A Celebration of Women™

is honored to Celebrate the Life of this young woman, one that found the “Care, Compassion and Courage” to Take Action in one of our world’s most dangerous and violent zones on this planet, the slums of RIO.

She devotes her life to encouraging the youth of Rio to stop the violence, as well as the relentless promotion of gender equality and educational rights of every children.  We are elated to celebrate the work of this young woman, definitely a future woman leader of our world, and trust you will be inspired by her ‘Positive Action’.

 
 
 

WOMAN (Youth) of ACTION™

 

 

 

Mayra Avellar Neves

 
 
 
 
Living in a violent and poor society is very difficult, let alone the everyday fear of getting shot and killed when you leave the house.

In most cases, people that come from these neighborhoods settle for the mediocre life, living with the suffering and anguish that they have endured since childhood. Some, who for a lack of good education, resort to delinquency, becoming people whom society calls as nuisance.

However, there are those who, in spite of all the tragedies and hardships that they have faced, never let the negative situations of their life keep them from dreaming of a better society.

Meet Mayra Neves, a young girl from Brazil who started a radical change in her country simply because she fought for what she believed was right.

Mayra Avellar Neves is a young education activist from Brazil who is most famous for winning the 2008 International Children’s Peace Prize for her courageous and successful struggle against the extreme violence in the favelas in Rio de Janeiro that is costing numerous children their lives, as well as the relentless promotion of gender equality and educational rights of every children.

Mayra also became famous for organizing a number of non-violent protests along with hundreds of children from the slum areas of Rio, which prompted the Brazilian government to do something about the situation.

What is so amazing about this young girl is that even at a very young age, Mayra has been significant in inciting change in Brazil, primarily due to her persistent attitude in ensuring the safety of her fellow Brazilian youth from the violence that daily envelops the favelas. Even though she came from the slums and had a very difficult life, this did not stop her from desiring a better future and acting on her dreams and goals.

Mayra actively promotes gender equality and education for girls, mostly due to having witnessed how terrible the girls in Brazil had it. Young girls were deprived of the right to be educated, resulting in them growing up without the proper knowledge of life and becoming pregnant in their youth.

She stated:

“Many people say that girls don’t need to study because we will end up in the kitchen anyway. I totally disagree. We have to be pioneers again in women emancipation, something that should have been completed a long time ago. And it demands studying, demands knowledge, demands knowing who we are and where we stand in the society.”

Being one of the fortunate women who had a good education, Mayra constantly pushes for every girl to have access to education, as she has learned that it is through education that one gains confidence and the knowledge to live life properly. In her speech during the International Children’s Peace Prize,

Mayra stated:

“The education should have an important role to put an end to discrimination. Education should make people think so that they can expand their views. Boys and girls are different. Each one has their particularities, but these differences should not make one better than the other. It’s good when people are different because this way more people can contribute with different opinions to build a better society. Everybody is important in society, from children to old people. And if you don’t give equal attention to girls and boys when they are children, they will grow up carrying inequality inside of them like the inequality you see in business, still less women at the top, families in which the women still work less than the men to take care of the children and so on.”

“My name is Mayra Avellar Neves. I am 17 years old and I come from Brazil. I live in one of the poorest favelas [slums] in Rio de Janeiro. The people in my favela are accustomed to the violence that claims thousands of human lives each year. Drug cartels wage wars with each other and with the police. When I was eleven, the violence in the area was so extreme that schools and clinics were closed.

For this reason, the majority of the children in the area were never educated. However, I was determined to go to school, and so I attended a school outside the area. I refuse to accept this level of violence and have already participated in several marches to protest against violence and promote peace. I do this because I believe things can change, even here. I want to change the attitudes of the people here. Participating in marches and making a documentary are just two of the ways in which this can be done. I want to show what we can do, rather than what we can’t.

I am obliged to do this, as all children should have a safe upbringing and the right to an education”. Postscript by KidsRights: Mayra is the winner of the 2008 Children’s Peace Prize and is living proof of her own message. FULL SPEECH HERE
 

“KidsRights seeks to give a voice to the voiceless.” – Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Vision: Every child has talents. Every child has dreams. KidsRights believes in a world where all children have access to basic care and are given the possibility to develop themselves to their fullest potential.

Mission: KidsRights promotes the wellbeing of very vulnerable children across the world and advocates the expression of their rights.
KidsRights focuses on very vulnerable children anywhere in the world, from 0 to 18 years old, with some flexibility in the age when completing secondary school. Very vulnerable children are children who are not able to develop themselves fully, because they do not have access to the five basic requirements of care: health care, nutrition, education, shelter and attention.

KidsRights executes on her mission by:

1. Providing education on (the importance of) children’s rights. The most important instrument for this is the International Children’s Peace Prize;
2. Supporting aid projects: direct assistance via local project organisations/partners who offer all-round care based on the five basic care requirements.
 

 

Mayra has been eloquently equated to our history’s famous ANNE FRANK; another young woman that Took Action to state that Children Have Rights!

“What Anne tells us and what Mayra tells us, too, is that children have rights.

That it is wrong to violate those rights.

Governments should make sure that children can grow up knowing that their rights will be respected.

Brazil and the Netherlands work closely together on improving the human rights situation around the world and in our own countries.

I am very happy about that. We owe it to Anne, we owe it to Mayra and we owe it to all the children of the world.”

 
Nomination, thanks to www.thextraordinary.org
 
KIDS RIGHTS – FACEBOOK
 
 
 

A Celebration of Women™

welcomes this young visionary with open arms, and look forward to collaborative life-long efforts,

working together creating “Positive Change” for the women and children of our world.

 

 

Brava Mayra!