Top 3 Finalists 2017
Kanchana Thornton
Saving lives on the Thai-Burma border
Kanchana Thornton established Burma Children Medical Fund in 2006. She provides much needed medical care for those disenfranchised by decades of war and political conflict in Burma on the Thai-Burma border.
Kanchana has spent many years working with Thai security institutions to acquire authorization to treat refugees and migrants, and has negotiated for their safe passage to hospitals for treatment. She has even secured significant discounts in hospital bills, allowing the money saved to go towards further expanding BCMF.
To date, Kanchana has helped save over 2,000 patients with complex medical conditions who wouldn’t have survived without her help.
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Mrs. Shobha Rani
Educating and caring for children in Hyderabad, India
Shobha Rani co-founded Spandana Society with her husband, an NGO that shelters, educates and cares for orphans and abandoned children in Hyderabad India.
Believing young people can easily become the change-makers and innovators of tomorrow if they are given a good start in life, Shobha works daily to ensure the children under her care have a happy and healthy childhood. Her programme prioritizes moral education so that her students can grow to become good-hearted, intelligent citizens of their communities.
Shobha cares for 70 children every day. She created Spandana Children’s Home as a microcosm of her ideal India.
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Father Charles Ogada
Creating bright futures for children in Nigeria
Father Ogada founded Joy Village in Ebe, Nigeria. The project supplies water to draught-stricken villages, provides a home for orphans, offers free healthcare and high quality values-based education for children from over 25 villages.
Father Ogada’s vision is to eradicate poverty in Ebe by providing life essentials for free. Believing there is no “bad” child, he emphasises the values of integrity, empathy and sacrifice in his teaching so that his students can become beacons of light for the world. His goal is to have Joy Villages across Africa – model human communities living without divisions and in goodness, harmony and peace.