Marcus Edibogi Akor
Country: Nigeria
Organisation: The Bridge Organization
Youth Empowerment | Vision: A generation of empowered excellent young leaders, who are positioned for service and are enterprising. The Bridge Organization project is empowering young people with leadership and entrepreneurial skills to help them understand themselves, understand others, lead themselves and then lead others. The project enables young people to be creative solution providers to problems they face as individuals and as a community. The project challenges young peoplewith a new way of thinking that renews their minds and positions them to identify and create their identity.
Raja Rajendran
Country: India
Organisation: Global Network for Equality
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men” – Frederick Douglas
K.R.Raja is a social worker from Pondicherry who during his studies conducted a research to identify psychopathic deviation and adjustment patterns of prisoners. While doing so he came across many family dramas where the husband killed his wife leaving their children alone. Taken to jail to serve a period not less than 14 years, the question is; what is the fate of the innocent children? Raja founded the organization Global Network for Equality (GNE) that provides education, healthcare, legal support and other services that are required to give opportunities to children whose parent is in jail.
Website: www.gnequality.org
Beatriz Patricia Quispe Carranza
Country: Peru
Organisation: Yachai Rampana the Future on Wheels
Vision: To empower the visually impaired from rural areas through literacy and education, so that they can gain confidence and self-esteem. As rehabilitation services in Peru are concentrated in the big cities, many blind people in rural areas lack independence and opportunities for participation in education and work. Yachai Rampana teaches Braille, mobility, computer and daily living skills to blind children and adults in the Amazone region.
Drolma Lazorn
Country: China
Organisation: Highway of Hope
Vision: a Tibet known for successful integration of people with disabilities. Drolma was kantharis’ youngest participant (19 when she graduated). Drolma wants to empower the disabled by providing vocational skills. She already has set up a sewing workshop for hearing impaired women. This workshop is now running independently. Drolma now works with the Tibet Disabled Association where she works hard on implementation of policies and practical training that will help handicapped people to self-integrate into society.
Nicholas Kimuyu
Country: Kenya
Organisation: Victor’s Academy
Vision: Offer inclusive preparatory education. Victor’s Academy is an inclusive pre-school for young children with and without disability. In the first year, 12 children from poor backgrounds have the opportunity to learn together and get prepared for classes in regular school.
Alieu Jaiteh
Country: The Gambia
Organisation: Start now!
Vision: inclusive higher education for the blind. Start now! empowers blind and partially sighted adolescents by providing a quality training as a preparation for higher education. Start Now! also promotes equal rights and responsibilities of visually impaired people in general
Nelson Kardor
Country: Liberia
Organisation: Echo Community Radio
Using radio to give a voice to Marginalized people: people with disabilities, Orphans, and local Social groups.
Femi Ogundare
Country: Liberia
Organisation: Connecting Visions
A community where people with disabilities can enjoy equal rights, equal opportunities and access to community resources and services
Pattarisa Lukkette Laksana
Country: Thailand
Organisation: Luang Prabang (Ready Steady Jump)
Laos visually impaired children confidently integrate themselves into mainstream Society
Tahreer Albattran
Country: Palastine
Organisation: Eternal Flame
To crack open the shell of women in Palestine in order to see beyond their believe system.
Vygandas Raukstas
Country: Lithuania
Organisation: Kilimo Takas (Runway)
A Lithuania where orphans have all chances to develop their full capacities and realize their dreams
Marguerite B. Woods
Country: USA
Organisation: Solution Evolution
Entrepreneurial women and brown skin community, famous for its innovative ideas, which help to resurrect Baltimore as a flourishing city with a global perspective.
Muhammad Shihab A.M.
Country: India
Organisation: Blind Plus Global Initiative
Equipping the visually impaired with utmost confidence and capabilities to face the societal and personal challenges with added competencies
Keith Makona Sabwami
Country: Kenya
Organisation: Film School for school droouts
Kenya to be known as a country that gives space also to those who are unable or unwilling to fit
Nosisa Ncube
Country: Zimbabwe
Organisation: Thula Sizwe (Positive Connections)
A Christian church that is known for its compassion towards HIV infected and their families
Anja Pfaffenzeller
Country: Brasil
Organisation: Bats in Action
Anja Pfaffenzeller is on a mission to keep bats flying day and night with no obstacles in their way. Her bats are her blind students, who unfortunately lack access to both mobility training and education in braille. Blind herself, Anja has always been independent, worldly, and adventurous. However, she was surprised and saddened when she traveled to Brazil and encountered other blind people, who didn’t have the same access to special education that she had. She came to kanthari because she knew she wanted to open doors for them but she didn’t know how. Just as bats live with blindness without being disabled, Anja wanted to see blind people flying high to reach their goals. Anja’s experience at kanthari enabled her to focus her goals and ultimately identify a group of blind children in rural northeast Brazil, where she designed workshops to build their self-confidence and win the trust of their families and community. She is now fulfilling her dream of establishing a preparatory school, Bats In Action, for these children, who have little or no access to special services. Bats In Action will prepare them academically, socially and personally for integration into mainstream schools and into society. Anja is not only equipping these children with skills to become independent, but she is also giving them the confidence to solve their own problems and show the world that blindness cannot prevent them from following their dreams.