Haitian Student Wins Hearts at Athletic Awards Breakfast with Tale of Courage

When Carl Pierre-Louis addressed an audience of nearly 1,100 at Friday’s All-Dade Athletic Awards, he moved nearly everyone to tears.

The attendees listened in silence to the remarkable journey Pierre-Louis, an 18-year-old senior from Felix Varela High School, took from earthquake-ravaged Haiti to a high school football field in West Kendall.

Read more at: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/26/2817788/haitian-student-wins-hearts-at.html

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/26/2817788/haitian-student-wins-hearts-at.html#storylink=cpy

Parole Camp

Each year in South Africa's Cape Flats region, more than 1,000 youths are released from prison on parole. Many of these parolees will return to jail within a few weeks - unable to re-integrate into their communities or to avoid being caught up in the vicious circle of gangs, drugs and crime that is life for many in the townships.

But, for a lucky few there is an alternative. Solomon Madikane is a former prison warden who was so frustrated by the endless cycle of law-breaking and incarceration that he left his job and set up the Realistic prisoner reintegration programme in 2004. Based in the Cape Flats townships, Realistic has an extraordinary success rate: 95 per cent of the parolees who complete the programme have successfully turned their back on crime.
Watch documentary at: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/witness/2012/04/2012499289369603.html

Afghanistan's supergran crimebuster on wheels

It's unusual for a woman to be a leader in Afghanistan but Zarifa Qazizadah has become the country's only female village chief through force of personality and determination to get things done - even if that means cross-dressing, wearing a false moustache and driving around on a motorbike at night.

"I tell the men of the village, all I want is your prayers," she says. "When you have a problem, I'll speak to the government on your behalf and whenever there is any disturbance at night-time, I'll pick up my gun and come to your house to see what's going on." 

Read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18145805