Lifetime Achievement KVP
Anina Joseph Mathew
A PG in social work and sociology, Ms. Anina Joseph Mathew has surely opened new roads ahead in the tinted lives of many. She devoted her entire life to improve the lives of prisoners and their children. She started many organizations during the course of her life. Correction India, an NGO is an endeavor to help improve the conditions of prisoners and their families alike, especially the females. This organization helps in conducting entertainment and de-addiction programs for prisoners. The HIV and cancer infected patients in Jails have been released under her amiable guidance. Under the garb of 'Aswasa Bhavan', she helped give life back to the children of prisoners, making education available to them. She also started a secular organization that is a home to many abandoned children under the name of ARUTHAL ILLAM. We can say that she is the reincarnation of the 'Mother Mary'.Rajinder Johar
Global Citizen Lifetime Achievement KVP
June Connolly
June Connolly was born in Dublin, Ireland and completed education in the U.K. She is a writer and a poet. She began volunteering for various causes since early childhood and grew up in post war Ireland and England facing many hardships. She has worked with social health helping run both a home for orphans as well as for alcoholics. She is an animal lover. After retirement she trained with the Woodgreen animal Shelter, U.K. and returned to India where she was supervising and monitoring care for countless animals that were sick, injured and abused from the streets. She can be seen feeding stray dogs on the streets, counseling people on how to care for their pets or solving animal related problems in the community. There are even times where she can be seen fighting for the rights of animals with overloaded bullock carts drivers at busy traffic lights. She is an inspiration for an individual who is 74 years and has dedicated her life to the welfare of the society.Global Citizen KVP
Kumi Naidoo
Kumi Naidoo is the Greenpeace International Executive Director. He was born in South Africa and became involved in his country's liberation struggle at the age of 15. He was very active in neighbourhood organization, youth work and mass mobilizations against the apartheid regime. In 1990, Kumi returned to South Africa from England to work on the legalization of the African National Congress and directed the training of all electoral staff in the country. Kumi became the founding executive director of the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO), an umbrella agency for the South African NGO community and organized the National Men's March Against Violence on Women and Children in 1997. Kumi was involved with the World Alliance for Citizen Participation, which is dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world. He was the founding Chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), served as Chair of the civil society alliance 'Global Campaign for Climate Action' (GCCA) and also served as a board member of the Association for Women's Rights in Development.Global Citizen KVP
Loralee Martha-Mae Lee
Loralee Martha-Mae Lee and David John Lee are residents of France. Loralee has written a book on their family story named 'Three Indian Orphans Touched by Destiny' which is a very inspirational story. This book highlights how international adoption brings human beings together across national boundaries. Through this, they wanted to show that the barriers to adoption are psychological and institutional, and that "being an international adoptive family" is really just being a family. This very global Canadian/British couple adopted three Indian orphans who have today become international Indians and true citizens of the world. Adopting a child is very clearly a citizen action, impacting only a few lives but doing so profoundly. On the global scale there are so many children needing adoption and so many childless parents yearning to adopt. They feel that if they could adopt a hundred children, they would. They believe that more than leaving things to governments and high profile charities, individual citizen actions can have far more powerful impact, not just on individual lives but on the relationship between nations and cultures.Global Citizen KVP
David John Lee
David John Lee and Loralee Martha-Mae Lee are residents of France. This very global Canadian/British couple adopted three Indian orphans who have today become international Indians and true citizens of the world. Adopting a child is very clearly a citizen action, impacting only a few lives but doing so profoundly. On the global scale there are so many children needing adoption and so many childless parents yearning to adopt. They feel that if they could adopt a hundred children, they would. They believe that more than leaving things to governments and high profile charities, individual citizen actions can have far more powerful impact, not just on individual lives but on the relationship between nations and cultures. Loralee has written a book on their family story named 'Three Indian Orphans Touched by Destiny' which is a very inspirational story. This book highlights how international adoption brings human beings together across national boundaries. Through this, they wanted to show that the barriers to adoption are psychological and institutional, and that "being an international adoptive family" is really just being a family.Global Artistes 4 change KVP
Saskia Laroo
Saskia Laroo was born in Amsterdam and is a musician. She feels her music symbolizes Social Justice and Citizen Action because she combines music styles from different cultures with and for people of various age and background (social, religious, political) to create common grounds so that an environment of understanding, communication, acceptation and peace for each other's culture can be created. She strongly feels that all of us should try and find ways and means of helping each other- not just our neighbors or family members, but every person we meet in our daily life. She believes that there is a purpose in her art, and music would definitely help in promoting peace and harmony in the world. Her shows in India were a mix of regional music from the places she visited. She has also tried to fight against terrorism through a new concept called 'Jazz for Peace.' After the Mumbai terrorist attacks and warnings, she came to Mumbai to perform as defiance to terrorism. She performed across India, helping panicky citizens to overcome their fear and apprehension. She feels that music created together by all musicians of the world, in unison reflecting different cultures, can serve as a small but effective tool towards erasing the wrongs and doing the right things.Global Indian KVP
Angeli Kapoor
Angeli Kapoor Puri is an artist, business entrepreneur, socialite and a social worker dedicated to several causes. She has made an impressionable mark in the field of Jewelry as an International designer. Artistic creativity is in her soul and as such she has made significant contributions in many fields. She is the promoter of Miss India Angel World contest and advocates women's rights. She is the founder of Angel Foundation which fights for the cause of female foeticide and crime against women. She believes that there is nothing more satisfying for her than saving the life of a girl child. The Angel foundation aims at not only saving the life of girl child but also helping her to live a life of dignity by being financially independent. She organizes various shows and exhibitions through which the money is raised for her foundation.Real Wealth Creators for the Communities KVP
Rahul Barkataky
Rahul is currently the CEO of Sewa Trade Facilitiation Centre (STFC). He has been a successful social entrepreneur who has co-founded and nurtured two high impact social enterprises in the last 10 years. He has 13 years of work experience in the development sector in India. He started his professional work life with Centre for Environment Education (CEE) in 1995, a centre of excellence of the Ministry of Environment and Forests in Ahmedabad. The passion to do something for the environment made him take this decision. He co-founded CFM in 2006 with the objective of creating wealth for artisan communities in India. He launched an innovative financial inclusion program for artisans and local entrepreneurs network with support from eBay Foundation in 2008. As the CEO of STFC, his mandate is to achieve a turnover of Rs 10 crores by 2012 and in the process create wealth for 3500 artisan shareholders in 80 villages across 3 Districts in Gujarat. He believes that economic empowerment of disadvantaged communities should be a priority for the development sector in India. And by economic empowerment he not only means access to credit, but promoting micro-enterprises at the village level so that people can tap locally available resources to create wealth, not only for themselves but also for the community at large. He had been awarded the Ashoka Affiliate in 2004 amongst his other recognitions.
