Tribute gala honors CNN Heroes
NEW YORK (CNN) — An Ecuadoran lawyer leading a landmark environmental lawsuit, a U.S. expatriate who encourages attendance at rural African schools and a Ugandan missionary who runs a boarding school for girls abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army were given special recognition at CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute Thursday night.
Actor Jimmy Smits, talk show host Tyra Banks and actress Kyra Sedgwick presented the honors to Fighting for Justice finalist Pablo Fajardo, Championing Children finalist Steve Peifer and Community Crusader finalist Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe.
Also honored was a Seattle, Washington, man who founded a clinic in his native Kenya. CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta presented the honor to Medical Marvel finalist Peter Kithene.
A blue ribbon panel of 15 eminent personalities selected Fajardo, Peifer, Nyirumbe and Kithene for special recognition among three finalists in each category.
Fajardo grew up in the Amazon and started working at the age of 14 to support his younger siblings. As he labored on a plantation and in the oil fields, he attended night school to get a high school education. For six years, he woke at 3:30 a.m. to study law, and now in his first case, he is up against the oil industry.
Peifer and his family moved to Kenya eight years ago. A former Oracle software manager, he was struck by the chronic poverty and he believed educating local children could help change that. He devised an inexpensive way for schools to provide meals to hungry students and he also builds school computer centers. The result: Attendance is on the rise.
Nyirumbe reached out to young girls who had been kidnapped by the Lord’s Resistance Army and had been forced to become soldiers and concubines. Hundreds responded and enrolled in her boarding school, where she teaches them tailoring, catering and business administration and helps rehabilitate them.
Kithene lost his parents when he was 12 and he knew then the best thing he could do for his family was to get an education. Kithene, now pursuing a graduate degree in Health Administration, has founded an organization that brings medical care to poor rural Kenyans.
CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute, hosted by CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Christiane Amanpour, is airing live globally on CNN/U.S., CNN International and CNN en Espanol from the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
CNN also is honoring the legacy of Christopher and Dana Reeve and their foundation with the inaugural CNN Heroes’ Hero Award.
The award, being presented during the show, was created to recognize individuals who devoted their lives to helping others and whose names have become synonymous with their causes.
The Reeve foundation is dedicated to curing spinal cord injury by funding innovative research and improving the quality of life for people living with paralysis through grants, information and advocacy.
The couple formed the foundation after a 1995 horse-riding accident left Christopher Reeve paralyzed from the neck down. Reeve died in 2004, and Dana Reeve died two years later after complications from lung cancer.
Festivities began at 8 p.m. on Headline News with a one-hour red-carpet show live from outside the museum as celebrity performers and presenters arrived.
The two-hour gala features performances from Grammy Award winners Mary J. Blige, Sheryl Crow and Norah Jones, and acclaimed performer-producer Wyclef Jean.
The show is focusing the spotlight on the 18 CNN Heroes finalists selected from more than 7,000 nominations submitted by viewers in 80 countries.
The finalists — three each in six categories of cause-related work — have been featured in stories airing on Anderson Cooper 360 during the past two weeks.
The CNN Heroes categories are:
Championing Children: extraordinary commitment to the welfare of young people
Community Crusader: creating solutions to a local problem or social issue
Defending the Planet: innovative efforts to preserve and protect the environment
Fighting for Justice: advancing the cause of civil or equal rights
Medical Marvel: dedication to the enhancement of human health
Young Wonder: outstanding achievement by a person under the age of 18
In addition to the viewer-nominated CNN Heroes, the show will honor the most popular CNN Hero profiled on air and online between May 1 and September 30, as chosen in a viewers’ choice poll conducted on CNN.com.
Everyday Superheroes — remarkable people recognized by CNN for their spontaneous acts of courage in the face of danger — also are being recognized at the show.
These include Wesley Autrey, who jumped onto New York subway tracks to save the life of a student, and John Smeaton, a baggage handler who thwarted a terrorist attack at Glasgow Airport in Scotland. The show is also paying tribute to the numerous heroes who saved lives during the tragic massacre at Virginia Tech.
We’re honored to shine the spotlight on some of the world’s lesser known heroes with the help of an esteemed panel of individuals, who are universally recognized for their talents and humanitarian initiatives, said Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide.
During the show, Blige — Queen of Hip-Hop Soul — is giving the first live performance of a song from her forthcoming album, Growing Pains, while singer-songwriter Crow is previewing her 2008 album, Detours, with a live performance of one of her new songs.
Jean and Jones are performing a duet and first live performance of a new track from Jean’s new album, Carnival II: Memoirs of an Immigrant, being released this month.
Executive producer for Thursday night’s event is Joel Gallen, who helmed telethon events supporting victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina.
Gallen won a Peabody Award for America: A Tribute to Heroes and has been nominated for several Emmy awards throughout his career.
From May 1 through September 30, CNN has featured everyday heroes across its television networks, digital services and at CNN.com/Heroes, encouraging viewers to submit and nominate local heroes they deem deserving of recognition. E-mail to a friend
