Boys' development

I grew up in a family of six brothers and one girl, at the age of 12yrs every body in our house was struck by measles for two weeks when my mother had got a transfer to a new school and my follower remained sick longest and eventually became deaf, after several tests and treatments and we all lost hope on him regaining his hearing.All the years i have watched him grow and do things successfully and became a deaf primary school teacher, started the Kenya Federation of Deaf Teachers and becoming it's chairman, Chairman to the Siaya Deaf Self Help Group and Maseno Deaf Self Help Group. after seeing the success of these groups i sat down with him and discussed the need to now give back to the deaf community by starting the children center, which we are struggling to put up but still lack enough funds to have the children live with us.
Also when the schools close for holidays, a lot of these children remain at school because they have no place to go back to call home after losing their parents to death.
There are a lot of deaf youths who were engaging in risky behaviors with other deaf girls after classes because they have a lot of energy.

There isn’t one particular defining moment that led me to the DTFP initiative. I lived in Liberia with my father for just three short years when I was eight years old, 1979-1982. The country was beautiful and amazing, and seemingly innocent. From about 1980 until recently, 2005, Liberia has been in conflict and war. Hundreds of thousands were killed and thousands more fled the country in fear of losing their lives. Liberia lost that innocence that I had witnessed as a boy. The country and region was strewn with conflict, death and destruction, child soldiers, blood diamonds. As I watched this war, one among many in Africa, and I simply wanted to find a way to prevent it from ever happening again. Starting in 2003, I began supporting Liberian refugees at camps in Ghana and Nigeria, funding vocational training programs in hopes that one day, they could return to their country with a skill to help rebuild it. It was during these terrible years that my interest in sustainability grew and in 2007, I was able to be one of the initial graduate students at the new School of Sustainability at Arizona State University, the first in the nation. Since then I've learned many lessons in sustainability and have been exposed to many examples of successful sustainable development, lessons and knowledge I can now apply to Africa in order to prevent those wars I vowed to end so many years ago. In 2008, I was able to safely visit Liberia for the first time in 25 years. The country was virtually the same as 25 years earlier, absolutely no development or progress, only the un-development in the rubble of destroyed buildings, impassable roads, gutted infrastructure, and overexploited resources. Yet, people were returning, and with them, hope for a more sustainable future. And in their eyes shown a glimmer of that innocence I remembered from my youth. And I was stunned, by the multitude of children, everywhere playing, smiling and laughing for my camera and the attention of a strange foreigner with a GPS. And most of all, they played football, not with a ball, but with balled up t-shirts tied together by string made of sugar cane husks, with bare feet for cleats, and strong shin bones for guards; no whistles or referees, no real organization or age separation, just hundreds of kids running around playing football for the sheer joy of the game. It was in these moments that the DTFP was born.

when Craig Bellamy met Tom Vernon (Right to Dream

The main victims of this internal conflict in Colombia are children. Parents from displaced by violence families struggle to support them, they have restricted access to school and are left alone at risk of falling into a life of drugs and crime.
COLOMBIANITOS is dedicated to bring hope of a better future to these children, giving them the means and the tools to lead a normal and healthy life and try to alleviate the physical and mental pain brought on by this merciless war.
COLOMBIANITOS focuses on the children, because they are the country’s future; we realize that a stable youth is Colombia’s only hope for future peace and reconstruction.

The Pilot Program in Bogotá, one of Colombia’s poorest and most violent areas, was founded in June 2002 as an informal football tournament with the participation 150 boys and girls. The passion children have for football is what gets them involved. Football is transformed into a tool that is used to teach children values. COLOMBIANITOS allows boys and girls to dream of becoming football stars and makes them better human beings in the process. Through the codes of football we teach them to dream, believe in their potential and in the possibility of real progress in their lives. Keeping children attending school, and using their spare time wisely by attending football training and other activities provided by “Goals for a Better Life”, distances them from the dangers exhibited on the street.

There was no specific defining time as such, because this social intervention model is a product of my passion for soccer coupled with my interest and commitment to social development, which was materialized in October 2007 after completing my postgraduate studies in philanthropy at Harvard University.

When a student of mine set up Skype for HIV positive students in South Africa.

well i have always had passion for young people, i am a youth i know the challenges a face in life, i have always looked for ways to develop my self, so this passion for developing my self led to the creation of this innovation, it was born out of a passion for the people of my country. Nigerian youth are suffering, most of them have lost hope for live, some due to peer pressure have lost focus in life and some are on their way to destruction, so these youth need advice, they need program that can bring them back to their purpose in life.

The idea came about 4 years ago when Dr. Cousineau called a CDC Project Officer and asked which demographic lacks public health initiatives the most when it comes to obesity prevention. She said teenagers. And she was right. There are a lot of online programs for young kids, preschoolers through tweens, and then it’s pretty sparse for the teen crowd. A few recent programs offer weight loss programs for teenagers, but they are largely modified from adult versions.
Teens are a tough crowd to reach in many ways. They are busy, preoccupied with social life, take risks, dismiss authoritarian messages, and so on. But we like a challenge. We teamed up with Debbie Franko, PhD, at Northeastern University, a nutrition and eating disorders expert, to plan this program. We applied for funding through the NIH Small Business Innovative Research Program and succeeded. Back then we could not anticipate the paradigm shift on the web. Facebook and MySpace didn’t exist. Technology was locked up with companies with proprietary software. Many research-based programs published in the health journals were simply not accessible for the public to view or use. Now there is open source software making building web programs easier and adaptable. Using the web to customize or tailor health messages has become an established health communications vehicle. Web 2.0 is now 3.0 (“semantic web”) allowing for even more synergy and intuitiveness on the web. BodiMojo will offer teens a savvy health destination.

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The defining moment that led to my innovation is a result of the experience that I had as a young female footballer who went through lots of life challenges for better future which was achieved through football. I personally had the opportunity to acquire my fundamental education. The situation of underprivilleged youths playing soccer in communities without the opportunity to acquire classroom training is alarming in our society and my life being a practical success story out of this situation, I thought to share my vision through this medium which i believe can help transform the lives of the less fortunate by adding value to them after footballer life.

* The Larger Problem -
There is a large slum settlement in the Gulbai Tekra area of Ahmedabad which is peopled by a community which is at the bottom rung of the Indian Hindu caste system hierarchy as well as being at the lowest possible indicators of human development regards income parameters, health and hygiene and other living standards. Paradoxically, this slum is an encroachment on a private property in an area of affluence around it, but vested interests have ensured that neither the problems of the encroachment are solved, nor the lot of this community is improved since almost 4 to 5 decades. Most of them work at self employed trades and their prime source of income is from 4 months of terracotta idol making which they trade all over India. The rest of the year is dependent on the earnings from these 4 months. The slum is situated right next to St. Xaviers College which runs a few upliftment programmes for them (a free medical camp every week, free rations once a month, etc).
The one uplifting factor – the youth of this slum are madly in love with the game of football. Even when we were in college, and after, when we started representing local clubs in the city league, these youth would travel large distances to see our matches and cheer us. Even today, there has to be a whiff of a football match and they will be there to see the same often even walking long distances barefoot to get there since they can't even afford the public transport fares.

The defining moment for us was after this years city league final match played at St. Xavier's College ground when a few of them came up to us and very confidently asked us if we could help them with registering a team and entering the same in tournaments. When asked the reason for their confidence they proclaimed that they had after all, been practising for the last 15 years and were now ready to take on any team !!!

The backwardness of rural areas from the rest of the world led me do this innovation.

When I came to Guatemala to do mission work, I originally worked delivering food and clothing to orphanages. As time passed, I began to see that, while food distribution was necessary, my efforts didn’t change the situation that these children found themselves in.
I began teaching English at one small girl’s orphanage and from there we set up our first computer lab.
It was after my first English lessen for 12 girls that I realized that education was what they needed. I still remember the excitement on their faces as they learned the first few words of English, and the amazement on their face when they first put their hands on the keyboard and saw the letters they typed come up on the screen.

I would have to say George Parker I met him 3 years ago he has been working 7 days a week for 4 years with no pay all the guys have been doing this with no pay. There is not to many people in the world like this guys.