Keynote Speakers
Kimmie Weeks has worked to alleviate poverty and human suffering in Africa and around the world since he was fourteen years old. Kimmie was born in Liberia 1981. When he was nine, Kimmie came face to face with civil war, human suffering, and death.
Over the years, Kimmie has formed partnerships and led organizations that have provided education to thousands of students in West Africa, lobbied the disarmament of over 20,000 child soldiers, and provided health care and recreation supplies to children.
In 1998, Kimmie Weeks investigated and released a groundbreaking report on the Liberian government’s involvement in the training children as soldiers. As a result, former Liberian President Charles Taylor made several attempts to assassinate him until he fled Liberia and was granted political asylum in the United States.
Once he came to the United States, Kimmie Weeks established an International organization called Youth Action International to support the needs of families living in post war countries. In 2008, Youth Action International’s programs benefited close to 150,000 people in six post war African countries.
Kimmie Weeks is the recipient of the 2007 Golden Brick Award which honors young people under 25 years old who are working to change the world. Also in 2007, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf presented Kimmie with Liberia’s highest honor by decorating him Knight Grand Commander in the Humane Order of African Redemption. Kimmie is the youngest recipient of this honor. He is also featured in the new book Peace in Our Lifetime as an international peacemaker, along with Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In 2008, MTV Canada and Discovery Chanel International profiled Kimmie’s work as part of a new reality series called 4REAL.
Kimmie Weeks received his bachelors from Amherst College and his Masters from the University of Pennsylvania. He currently serves as Executive Director of Youth Action International. He also serves on the Board of Directors of DoSomething, and as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council. The Global Agenda Council convenes 15 to 30 of the most innovative and relevant minds in fields of critical importance to the world as a whole. Other members of the Global Agenda Council include Bertie Ahern - Prime Minister of Ireland and Andrew Crockett – President of JP Morgan Chase.
FUN FACT: Kimmie’s photo and bio is profiled on 20 million bags of cool ranch Doritos.
Website - www.peaceforkids.org
Hammerskjoeld Simwinga –
Director, Foundation for Wildlife and Habitat Conservation, Mpika, Zambia
In Zambia’s North Luangwa Valley, where rampant illegal wildlife poaching in the 1980s decimated the wild elephant population and left villagers living in extreme poverty, Hammerskjoeld Simwinga—known as Hammer—is utilizing innovative sustainable community development strategies to restore wildlife and transform this poverty-stricken area.
By replacing illegal incomes (from poaching and bush meat), with legal alternatives such as, beekeeping, sunflower oil processing, and fish farming, Hammer has changed the lives of more than 35,000 villagers. In the process, he has also protected the delicate biodiversity in the region, and also implemented social improvements through health, education and micro-financing initiatives.
Hammer was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2007 for his work that has transformed communities through sustainable development, and has been named one of Time Magazine’s Heroes of the Environment.
Website: www.goldmanprize.org
Austin Gutwein –
Austin learned of the plight of HIV/AIDS orphans through his correspondence with his pen pal in Africa, and after watching a video. He was profoundly affected by this and, on World Aids Day 2004, when he was just 10 years old, Austin shot 2,057 free throws in a shoot-a-thon his home town of Phoenix, Arizona to represent the number of children who would be orphaned because of HIV/AIDS during that school day
In coordination with World Vision, the free throw shoot-a-thon began to involve other participants in the United States. From that year forward, thousands of people have joined Austin in a basketball shoot-a-thon called Hoops of Hope. By doing something as simple as shooting free throws, Hoops of Hope participants have raised over $1 million. The children left behind by AIDS now have access to food, clothing, shelter, a new school in Sinazongwe, Zambia and finally, a medical testing facility which he was told would save an entire generation. A second clinic is now under construction.
Austin believes anyone, no matter what their age or skills, can make a difference.
Website: www.hoopsofhope.org