Have you got a hero?

[khadijahmalik]

I have got a hero and his name is Mr Nelson Mandela. My old hero was Mr George Bush but my father said that I should get a new hero because Mr George Bush tells lies and kills people and Mrs Caroline told me that that my father is right and Mr George Bush is not such a good hero for me to have and she told me about Mr Nelson Mandela who is a true hero and he was in prison for 27 years on an island in Africa. Then he got free and won the nobel prize for being peaceful so he is my new hero.

Please tell me about if you have got a hero too.

from Khadijah Malik

[MXB]

This is a very good topic you put here Khadi, and I think that Nelson Mandela is a terrific hero to have, (much better than George Bush), in fact he is also one of mine too.

Other people I admire are Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Harriet Taubman, Jesse Owens, and Mother Hale who took very sick babies that no one wanted into her home in New York and looked after them.

Sojourner Truth would be another good one for you, she was a freed slave who traveled round speaking against slavery and fought for rights for both blacks and women. She chose the name 'Truth' because that is what she always told, and I know that you are also a girl who tries to be truthful.

Others you might like to ask your father about are Booker T Washington, Marcus Garvey, and Rosa Parks.

Another interesting woman was Elizabeth Jennings, who 100 years before Rosa Parks, refused to give up her bus seat, and because of her, African Americans gained the right to use public transportation in New York.

love malc xxx

[Debbie]

Lots of smaller heroes about as well. Two of mine are Bud Welch and Jeanette Popp. Bud Welch is a MVFS who's part of the Journey of Hope, and Jeanette Popp is the mother of Nancy DePriest. Two boys were forced into false confessions and found guilty of her murder, and Ms Popp now campaigns alongside with one of them - Chris Ochoa - against Injustice. She's a tiny little woman with a big heart, and a big voice, bless her.

[pebbles]

Sophie Delezio is not only a little hero but a huge inspiration in my eyes... for those of you who do not her here is a little bit of what she has had to endure in her short life.

SOPHIE Delezio, who survived terrible burns when a car smashed through her pre-school, is on a life support machine tonight in a critical condition after being hit by a car.

The Sydney five-year-old was struck outside her school on Frenchs Forest Road at Seaforth at 4pm.

She has been airlifted to Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick with head, face, chest and leg injuries.

An ambulance spokeswoman has confirmed her condition as critical.

She won the nation's heart after beating 85 per cent burns when a car crashed into the first floor of the Roundhouse pre-school in Manly in December 2003.

She started at school earlier this year despite her terrible injuries.

Sophie's father Ron Delezio said the car, a Holden Apollo sedan, struck her when it failed to stop at a pedestrian crossing. It stopped later.
"She was in a pram crossing the road and someone didn't stop," Mr Delezio told Macquarie radio.

"It just hit the pram.

"We don't know her full condition yet.

"We believe she got a broken leg of some sort but we don't know the full extent at this stage."


Sophie was badly burnt in December 2003 when a car burst into flames after slamming into the Roundhouse Childcare Centre at Fairlight, in Sydney's northern beaches.
Sophie, then aged two, and her friend Molly Wood, also two, were pinned under the car and spent months in hospital recovering from critical burns.

Sophie lost both her feet, some fingers and her right ear in the accident.

[scotkaz]

Great topic!!

All of the people mentioned are heros and [people I admire too.

Especally Nelson Mandella and Malcom X and Martin Luther King of course.

I admire Ghandi. I think he was a wonderful man who fought so well and without violence.

Mother Theresa also for her devotion and fight for the poor.

Sister Helen Prejean for her wonderful work with death row inmates and also the families of victims. I have had the pleasure of meeting her a few times. She is wonderful.

Clive Stafford Smith, another wonderrful fighter for justice and to end the death penalty. He also does a massive amount of work for the prisoners in Guatamala (sp) Bay.

K x

[MXB]

Little heroes are also very important and very inspirational, and Sophie Delezio is a courageous little girl whom we can all look up to.

Mrs Caroline told me about an Aboriginal boy, just a little older than you, called Jandamarra, who was badly burned a few years ago too, and how brave he was.(I bet Pebbles knows about him too). And how even his name Jandamarra was the name of an Aboriginal hero, who was a freedom fighter about 100 years ago in the Kimberleys in Western Australia.

Mrs Caroline said that there is a good book written about that Jandamarra , so I'm going to get that for you honey, and Mrs Caroline will give it to you. when she comes home from hospital.

Hey and did I tell you that my mama named me after an African American hero? You ask your daddy and I'm sure that he'll be happy to to tell you about Malcolm.

love Malc xxx

[ceewalker]

"Heroes" - The Song

Words by David Bowie. Music by David Bowie and Brian Eno.


Lyrics

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be Heroes, just for one day

And you, you can be mean
And I, I'll drink all the time
'Cause we're lovers, and that is a fact
Yes we're lovers, and that is that

Though nothing, will keep us together
We could steal time, just for one day
We can be Heroes, for ever and ever
What d'you say?

I, I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim
Though nothing, nothing will keep us together
We can beat them, for ever and ever
Oh we can be Heroes, just for one day

I, I will be king
And you, you will be queen
Though nothing will drive them away
We can be Heroes, just for one day
We can be us, just for one day

I, I can remember (I remember)
Standing, by the wall (by the wall)
And the guns, shot above our heads (over our heads)
And we kissed, as though nothing could fall (nothing could fall)
And the shame, was on the other side
Oh we can beat them, for ever and ever
Then we could be Heroes, just for one day

We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
We can be Heroes
Just for one day
We can be Heroes

We're nothing, and nothing will help us
Maybe we're lying, then you better not stay
But we could be safer, just for one day

Oh-oh-oh-ohh, oh-oh-oh-ohh, just for one day

[MXB]

Caroline asked us to list some of her heroes for you Khadi



Nelson Mandela

Walter Sisulu, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Oliver Tambo-Ending of apartheid in South Africa.

The 14th Dalai Lama

Jetsum Pema of Tibet who is the sister of the Dalai Lama and the founder of Tibetan Children's Villages which helps give about 15,000 refugee children a home and education each year

Mahatma Gandhi

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi - Liberation of Burma/Myanmar from unelected military regime

Rigoberta Menchú Tum - Human rights for Mayan Indians and other indigenous peoples of Guatemala

Survivors of the Nazi concentration camps

Craig Kielburger - a 12 y.o Canadian who formed a very suucessful organization called Free The Children, an international network of children aimed at eradicating child slave labor around the world.

Craig and his schoolmates signed petitions and faxed world leaders, including their own prime minister in Canada.

Free The Children was funded - and still is --- by garage sales, pop sales, car washes, and bake sales run by children. No one on the Board of Directors of the organization was older than 18.

At the age of 14, Craig even went to the slums, sweatshops, and back alleys of South Asia to find those enslaved children. He accompanied police on a raid to free children in a factory, and he went with the police when those children were returned to their parents.

Wei Jingsheng- Human rights and democracy for China

Muhammad Ali- for all the things that people don't know that he's done for others, especially children..

Bruce Lee -With nothing but his hands, feet and a lot of attitude, he turned the little guy into a tough guy

The many women survivors widowed in the Rwandan genocide who were infected with HIV/AIDS

Refugees and Asylum Seekers from war-torn countries

[robbie]

Oh yes, Mahatma Gandhi is a great hero of the Indian people, and of myself in particular.


Gandhi's Message To World Tomorrow, New York, November 14, 1924

My study and experience of non-violence have proved to me that it is the greatest force in the world. It is the surest method of discovering the truth and it is the quickest because there is no other. It works silently, almost imperceptibly, but none the less surely. It is the one constructive process of Nature in the midst of incessant destruction going on about us. I hold it to be a superstition to believe that it can work only in private life. There is no department of life, public or private, to which that force cannot be applied. But this non-violence is impossible without complete self-effacement.

[World Tomorrow, a pacifist monthly, was edited by the Reverend Kirby Page. This message was published in the issue of January 1925.]


Robbie

[street]

Yeah I got one Khadijah and her name is Caroline.

[MXB]

street