By: Karla Juced
See poverty, hunger and injustice while you are walking on the streets can be very frightening and impressive, but having the courage to do something about it is a tremendous act of heroism.
Wanting to help is not always easy as it sounds it is actually even more complicated to act on it. However when someone has suffered from those deficiencies since childhood and has experienced it on his/her own flesh and blood, predominates something more than the mere desire to help, the survival instinct, the hunger for justice and above all this the desire that what has been lived won't occur to other innocent people.
Political conflicts, guerrilla forces, the so named war against terrorism and various kinds of territorial fights, leave behind millions of orphans around the world every day. In the middle east, in Afghanistan alone there are more than 1 million orphans victims of all this violence.
Andeisha Farid who is 28 years old, has made one of the greatest heroic deed a woman can do. She founded the Afghan Organization for Education and Child Care, AFCECO, an organization that provides care and education to orphans in Afghanistan. The non-profit organization worries about inculcating values that could impact children in a long term by making them upcoming leaders. She created the foundation to find a safe environment where the children could learn and find their way into the future.
For Farid education is the key to The Change, providing equal educational opportunities to both boys and girls, regardless their origins, gender, race or religious beliefs. To give them freedom of choice and above all context teach them tolerance for those who are or think differently. It is of vital importance, for these kids, to be able to learn those values in a safe environment where nothing it's imposed.
In a region where historically culture does not aloud women to enjoy the same benefits and rights as men, it's fundamental to highlight Farid's work in teaching the meaning of gender equality. However this implies security problems for those girls' safety. On this matter Farid mentions: "We live in a country and society dominated by men, so when we promote gender equality, when we give opportunities to those girls to become musicians or leaders in the community, there will be resistance. They want to put an end to government's corruption. These young people want to go into politics, become social activists and journalists and for women, this is not socially or culturally acceptable."
Farid, said in an interview for CNN news to Asieh Namdar, how she lived in her very own flesh and blood all these conflicts and their consequences as a child victim of such violence. But it was in her adult life when she saw children begging for food on the streets of Pakistan, when she decided to do something regarding it. In the same way that Helena Duron Miranda has done it for a couple of years now. Duron said: "I saw children collect green sausages, a bag of potato chip crumbs, a bag of noodles with cream, and recovered leftover yogurt next to a diaper,"
Something that touched me about these two women is that we share a common feeling: the terrible anguish that causes seeing another human being looking for food in a garbage dump. Duron Miranda is a psychologist and during an investigation in Bariloche, Argentina, she witnessed such a horrifying situation. She told Brittany Stahl also for CNN: "The children began to gently clean the food -- wiping each little noodle, each potato and peeling the sausage skin so methodically and accurately. It was as if they had done many times."
P.E.T.I.S.O.S which stands for Prevención y Erradicación del Trabajo Infantil SOS (Prevention and Eradication of Child Labor SOS) is the name of the non-governmental organization created by Duron in 2002, and today helps more than 200 of these children.
These children do not only seek their food from landfills but also work as members of their families collecting waste for resale. Duron declares that they keep a very personal track of each child and their families. The organization also works together with schools and healthcare facilities in order to get them out of the garbage dumps.
In order to gain the trust of the kids and understand what led these families to end up in similar situations she camped in the dumpster where they work and collect wastes. Each case is treated in a personalized way and earning the trust of the kids can take from 6 to 12 months. Then for each one of them, she and her team creates a special project which includes comprehensive plans for their families, for them to be able to understand the importance of education.
PETISOS's work does not end here and they have groups of volunteers which look after constancy in school attendance as the development of after school activities where children can find help while performing their school tasks. Medical, psychological and social assistance are also available.
Duron Miranda says to Brittany Stahl: "I think that's where we start to break vicious cycles stemming from negligent upbringing and upbringing with mistreatment. I think that's our greatest success to date."
HRATW wants to diseminate the work of organizations like PETISOS and AFCECO. They teach us, with their own example, that when you really want help, you can, that citizen's participation can also provide changes, and that there is always the possibility of helping those who need it the most with so many ways to do it. We hope that the remarkable work of these two organizations will also be made by our governments and that the few corrupt ambitions of some will not affect the common good of the people.
CNN Farid and Duron Miranda are heroes, and HRATW considered both of them as an example to be followed by our communities.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/06/09/cnnheroes.duron.miranda.argentina/index.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/07/11/afghanistan.orphanage.qanda/index.html
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