Aung San Suu Kyi (MYANMAR) – 2010 Hero of the Year – Moralheroes.org
A symbol of heroic and peaceful resistance in the face of opposition and an example of the power of the powerless. Daw Aung San Suu Kyi has given hope and spoken wisdom to the Burmese people over the last two decades. Hope that one day there will be an end to the military oppression in their country. In 2010, after peacefully serving her imprisonment for nearly 15 years, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is able to speak publicly about democracy, peace, and freedom.
http://moralheroes.org/aung-san-suu-kyi
Anuradha Koirala (NEPAL) – 2010 CNN Hero of the Year
Koirala’s own history in an abusive relationship led her to her crusade. For most of her young adulthood, she taught primary school English in Nepal. But when her relationship took a violent turn, her life’s “purpose and responsibility completely changed,” she said. After the relationship ended, Koirala used a portion of her $100 monthly salary to start a small retail shop to employ and support displaced victims of sex trafficking and domestic violence.
By the early 1990s, an increasing demand for help and persistent cases of violence against women compelled Koirala to do more. Maiti Nepal was her brainchild for giving voice, legal defense and rehabilitation to victims of sex trafficking. More than 12,000 Nepali women and girls have been rescued and rehabilitated since 1993
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cnn.heroes/archive10/anuradha.koirala.html
Jay Feinberg (UNITED STATES) – 2010 Jewish Community Hero
When his personal search for a bone marrow donor took a long four years, and the 60,000th donor was found to be his life-saving miracle match, Jay realized the enormity of how much more he could accomplish to help others. He made it his life’s work to save other people by increasing the representation of Jewish people in the world-wide registry, in order to overcome the devastating effects of the Holocaust which severed family bloodlines and left people with no other alternative than to search the unrelated donor pool for a match of similar genetic ancestry to their own. He envisioned the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation which is responsible for the facilitation of more than 2,100 bone marrow transplants worldwide.
http://www.jewishcommunityheroes.org/nominees/profile/jay-feinberg/
Liu Xiaobo (CHINA) – 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Liu Xiaobo is a Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist who called for political reforms and the end of communist one-party rule in China. He is currently incarcerated as a political prisoner in the People’s Republic of China. Liu is one of the best known human rights activists in China, initially known for the student protest and hunger strike in Tienanmen Square in 1989.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2010/
Lynn Henning (UNITED STATES)– 2010 O Magazine Power List
Ten years ago when Lynn Henning realized that the factory farms proliferating near her family farm in Michigan were polluting the air and water and endangering her loved ones’ health, she did what any concerned 42-year-old tractor-driving mom would do: She took them on. Henning organized her neighbors, lobbied state regulatory agencies and the EPA, and tirelessly amassed evidence of factory farms’ dangerous manure disposal practices (wherein lagoons of toxic waste are emptied onto surrounding fields, untreated, as “fertilizer”). The legal battles continue to this day, and Lynn Henning continues to be the chief voice for those injured by the disposal practices.
http://www.oprah.com/world/The-2010-O-Power-List/15
Wacky Rymel (ENGLAND) – MTV’s 2010 Good for the Hood Winner
This teenager’s dream of improving his neighborhood by running free dance classes for young people became a reality after he won the Good 4 The Hood competition, run by the Home Office and MTV to find a young person with an inspiring plan to improve their local community. In a community of gangs, guns and crime, his dance classes offer a positive alternative for the youth.
http://www.inspiringyoungpeople.co.uk/index.php/2009/10/wacky-rymel-mtvs-good-for-the-hood-competition-winner/
Thuli Brilliance Makama (SWAZILAND)– Goldman Environmental Prize Winner 2010
After a grueling three-year legal battle, Swaziland’s only public interest environmental attorney, Thuli Brilliance Makama, won a landmark case to include environmental NGO representation in the Swaziland Environment Authority, reinforcing the right to public participation in environmental decision making. Her NGO, Yonge Nawe Environmental Action Group, founded in 1987, supports local communities to launch legal complaints against game parks which have, in the past few years, become a real threat to the poor inhabitants’ existence through the use of legally immune violence and executions.
http://www.goldmanprize.org/2010/africa
Shiva Nazar Ahari (IRAN) – 2010 Featured Hero @ MoralHeroes.org
One of the founders of the Committee of Human Rights Reporters and the Society of Tara Women, which is devoted to the lawful, nonviolent defense of the rights of women in Iran. She has been denied higher education and faced multiple imprisonments and solitary confinements due to her social and political activism. Nazar Ahari was released on the half a million dollar bail on September 12, 2010. However, her politically motivated charges have not been dropped. She has been sentenced to 6.5 years in prison and 76 lashes.
http://moralheroes.org/shiva-nazar-ahari
Abby Enck (UNITED STATES)– Yahoo #1 Inspiring Act of 2010
Eight-year-old Abby Enck frequently accompanied her 6-year-old brother, Cameron, born with cerebral palsy, to Lutheran General Children’s Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois. Abby noticed that the other pediatric patients liked to color, but many of the crayons were broken. She wanted to buy a few new boxes of crayons. With help from a friend, Abby decided to raise the money through a lemonade sale, a classic childhood scheme with a fresh twist. They used the idea of creating bottled-water lemonade kits with a packet and homemade tag. A little entrepreneur, Abby created a plan, a list of potential customers, wrote emails, and created the slogan: “When life gives you lemons, color!” In that first summer selling to her Chicago neighbors, she raised enough money to buy 18 boxes of crayons and donated 36 to the hospital. In 2010 Abby reached a goal of 1,000 crayon boxes.
http://yearinreview.yahoo.com/2010/us_inspiring_acts#1abbys-lemonade
Mir-Hossein Mousavi (IRAN) – 2010 Time 100 Poll Winner
Mousavi, once a protégé of Ayatollah Ali Khomenei, has emerged as a problem for the regime he helped create. Despite losing last year’s presidential election — or, as many Iranians believe, having it stolen from him — he has deftly marshaled his supporters into a political movement that has resisted numerous threats and crackdowns. Mousavi and other reformist leaders are now working in peaceful and legal methods to widen the influence of their reforms. He stated that his main goals were: to institutionalize social justice, equality and fairness, freedom of expression, to root out corruption They have set up a new coalition, named The Green Path of Hope.
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1972075_1976159_1976160,00.html
