbors, they hacked off her leg above the knee with a machete.
The rapists put her leg in a kettle of water, boiled it, and told her children to eat it. Her eldest son refused. So they shot him dead.
The murder is one of Generose’s last memories before she blacked out, waking up days later in the hospital where she had worked.
That’s where Lisa enters the story. After seeing the Oprah show on the Congo war, Lisa began to read more about it, learning that it is the most lethal conflict since World War II. More than five million had already died as of the last peer-reviewed mortality estimate in 2007.
Everybody told her that the atrocities continued because nobody cared. Lisa, who is now 34, was appalled and decided to show that she cared. She asked friends to sponsor her for a solo 30-mile fund-raising run for Congolese women.
From that evolved "Run For Congo Women", a grassroots run or walk or bike or swim or bake or pray fundraiser for Women for Women International's Congo Program. In only one year, it has blossomed into a global movement with a very simple message: Congolese lives matter. The lives of Congolese women are significant. The lives of Congolese children are precious. They have waited far too long. They are worth our effort.
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times wrote a great article about Lisa. This page also includes a great video. Please watch!
And be inspired. Because Lisa's story shows us how one woman really can make a difference.