Roberto Clemente

“Anytime you have an opportunity to make a difference in this world and you don’t do it, you are wasting your time on this earth.”

It’s unfortunate that most biographies you will find about Roberto Clemente focus on his baseball career and not on his life off the field. I just finished watching a biography about this man, and was blown away by his depth and sense of humanitarianism. Roberto Clemente not only broke barriers in the world of baseball, he lived a life true to his ideals, speaking up about injustice and taking action to help those less fortunate. One of his dreams was to create a sports city for underpriveleged youth in his native Puerto Rico after he retired.

During a visit to Nicaragua in the early 70s, Roberto Clemente was impacted by the poverty he saw there, and the standards of living that reminded him of his own childhood growing up in Puerto Rico in the 40s. He felt such a strong connection to the people of Nicaragua that when Managua was devastated by a powerful earthquake in 1972, Roberto personally mobilized a massive relief effort. Upon hearing that some relief supplies were not reaching those in need because of theft and corruption, he decided to fly to Nicaragua to oversee the distribution. Tragically, Roberto Clemente was killed when his plane crashed into the ocean moments after take-off.

It is worthwhile doing a little digging to find out about this man beyond his baseball career.

_{image: nytimes, link: pbs.org, brief overview of the biography I watched.}

Muhammad Yunus

Muhammad Yunus (born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi banker and economist. He previously was a professor of economics where he developed the concept of microcredit. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. Yunus is also the founder of Grameen Bank.

In 1976, during visits to the poorest households in the village of Jobra near Chittagong University, Yunus discovered that very small loans could make a disproportionate difference to a poor person. Jobra women who made bamboo furniture had to take out usurious loans for buying bamboo, to pay their profits to the moneylenders. His first loan, consisting of USD 27.00 from his own pocket, was made to 42 women in the village, who made a net profit of BDT 0.50 (USD 0.02) each on the loan, thus vastly improving Bangladesh’s ability to export and import as it did in the past, resulting in a greater form of globalization and economic status.

The concept of providing credit to the poor as a tool of poverty reduction was not unique. Dr. Akhtar Hameed Khan, founder of the Pakistan Academy for Rural Development (now Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development), is credited for pioneering the idea. From his experience at Jobra, Yunus, an admirer of Dr. Hameed, realized that the creation of an institution was needed to lend to those who had nothing. While traditional banks were not interested in making tiny loans at reasonable interest rates to the poor due to high repayment risks, Yunus believed that given the chance the poor will repay the borrowed money and hence microcredit could be a viable business model.

In 2006, Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.” Yunus himself has received several other national and international honors. He is the author of Banker to the Poor and a founding board member of Grameen America and Grameen Foundation.

_{image: events.stanford.edu}

_{link is to Wikipedia article.}

Dr. Denis Mukwege

Alohanani already posted about Dr. Mukwege. But I read the link she posted (not for the faint-hearted), and it is clear that Dr. Mukwege cannot be recognized enough.

The kind of cruelty occurring in the Congo is more than you can possibly wrap your mind around. Makes you wonder how the U.S. can be so eager to send troops to places like the Middle East, yet be so slow when it comes to addressing atrocities in Sudan and basically turn a blind eye to the unbelievable violence against women and girls in places like the Congo.

_{image: blog.ushmm.orglink is to Glamour article on Dr. Mukwege and the women he tries to help in the Congo.}

Richard Loving

Richard Loving, along with his wife, Mildred, had the courage to stand up against the State of Virginia, which, along with several other states in the nation, maintained laws on their books that declared that love should not cross color lines.

It seems especially appropriate to celebrate the Lovings when, 42 years later, states are still telling consenting adults who they can or cannot commit to in a loving marital relationship.

The Lovings, Richard with their son, Donald.

_{images:findingdulcinea.com, fredericksburg.com., media.npr.org}

_{links are to a Wikipedia article on the Lovings and an SF Chronicle article on Proposition 8 – 43Things format would not allow link to the Wiki article on Prop 8 to work.}

Dan West, Founder of Heifer International

While serving as a relief worker handing out food rations in Spain during the Spanish Civil War, Dan West realized that what was needed were ways that communities could become self-sustaining on a long-term basis. Upon returning home, he founded Heifers for Relief (later Heifer International) with the hope of someday ending hunger permanently.

_{image: heifer.orglinks: wikipedia bio and Heifer International site}

Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was a British pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, inventor, and intellectual [1]. He lived and worked in Britain until age 37, when he emigrated to the British American colonies, in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely-read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America’s independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series.

Later, Paine greatly influenced the French Revolution. He also wrote the Rights of Man (1791). In his Rights of Man, in which maintained that each age had the right to establish a political system which satisfied its needs. He rested his case on the moral basis of the natural equality of men in the sight of God. Since government is a necessary evil that men accepted as a means of protecting their natural rights (cf. John Locke), the only legitimate government was that established by a contract between all members of society and one in which all men preserved all their natural rights, except the individual right to use force. Paine argued rationally that all men had an equal claim to political rights and that government must rest on the ultimate sovereignty of the people.

_{image:scrollpublishing.com}

_{link is to Wikipedia article}

I was out on my deck enjoying the trees, flowers, and birds today, and thought of this man…

St. Francis of Assisi

Saint Francis of Assisi (September 26, 1181 or 1182 – October 3, 1226) was a Roman Catholic friar and the founder of the Order of Friars Minor, more commonly known as the Franciscans. He is known as the patron saint of animals, birds, the environment, and Italy, and it is customary for Catholic churches to hold ceremonies honoring animals around his feast day of October 4.

St. Francis was born to a wealthy cloth merchant, but a series of personal experiences and spiritual revelations led him to avow a life of poverty and charity. He had a deep love for nature and for animals, and both stories about him and his own writings reflect that.

St. Francis is considered the first Italian poet by literary critics. He believed commoners should be able to pray to God in their own language, and he wrote always in dialect of Umbria instead of Latin. His writings are considered to have great literary value, as well as religious.

_{summarized from Wikipedia – click the link above to learn more.}

_{image: stfrancisav.org}

Iqbal Masih

Iqbal Masih (Urdu: اقبال مسیح) (b. 1982 – April 16, 1995), was a Pakistani boy who was sold to a carpet industry as a child slave at the age of 4 for the equivalent of (12) USD.

Iqbal was held by a chain to a carpet loom in a small town called Muridke near Lahore. He was made to work sixteen hours per day. Due to long hours of hard work and insufficient food and care, Iqbal was undersized. At twelve years of age, Iqbal was the size of a six-year old. At the age of 10, he escaped the slavery and later joined a Bonded Labor Liberation Front of Pakistan to help stop child labour around the world, and Iqbal helped over 3,000 Pakistan children that were in bonded labour, escape to freedom. Iqbal gave talks about child labor all round the world.

He was murdered on Easter Sunday 1995. It is assumed by many that he was assassinated by members of the “carpet mafia” because of the publicity he brought towards the child labor industry. Some locals were accused of the crime, however.

In 1994, Iqbal was awarded the Reebok Human Rights Award. In 2000, when The World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child was formed, he was posthumously awarded this prize as one of the first laureates.
Masih’s work and subsequent death inspired the then 12 year old Canadian boy, Craig Kielburger to devote his life to the boy’s cause and organized Free the Children.

Francesco D’Adamo wrote an Italian children’s book about Iqbal’s story, from the point of view of Fatima, a child who worked with him at the carpet factory. The book has been translated into English and it is called “Iqbal”.

_{Unfortunately, Iqbal never made it to manhood. But I thought that his courage and desire to help others at such a young age deserved a place on this list.}

_{This information was taken from Wikipedia. Image from inspirationline.com}

Frederick Douglass

Born February (exact date unknown), 1818
Talbot County, Maryland, U.S.
Died February 20, 1895 (aged 77)
Washington, D.C., U.S.
Occupation Abolitionist

Frederick Douglass (February 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American abolitionist, editor, orator, author, statesman and reformer. Called “The Sage of Anacostia” and “The Lion of Anacostia”, Douglass is one of the most prominent figures in African American history and a formidable public presence. He was a firm believer in the equality of all people, whether black, female, Native American, or recent immigrant. He was fond of saying, “I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”

I was so absorbed in his autobiography when I first read it in high school. An amazing, astounding human being.

_{click on the link to learn more about Frederick Douglass at Wikipedia. Or better yet, get the book.}

a nice way to honor my son.