Rachel Beckwith

The AWOD for today didn't live long enough to be technically deemed a woman.  She only lived 9 years and what I am posting came from a Kristoff column last week.  He tells her story much better than I could, and it moved me tremendously:

Rachel’s Last Fund-Raiser

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: August 10, 2011

Perhaps every generation of geezers since Adam and Eve has whined about young people, and today is no different. Isn’t it clear that in contrast to our glorious selves, kids these days are self-absorbed Facebook junkies just a pixel deep?

No, actually that’s wrong at every level. This has been a depressing time to watch today’s “adults,” whose talent for self-absorption and political paralysis makes it difficult to solve big problems. But many young people haven’t yet learned to be cynical. They believe, in a wonderfully earnest way, in creating a better world.

In the midst of this grim summer, my faith in humanity has been restored by the saga of Rachel Beckwith. She could teach my generation a great deal about maturity and unselfishness — even though she’s just 9 years old, or was when she died on July 23.

Read the rest of Kristoff's post

Audrey Hepburn

Today’s Awesome Woman is Audrey Hepburn.  (1929-1993) She was most famous for her long and celebrated movie career, and her elegant beauty, but she was also a great humanitarian.

She was born of a Belgian mother and English Father, And spent her early years between the two countries.  Her father was a Nazi sympathizer and deserted the family when the war broke out. She was devastated by this and said it traumatized her for life.

 Her mother then moved the family to the Netherlands, thinking they would be safer there.  In fact the Nazis did invade, and Belgium was under German control for the remainder of the war.

Audrey’s family endured poverty and near starvation, sometimes eating dog food and tulip bulbs.  She remembers staying in bed reading to  from feeling hungry.  Several members of her family were taken to concentration camps and two were killed.  She credits memories of their privation and suffering under the Nazis for her later humanitarian work.

In the late sixties she began making fewer movies and spent more time with family (she had two sons).  This was when she became actively involved with UNICEF, the United Nation’s children’s branch.  She visited South America and Africa bringing notice to the plight of children in those areas.  She didn’t just give money, she gave her voice and star power to bring attention to these.

In 1988 she visited Ethiopia at a camp for children on seeing the poverty and starvation she remarked:

"I have a broken heart. I feel desperate. I can't stand the idea that two million people are in imminent danger of starving to death, many of them children, not because there isn't tons of food sitting in the northern port of Shoa. “

She also visited street children in South America and was appalled to see children living in such conditions. She later reported to Congress how UNICEF had been able to make a difference

"I saw tiny mountain communities, slums, and shantytowns receive water systems for the first time by some miracle-and the miracle is UNICEF. "I watched boys build their own schoolhouse with bricks and cement provided by UNICEF."

She worked actively until her death to give what help she could to children in poverty and war zones all over the world.  It is rare, I think for someone famous for external beauty to be even more so internally.

AWU post and comments at http://www.facebook.com/groups/343338393054?view=doc&id=10150321676638055

Harriet Tubman

Today's AWOD is Harriet Tubman, an American icon and one of the most famous civilians in American history before the Civil War. She inspired generations of African Americans struggling for equality and civil rights as an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian, and Union spy during the American Civil War.


A runaway slave from Maryland. she became known as the "Moses of her people." Over the course of 10 years, and at great personal risk, she led hundreds of slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad, a secret network of safe houses where runaway slaves could stay on their journey north to freedom. It's estimated she brought 200-300 slaves to freedom. Her dangerous journeys required her to travel by night, during which she guided herself by the North Star, avoiding the careful eyes of "slavecatchers", eager to collect rewards for fugitive slaves.


Tubman later went on to promote the cause of women's suffrage and traveled extensively to speak out in favor of women's voting rights.
http://www.harriettubman.com/