Our planet is filled with heroes, young and old, rich and poor, man, woman of different colors, shapes and sizes. We are one great tapestry. Each person has a hidden hero within; you just have to look inside you and search it in your heart, and be the hero to the next one in need. So to each and every person inside in this theater and for those who are watching at home, the hero in you is waiting to be unleashed. Serve, serve well, serve others above yourself and be happy to serve.

As I always tell to my co-volunteers à you are the change that you dream as I am the change that I dream and collectively we are the change that this world needs to be.

Hero of the Year, 2009
Jorge Munoz story highlighted one key thing for me — the poverty that exists in the wealthiest place on earth. Munoz provides one hot meal a day, from the back of his pickup truck, to dozens and dozens of hungry New Yorkers

Munoz’s story, I believe, has particular resonance for this season of giving. An ordinary man, Munoz’s operation runs on his salary and donations of food. He doesn’t seek any particular praise for it; he doesn’t have an army of volunteers at his beck-and-call, just himself, with help from his mother and sister

FOR MANY people, staying at home all day on Christmas Day and not undertaking any work is the regular thing to do. For me, Christmas Day this year was particularly strange as, after spending time with the family, I devoted the better part of the remainder of the day to sleeping. This meant that Christmas night found me unable to sleep. So I decided that some television would help me pass the time and, as luck would have it, as I turned on the TV, there was my favourite anchor, Anderson Cooper, presenting the CNN 2009 Heroes awards.

By the end of the show, I was completely touched. This year’s group of heroes was as interesting as it was varied, from the overall winner, Efren Penaflorida — whose observations are quoted above — saving youth from gang membership in the Philippines, to Andrea Ivory providing free mammograms to uninsured women in Florida, USA. The story of the drummer from New Orleans, Derrick Tabb, who provided free music lessons to troubled teenagers, personally resonated with me — I’ve dealt before, in this column, with the potential for music to transform the lives of young people, and seeing that this view had found a practical example somewhere only gave me some amount of personal vindication. In another column, I will address an excellent model used in Venezuela, whereby music is used in depressed areas to keep young people from becoming involved in gangs.

The two most moving stories for me, however, were those of Betty Makoni and Jorge Muoz. Almost two years ago, in January of last year, I wrote a column after watching Cooper present a Sixty Minutes segment on War Rapes in the Congo. While the 35,000 rape victims Makoni helped were not violated against the background of some larger conflict, the results were much the same — degradation, dehumanisation and, in many instances, a potential death sentence through HIV infection Indeed, due to the fact that a disproportionate number of the rape victims in Zimbabwe are assaulted because of a widely-held local myth that having sex with a virgin cures AIDS, you have a double tragedy, because the numbers are skewed towards younger women, the vast majority of whom would have to live the rest of their lives with HIV.

Jorge Munoz story highlighted one key thing for me — the poverty that exists in the wealthiest place on earth. Munoz provides one hot meal a day, from the back of his pickup truck, to dozens and dozens of hungry New Yorkers. This is not a case where, like Andrea Ivories mission, people cannot afford what some might call the relative luxury of health insurance, but they cannot afford a meal. There was a point in time when the poem inscribed on a pedestal at the Statue of Liberty meant something, both to those who felt part of the American spirit, and those yearning to be, particularly the words: Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me…

I found it amazing; therefore, that in a country that could afford to expend billions and billions of dollars on questionable, even useless, conflicts overseas, there would be people who can’t even afford a single hot meal a day on their own. The most telling irony of the Munoz nomination, however, is that not only is this bus-driver feeding the homeless in the richest country of the world but he — a Colombian immigrant — is not a natural born citizen of America. All year long, I’ve heard one pundit after the other pillory Guyana’s political administration for not doing enough in social programmes, all of whom I would challenge to explain the fact that not only Munoz, but several other nominated heroes, are Americans, providing aid where governmental programmes fail or don’t reach. Clearly, this shows that governments cannot address all the social problems of a society.

Munoz’s story, I believe, has particular resonance for this season of giving. An ordinary man, Munoz’s operation runs on his salary and donations of food. He doesn’t seek any particular praise for it; he doesn’t have an army of volunteers at his beck-and-call, just himself, with help from his mother and sister.

For me, it shows that we don’t have to wait until we are extremely wealthy, or have a lot of resources at our disposal before we can work towards making the world a better place. Also, what it showed was that we don’t have to be dependent on the State to create and even sustain initiatives with value.

Indeed, all of the chosen Heroes in the CNN programme exemplify this ideal, one I think we should all try our very best to emulate. I would personally encourage local television stations to rebroadcast the Heroes awards show as much as is feasibly possible throughout the season.

Finally, I want to close the final column for this year by noting, in contrast to the spirit exemplified by the CNN Heroes, the local phenomenon where some organizations ostentatiously providing benefit to the community are actually only in existence for the perpetual benefit of a select few. This is an issue I’ve wanted to tackle for some time, and I can think of a no better topic with which to start the New Year.
Greetings!!