Real Life Heroes

Bangladeshi architect Rizvi Hassan is the driving force behind the construction of a safe space for Rohingya women and girls, in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, site of the world’s largest camp for displaced people, and home to around a million Rohingya refugees who fled from Myanmar. The community centre caters to a marginalized, vulnerable group, at risk of gender-based violence. 

Marie-Roseline Bélizaire, a doctor and epidemiologist with the World Health Organization (WHO), is using her passion for community medicine to help reduce the spread of COVID-19 in the Central African Republic (CAR).

Working from a field office in Yemen, Sonia Almassad ensures that UN relief aid reaches those who need it, in the war-torn country. She was previously posted in her home country, Syria, where she negotiated with armed groups on both sides of the conflict, sometimes at great personal risk.

Hassan Akkad, an award-winning Syrian film-maker, fled the war in his country four years ago and now lives as a refugee in the United Kingdom. Following the outbreak of COVID-19, he decided to help those affected by the pandemic, by becoming a cleaner at a London hospital.

After leaving Gaza as a refugee, Shadi Mohammedali decided to dedicate himself to helping others in a similar situation. Today, he is working for an NGO in a Greek camp for asylum seekers, explaining how they can protect themselves from COVID-19.

In the remote Lamu region, on the northeast coast of Kenya, quality healthcare is hard to come by. Every month, medical staff from Safari Doctors, an NGO founded by Umra Omar, set sail on a boat filled with medicines, to provide free basic medicines to hundreds of marginalized inhabitants in several coastal villages.

Growing up in Indonesia in the shadow of an active volcano, Agus Haryono has witnessed the deadly risks of living in a disaster-prone region. This prompted him to join the country’s Search and Rescue Agency, in the hope of saving lives, when disaster strikes.