CNN Heroes

After reading the stories of these ten amazing people, I did not know how I was going to choose just one to be number one. All of these people have achieved amazing things and are making important changes in the community. However, I was so touched by Betty Makoni’s story I would have to say she is the one that I chose. A hero is someone who is admired for his or her brave and courageous actions and outstanding achievements. Kids see a hero in the firefighter who saves people’s lives and the superhero who saves the world. To me, a hero is someone who is determined to fight for something they believe is important and does not ever give up. Betty Makoni is a hero. She was so determined to help sexually abused women that she went back to school to get two college degrees because she felt the only way she could make a difference was if she had an education. The stories of many of the women that she has helped broke my heart, making me that much happier that Betty founded Girl Child Network. I was also touched because Betty had personally been through the horror of sexual abuse and new the lifelong psychological damage it causes. Using her personal tragedy to help over 35,000 women makes Betty a hero in my eyes. Her statement “If my organization didn’t exist, the 35,000 girls I’ve saved from rape and abuse could have died by now” really opened my eyes to the impact she has made on such a huge number of people’s lives. She sees the girls dealing with the same struggles that she was forced through and is broken by it. Her determination to continue helping as many girls as she can makes her my number one choice for CNN’s number one hero.