Amherst College graduate Kimmie Weeks wins BRICK award
In Features
Kimmie Weeks, who graduated from Amherst College in 2005, has won a 2007 BRICK Award, which honors those who do something to change the world before they are 25 years old. CNN has called the BRICK Award the "Oscar of youth service awards."Weeks was selected from more than 1,000 applicants to receive $10,000 for his organization, Youth Action International. He is also in the running for a Golden BRICK Award, which would provide him with an additional $15,000 for his work.
As a child, Weeks experienced violence and human suffering in the Liberian Civil War.
Said Weeks, "I was left for dead on a heap of decaying bodies when I was ten years old. It was the onset of the Liberian Civil War. My mother and I were among thousands of Liberians who were facing starvation and disease in a refugee camp. We came to the camp with no food and only the clothing we were wearing.
"A few days after we got into the camp we started drinking infested water and surviving on wild roots and leaves. The combination left me weak and sick for days. Eventually, I became so faint that I was pronounced dead and my body was taken out and thrown onto one of the piles of dead bodies. "The only recollection I have of this was feeling a violent shaking on my body, opening my eyes and seeing the grief and tears in my mother's eyes. My mother told me what had happened.
"It was that day that I made a vow. If I survived the camp I would commit my life to ensuring that no child suffers from starvation or disease as a result of armed conflicts."
Instead of succumbing to the pain and suffering he endured as a child, Weeks uses his experiences to fuel his vision of a world where all children have access to food, medicine, and shelter.
When he was sixteen years old, Weeks helped negotiate the disarmament of 20,000 child soldiers in the Liberian Civil War. At the age of 17, Weeks was forced to flee Liberia and seek political asylum in the U.S. after he was threatened by then President Charles Taylor for issuing a report on the government's involvement in the training of child soldiers.
Weeks founded Youth Action International (YAI) in 2002 "after hearing from many young people in the United States that they were unaware of the many problems facing the world's poorest people-or, if they were aware, they felt powerless and unable to help. As I listened, I wanted to find a way to give young Americans the chance to work directly on programs that benefit children."
Utilizing grassroots techniques, YAI connects young people in developed countries with those living in areas of need. The organization informs youths in industrialized countries about the suffering of the world's children and channels their desire to create positive social change.
YAI focuses on post-war countries that are "beyond the need for international emergency services, not yet advanced enough to have a self-sustaining commercial economy, and thus face the daily realities of a lack of safe schools, parks, or hospitals or even food or clean water."
YAI has active projects in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ghana, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda. YAI has provided more than 200 scholarships to girls, students with physical disabilities, and rural health care workers. The organization is currently in the process of building a center for war-affected women in Sierra Leone, which will provide access to basic education, counseling, vocational training, and micro-credit loans. YAI is also building two orphanages and fifteen playgrounds, while working to establish agriculture programs for former child soldiers and providing opportunities for young people who have lost their parents to AIDS and war.
When Weeks formed Youth Action International, he was attending Amherst College.
Explained Weeks, "Youth Action International started right here in the Pioneer Valley. It was my second year of college and I was sitting on the floor in our hall eating wings and drinking beer with classmates. Somebody asked why I did not start an organization in the U.S. Without realizing what I was getting myself into-and probably because of the beer-I agreed. Since then, YAI has continued to grow rapidly and our programs are touching hundreds of more lives every year. Imagine...it all started over wings and beer."
He describes attending school in The Valley as "a transforming experience."
"I had just come from post-war Liberia and was petrified to attend school in the United States,"Weeks said. "While in Liberia, I had come to believe that Americans simply did not care for Africa. However, the diversity and kindness I discovered in The Valley changed my perception. Everywhere I turned, I saw students from so many different cultures volunteering, organizing, giving. It was incredible."
In The Valley, there are active chapters of Youth Action International at Amherst, Hampshire, Mt. Holyoke, Smith, and Amherst colleges.
"My life's work,"Weeks said, "is helping children who, like me, are living through or have been affected by war. Millions of children in sub-Saharan Africa have been traumatized by war. They've become orphans, handicapped, used as combatants, or sex slaves. Even when wars end, children continue to suffer with no means of supporting themselves now, or in the future." "I want to help revolutionize Africa,"he boldly stated.
To learn more about the BRICK awards and cast your vote, visit www.brickawawrds.com. To learn more about YAI, visit www.peaceforkids.org.