Paladin Studios

Paladin Studios believes that new digital media can change the way people learn and communicate. Even though technology is often at the basis of innovation, human experience must stay at the basis of design. Computer aided presentation and training should not simply replace or copy traditional forms, but should enhance and expand them.

Their game, Enercities, was just put on Facebook as its first socially responsible game application. Project Enercities offers a serious gaming – learning platform for young people (typical target group: 15-20 years) to experience energy-related implications. The goal is to create and expand virtual cities dealing with pollution, energy shortages, renewable energy etc. The development of the serious game is based on state of the art technologies and insights. The game is fully web-based, 3D perspective (via Unity3D plug-in) and is suitable to play on low-budget computers. The game offers a semi-realistic simulation with game-like visual styles (cartoony) and low entry barriers (easy to understand; multiple levels in order to bring-in more complexity). All these approaches enable a wide distribution of the Enercities serious game across Europe.

Kim Brizzolara, Hero of the Month!

Kim Brizzolara is chair of the Hampton’s International Film Festival, Films of Conflict & Resolution, where she oversees an international advisory board in the selection and development of a juried section of films from conflict zones of the world; and is on the board of Creative Visions, which fosters the work of creative activists in film and media. She is currently producing a feature film based on a memoir of a blind hero of the French Resistance. Kim has served as a grantsmaker for the Threshold Foundation, where she designated funds to non-profit organizations that focus on peace and national security issues; as acting director of the Coexistence Center at Baruch College School of Public Affairs, which focuses on conflict resolution, race relations, ethnic diversity and equity in the academic environment and in the community; as conference coordinator for Economists Allied for Arms Reduction and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights; on the campaigns of Mario Cuomo, and Rudolph Giuliani, author of numerous position papers, grants proposals and freelance articles; and as a reporter for East Side Express and The Philadelphia Inquirer. She awarded Shine Global with the first Conflict and Resolution Development Award for THE HARVEST at the 2009 Hamptons International Film Festival.

Kim’s vast experience and dedication to bringing important stories to light is truly remarkable. We, at Shine, commend her amazing efforts to tell stories that make a difference in people’s lives.

Dianne Feinstein Awarded by the UFW Foundation

Dianne Feinstein is receiving the United Farm Workers Foundation’s “Fair Harvest Champion Award” for her leadership on the historic Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act (AgJOBS) that will positively change the lives of over a million farm workers and their families. The AgJOBS bill represents a major compromise between the United Farm Workers and major agricultural employers to address the immigration crisis and the impoverished existence that American farm workers are forced to live.

For more information about the AgJOBS bill please go to www.fwjustice.org.

Dani Black, Establishing Shine Global’s Campus Rep Program

Dani, Shine’s newest intern, is from Tampa, Florida and attends the University of Florida in Gainesville. She served as the VP of Internal Relations of Phi Mu’ sorority’s Executive Board as well as the Disability Affairs Cabinet Director in her student government.

Dani came to Shine Global with a head full of innovative ideas to expand our mission. Her background as a leader and organizer has led her to create the new Shine Global Campus Rep Program, which we will be piloting in the fall. Starting with 4 colleges, we will select highly motivated students to act as interns/representatives for Shine Global who will plan events, educate high school students, and partner with local organizations that match Shine’s mission of raising awareness and effecting political change.

Dani has made an indelible mark here at Shine in her few short weeks here. We know she will continue to inspire us throughout the summer! Thanks, Dani!!

Phil Kellerman, Harvest of Hope

Phil Kellerman established the Harvest of Hope Foundation in 1997 with inheritance money from his grandmother, Dr. Helen Zand – a long time social worker and advocate for the indigent. Harvest of Hope seeks to raise funds exclusively for migrant farm worker individuals and families.

As of September 27, 2007, the Harvest of Hope Foundation has distributed over $717,000 to migrant farm workers and families around the country for repairs to vehicles, housing, utilities, medical services and bills, food, clothing, funeral expenses and tuition for migrant students attending college. In addition, the Foundation has issued small grants to migrant-related support service organizations.

The Harvest of Hope Foundation’s Mission is to provide emergency and educational aid to migrant farmworkers and their families is extremely limited and often not available. Thus, it is the goal of the Harvest of Hope Foundation to fill in the gaps in service to this most hard-working yet needy group of seasonal migrant workers and families by distributing funds to pay for gas, tires, car repairs, rent, utilities, medical services, food, clothing, funeral expenses and educational scholarships.

Jenny & Richard Bowen, Half the Sky Foundation

In 1997, Jenny and Richard Bowen adopted their daughter, Maya, a toddler from a welfare institution in southern China. They received a first-hand education in early childhood development and the trauma of institutionalization: she suffered from both physical and cognitive developmental delays. But after just one year of individual attention, love and nurture, Maya was transformed.

How easy it was to make a tremendous difference in the life of one young child! What if you could do the same for the many children in China who languish waiting for families — or those who will never be adopted? That’s how Half the Sky Foundation — named for the Chinese adage, “Women hold up half the sky” — was born in 1998.

Half the Sky’s mission — to provide family-like nurturing care in the lives of orphaned children — was clear, but the effectiveness of its first pilot programs, launched in the summer of 2000, was an open question.

Thousands of children are now enrolled in Half the Sky programs to provide love and hope for orphaned children. Since Half the Sky began its work in China in 2000, more than ten thousand children have benefited from one or more of these four innovative programs:

The Baby Sisters Infant Nurture Program — Half the Sky employs, trains and supervises local women to work as full-time nannies, providing orphaned babies the stimulation, bonding and affection that are essential to a healthy start.

The Little Sisters Preschool Program — Teachers from the local community are trained in Half the Sky’s innovative curriculum, designed to give young children the self-confidence, basic skills and love of learning that will help them to succeed when they move on to primary school.

The Big Sisters Program — Older children, especially those who’ve not had the benefit of early education, often give up on themselves. Half the Sky provides these children individualized learning opportunities, according to their own interests, talents and aspirations.

The Family Village Program — Children, whose medical and developmental challenges preclude them from government adoption programs, grow up in permanent loving families, living in Half the Sky-provided homes nearby the institution where they can receive the support services they need.

Please visit their site halfthesky.org

Information gathered from halfthesky.org

Rachel Lloyd and GEMS

Girls Educational and Mentoring Services’ (GEMS), was founded in 1999 by Rachel Lloyd, a young woman who had been sexually exploited as a teenager. Ms. Lloyd came to the U.S in 1997 as a missionary to work with adult women exiting prostitution. While working with adult women in correctional facilities and on the streets, Ms. Lloyd observed the overwhelming need for services for young women at risk for sexual exploitation who were being ignored by traditional social service agencies. It became clear that specialized services were essential for this disenfranchised population.

From a one-woman kitchen table project, GEMS has grown to a nationally recognized and acclaimed organization and now is one of the largest providers of services to commercially sexually exploited and domestically trafficked youth in the US. GEMS’ vision is to end the commercial exploitation and trafficking of children. GEMS advocates at the local, state and national level to promote policies that support young women who have been commercially sexually exploited and domestically trafficked.

Girls Educational and Mentoring Services’ (GEMS) mission is to empower young women, ages 12-21, who have experienced sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking to exit the commercial sex industry and develop to their full potential. GEMS is committed to ending commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking of children by changing individual lives, transforming public perception, and revolutionizing the systems and policies that impact sexually exploited youth.

To read more about Rachel and GEMS click here

Carol Dyanti, Soweto

Imagine having thousands of children calling you “mum” and demanding your love, attention, care and advice. That is everyday life for Carol Dyanti, known affectionately as Mama Carol to more than 1,700 orphans in Soweto. Mama Carol, of Ikageng Itireleng AIDS Ministry, oversees the care of these children in over 225 homes throughout Soweto. All of these children live in child-headed households, and have seen firsthand the true devastation of AIDS. Ikageng provides mentoring, life skills, and counseling to help children in these child-headed households grow into well-developed adults who can contribute to their communities. Siblings continue to live together in their homes, creating strong sibling solidarity and promoting the family unit and structure. Through the provision of basic needs such as food, clothing, transportation, water, electricity, school fees, healthcare and transport, Ikageng relieves some of the pressure and despair faced by these young children, who, having lost their parents, must take on adult roles.

Mama Carol, who was a nurse before she became a mother to hundreds, began noticing the children in her community were mostly orphans. As she started taking care of them, the head nurse where she worked told her she must make a choice between her job and her community service- for Carol, this was not a choice at all. She had to continue helping these children. And she certainly has. As CEO and founder of Ikageng Itireleng AIDS Ministry, Mama Carol has no simple job description. She does whatever needs to be done to help her children. As a former activist who helped to end Apartheid, she knows that all it takes for change is one person. Mama Carol is that one person, and she inspires change in all who hear her story.

Learn more about Mama Carol and Ikageng Itireleng at http://www.ikageng.org.za/

Information gathered from the Ikageng Itireleng and the Keep a Child Alive websites.

Phymean Noun’s work in Cambodia

Walking down a street in Cambodia’s capital city, Phymean Noun finished her lunch and tossed her chicken bones into the trash. Seconds later, she watched in horror as several children fought to reclaim her discarded food.

Phymean Noun is helping give Cambodian children a chance at a better life. Noun stopped to talk with them. After hearing their stories of hardship, she knew she couldn’t ignore their plight.

“I must do something to help these children get an education,” she recalls thinking. “Even though they don’t have money and live on the sidewalk, they deserve to go to school.”

Six years after that incident, Noun is helping many of Phnom Penh’s poorest children do just that.

Within weeks, she quit her job and started an organization to give underprivileged children an education. Noun spent $30,000 of her own money to get her first school off the ground. In 2004, her organization — the People Improvement Organization (PIO) — opened a school at Phnom Penh’s largest municipal trash dump, where children are a large source of labor.

Information gathered from CNN.com, CNN Heroes Special Report.

To read more please go to cnn.com and vote for Phymean Noun for Hero of the Year.

Sara O’Meara and Yvonne Fedderson, Co-Founders of ChildHelp

Hollywood actresses Sara Buckner (O’Meara) and Yvonne Lime (Fedderson) first met on the set of The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet, when they played the girlfriends of Ricky and David Nelson. Their mission for children began in 1959 when they were sent on a government-sponsored goodwill tour to visit troops in Japan.

On the streets of Tokyo after a typhoon, the actresses came upon a group of cold and frightened children huddled together for warmth. Learning they had no parents and were born from American troops during the Korean War, the young women took the children to their hotel room for the night with the idea of placing them into an orphanage the next day.

In 1959, Sara O’Meara and Yvonne Fedderson founded Childhelp®, which is a leading national non-profit organization dedicated to helping victims of child abuse and neglect.  Childhelp’s approach focuses on prevention, intervention and treatment. The Childhelp® National Child Abuse Hotline, 1-800-4-A-CHILD, operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and receives calls from throughout the United States, Canada, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Guam. Several of Childhelp’s programs were firsts, and continue to be studied by professionals worldwide as “models that work.” Sara O’Meara and Yvonne Fedderson continue to actively lead the organization and provide its vision, serving as Chairman/CEO and President, respectively.

Please visit the ChildHelp website by clicking here.

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