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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 1, 2007
PR 04:07

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Tara McNally
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Eight Child Advocates Honored at 10^thAnnual World of Children Awards Ceremony
PLEASANTON,CA -World of Children announced today the eight finalists nominated for their 2007 World of Children Awards.Every year, World of Children searches the globe to find individuals leading programs that are making a profound impact on the lives of children. This year, World of Children will honor eight remarkable individuals at the 10^th annual awards ceremony on Thursday, November 8^th at the UNICEF House in New York City.

World of Children considers nominees in three awards categories: Health, Humanitarian, and Youth leadership. More than 100 nominees compete annually for 3-4 cash awards that range from $15,000 to as much as $100,000. Nominations are submitted by peers and colleagues and go through an extensive application and rigorous vetting process. All 8 finalists receive a financial award.

The 2007 World of Children honorees have worked selflessly to improve the lives of thousands of children, despite financial hardship, cultural and peer opposition, and inadequate and dangerous working conditions.

2007 Humanitarian Award Honorees -The Finalist will receive a minimum cash award of $50,000 to further their work and multiply its impact; the runners-up will receive $10,000.

Inderjit Khurana founded the Ruchika Social Service Organization (RSSO) in Bhubaneswar, India, after witnessing the insurmountable challenges faced by children living camped with their families along a railway in a major railway hub, unable to travel miles to the nearest school building. Khurana created the Platform School to bring education to them for free, supported entirely by private donations. They began holding classes on a railway station platform where the children were congregating each day to make money. RSSO started with a handful of kids in 1985, and today reaches 4,000 children through its various programs, with 12 platform schools at major railway stations and an additional 63 schools in the slums. Though focused on education, RSSO also funds health, nutrition, and sanitation services.

Carmen Masias, a lifelong advocate for children's rights and a champion of drug-free communities, works with CEDRO, a Peruvian organization devoted to fighting drug abuse through research, services, public relations,and policy advocacy. In her role, Masias has risked her life to get kids into the youth-specific programs and initiatives that help save them from the streets and reach their potential, including three youth homeless shelters, a community service learning initiative, and a youth journalist program.The strength of CEDRO programs lies in the youth they serve, who use the tools from the program to become change agents in the streets that once threatened them. The CEDRO shelter serves 300 Peruvian children and youth annually and has succeeded in helping children return home. Forty percent are reunited with their families and an additional 40% stay with the program until age 18.

Carol Sasaki began a career of social activism locally, providing support from her living room to moms trying to get off welfare. This passion evolved into a larger, international commitment when she founded the International Humanity Foundation (IHF) to help women and children escape sexual slavery and prevent others from falling victim to the sex trade. IHF works in Africa (Kenya), Thailand, and Indonesia on this issue and others to provide shelter, food, clothing, medical care, and education to orphaned and at-risk children; foster survival for tribes facing extreme conditions brought on by drought; enable youth from enemy tribes to live together and develop solutions that will lead to peace; and build grassroots connections between children in the U.S. and students in need abroad. An estimated 3,000 children benefited from IHF's programs last year alone.

2007 Health Award Honorees - The Finalist will receive a minimum cash award of $50,000 to further their work and multiply its impact; the runners-up will receive $10,000.

Dr. Ricardo Bennun turned down a prestigious position at Children's Hospital Medical Center in Boston to work in his native Argentina and serve underprivileged children with facial abnormalities.In the midst of Argentina's economic collapse in 1995, he founded Asociación PIEL to provide free surgery to babies born with cleft lips and palates. Bennun and his team bought an old house in a poor neighborhood and asked families to help remodel, and surgeons to provide free surgeries for the first year. When the doors opened, they learned that the economic crisis took its toll in many ways and the health problems were not confined to cleft lips and palates.A supplement program would be required to strengthen babies for surgery and combat widespread malnutrition and starvation.Bennun developed innovative ways to address this and other challenges facing the children in poor families in Argentina, such as long distance care, family-to-family counseling, and pre-surgical treatments for infants.Asociación PIEL has served 2,183 children over the last five years.

Dr. Samir Chaudhuri is the Director of the Child in Need Institute (CINI), an organization founded in 1974 to achieve sustainable development among poor communities in the city of Calcutta, India, and surrounding areas. As Director, Chaudhuri developed the "Life Cycle Approach", an innovative method that improves child outcomes by targeting interventions at birth, under age 2, and during adolescence, encouraging breastfeeding, childhood immunizations, and adolescent and reproductive health and education.Although CINI is recognized by the Indian government, Chaudhuri has faced criticism for working outside the traditional health clinic and hospital system, which historically has ignored what it considers "marginalized" Indians such as poor women and children, and those whose creed is other than that held by the majority. CINI has witnessed improvements in childhood deaths and morbidity in its service areas at twice the rate of other areas.CINI has reached an estimated 500,000 Indians over the past five years.

Dr. Mark Manary, a pediatrician at St. Louis Children's Hospital, developed "Project Peanut Butter" as an answer to discouraging recovery rates in the starving and malnourished children he served in Malawi, Africa. Manary's new approach was simple: feed children peanut butter, which could be made locally, eaten without preparation, and would not perish; and provide families with a two-week supply so they could return home, reducing the financial strain. With this new approach Manary saw recovery rates jump from 30-40 percent to 90 percent and found he could train local health workers to deliver the treatment and implement the protocol, and use locally manufactured peanut butter. Over the last 5 years, an estimated 20,000 children have been helped and Manary aims to help more by embedding the "Project Peanut Butter" treatment protocols in the health care and social service systems in Malawi.

2007 Founders Award for Youth Leadership - Both finalists will receive a minimum cash award of $15,000 to further their work and multiply its impact.

Teresa Cheptoo opposes Female Genital Mutilation/Circumcision, a largely accepted practice in her native Kenya, not only for its negative health and psychological consequences for women, but social implications as well.Cheptoo began her advocacy work by establishing Anti-Female Genital Mutilation/Early Marriages Advocacy Clubs to build the movement. With the help of teachers and classmates, Teresa has recruited approximately 200 boys and girls in 13 schools to educate the community about the negative consequences of FGM/C. Still, some of her peers have branded her a coward for not undergoing FGM/C and her family has been ridiculed as well. Despite the opposition, Cheptoo's work was recognized by the United Nations when she was invited to represent Kenya on a youth panel on protecting the right to education for girls during the 51^st Session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

Meghan Pasricha's passion for health advocacy work grew out of her childhood struggles with chronic asthma, which made it difficult to breath in smoke-filled public places. At age 16, she founded the Anti-Tobacco Action Club, which recruited over 2,000 Delaware youth to pass the Clean Indoor Air Act that banned smoking indoors. The club grew to 4,000 members under Meghan's leadership. Recognizing that tobacco companies aggressively target youth in developing nations, Pasricha traveled to India and trained a group of youth leaders who educated over 4,500 children and villagers about the risks of smoking. During her junior year at Harvard, Pasricha founded Global Youth H.E.L.P. (Health, Education, and Leadership Program), a nonprofit that seeks to educate, train, and support youth to make positive change in the world. She also leads the annual antismoking "Kick Butts Day" at Harvard. Pasricha's work has earned her several prestigious accolades from government and corporations and speaking engagements at national and international tobacco prevention and control conferences.

World of Children provides cash grants to organizations around the world that make extraordinary contributions to improving the lives of children. Since 1998, World of Children has awarded more than $2 million in cash grants to 62 child advocates working in more than 35 countries, impacting millions of children worldwide. Muhammad Ali, three-time Heavyweight World Champion and humanitarian, is the Honorary Chair of World of Children. For more information about World of Children, visit http://www.worldofchildren.org.