So I made it to Harvard. Never thought I'd be able to say that in mylife, but it feels good. Thank you, Dr. Counter, thank you to the HarvardFoundation, and thank you, Harvard University for this great honor. Thank you. I'm incredibly humbled by this, to be acknowledgedat this magnitude for something that in truth I've never wanted credit for. When I was five or six years old, I rememberwatching TV and I would see these commercials and I was watching other children suffer inother parts of the world and you know the commercials were [like], 'you can give 25cents, save a child's life,' you know? And I would think to myself like, I wonderhow many 25 cents I could save up to save all the kids in Africa. And I would say to myself you know, 'whenI grow up, when I can get rich, I'mma save kids all over the world.' I just didn't know I would be in the positionto do that by the time I was a teenager.
At 17 I started my career here in America,and by the age of 18, I started my first charity organization. I went on to team up with other organizationsin the following years and met, helped, and even lost some of the most beautiful souls,from six-year-old Jasmina Anema who passed away in 2010 from leukemia, her story inspiredthousands to volunteer as donors through DKMS. Fast forward to 2012 and then my grandmother,the late Clara Brathwaite, she lost her battle with cancer, which is the very reason andthe driving force behind the Clara Lionel Foundation. We're all human. And we all just want a chance: a chance atlife, a chance in education, a chance at a future, really. And at CLF, our mission is to impact as manylives as possible, but it starts with just one. Just one. As I stare out into this beautiful room, Isee optimism, I see hope, I see the future. I know that each and every one of you hasthe opportunity to help someone else. All you need to do is help one person, expectingnothing in return. To me, that is a humanitarian. People make it seem way too hard, man. The truth is, and what I want the little girlwatching those commercials to know, is you don't have to be rich to be a humanitarian. You don't have to be rich to help somebody. You don't gotta be famous. You don't even have to be college-educated. I mean, I wish I was, I'm not saying you know… [Crowd laughs] Especially today. [laughs] It's true, I might come back butall right. [Crowd cheers] But it starts with your neighbor, the personright next to you, the person sitting next to you in class, the kid down the block inyour neighborhood, you just do whatever you can to help in any way that you can. And today I want to challenge each of youto make a commitment to help one person: one organization, one situation that touches yourheart. My grandmother always used to say if you'vegot a dollar, there's plenty to share. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. It was my honor. Over her career, she has worked on severalprojects aimed towards bettering society. Including efforts to increase access to educationglobally through her Clara Lionel Foundation global scholarship program and her supportfor the global partnership for education and global citizen. But for this part of the night, I like tohighlight some of the work she's done in the field of health and in helping to empowerothers in that way. Part of Rihanna's humanitarian work has beento develop a cancer diagnosis and treatment center at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital inBridgetown Barbados. As a student of global health, the impactof such an institution is not lost on me. Too often higher levels of medical care areinaccessible to the populations that need them. Allowing individuals to unnecessarily sufferfrom preventable or treatable conditions. In my experience studying global health issuesabroad, in western Kenya for example, one of the greatest barriers to obtaining medicalcare was distance. Distance to the treatment centers that offeredthe needed care. During my time there I remember learning thestory of a woman who had lost her life during labor. She was being taken care of at a rural healthclinic where typical labor procedures could be handled effectively, however, because ofher specific complications the type of care she needed was at a larger health center whichshe couldn't reach in time. Fortunately, there are efforts locally andglobally to tackle issues such as these and I tell this story not to single out a specificregion but to highlight them for the importance of this work. In providing such valuable resources for cancertreatment in Barbados, Rihanna has worked to reduce barriers such as these to higherlevel medical care and the implementation of such work has reverberations throughoutsociety. I find this quotation from Rihanna particularlytelling of the humanitarian spirit displayed by such work: "If you have the ability tohelp and lend a hand, no matter how big or small, you should definitely make that yourresponsibility". To me, the idea that ability to help others,no matter how big or small, now becomes a responsibility is one that embodies what itmeans to be a humanitarian. To prioritize helping fellow human beingsto the extent that one can is to exemplify humanitarianism. As many of us are students and we'll be navigatinglife outside of this university in a few years I hope this humanitarian spirit is one thatwe will incorporate wherever life may take us. Thank you, Rihanna, for inspiring us to useour abilities to work, work, work and to exercise these abilities in the serviceof authors. Thank you. Rihanna, we thank you for your compassion. Your philanthropy to help others in need andyour wonderful music. On behalf of the children of Cambridge I presentyou these flowers as a token of our appreciation. Thank you so much. Let’s take a picture right there.
At 17 I started my career here in America,and by the age of 18, I started my first charity organization. I went on to team up with other organizationsin the following years and met, helped, and even lost some of the most beautiful souls,from six-year-old Jasmina Anema who passed away in 2010 from leukemia, her story inspiredthousands to volunteer as donors through DKMS. Fast forward to 2012 and then my grandmother,the late Clara Brathwaite, she lost her battle with cancer, which is the very reason andthe driving force behind the Clara Lionel Foundation. We're all human. And we all just want a chance: a chance atlife, a chance in education, a chance at a future, really. And at CLF, our mission is to impact as manylives as possible, but it starts with just one. Just one. As I stare out into this beautiful room, Isee optimism, I see hope, I see the future. I know that each and every one of you hasthe opportunity to help someone else. All you need to do is help one person, expectingnothing in return. To me, that is a humanitarian. People make it seem way too hard, man. The truth is, and what I want the little girlwatching those commercials to know, is you don't have to be rich to be a humanitarian. You don't have to be rich to help somebody. You don't gotta be famous. You don't even have to be college-educated. I mean, I wish I was, I'm not saying you know… [Crowd laughs] Especially today. [laughs] It's true, I might come back butall right. [Crowd cheers] But it starts with your neighbor, the personright next to you, the person sitting next to you in class, the kid down the block inyour neighborhood, you just do whatever you can to help in any way that you can. And today I want to challenge each of youto make a commitment to help one person: one organization, one situation that touches yourheart. My grandmother always used to say if you'vegot a dollar, there's plenty to share. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. It was my honor. Over her career, she has worked on severalprojects aimed towards bettering society. Including efforts to increase access to educationglobally through her Clara Lionel Foundation global scholarship program and her supportfor the global partnership for education and global citizen. But for this part of the night, I like tohighlight some of the work she's done in the field of health and in helping to empowerothers in that way. Part of Rihanna's humanitarian work has beento develop a cancer diagnosis and treatment center at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital inBridgetown Barbados. As a student of global health, the impactof such an institution is not lost on me. Too often higher levels of medical care areinaccessible to the populations that need them. Allowing individuals to unnecessarily sufferfrom preventable or treatable conditions. In my experience studying global health issuesabroad, in western Kenya for example, one of the greatest barriers to obtaining medicalcare was distance. Distance to the treatment centers that offeredthe needed care. During my time there I remember learning thestory of a woman who had lost her life during labor. She was being taken care of at a rural healthclinic where typical labor procedures could be handled effectively, however, because ofher specific complications the type of care she needed was at a larger health center whichshe couldn't reach in time. Fortunately, there are efforts locally andglobally to tackle issues such as these and I tell this story not to single out a specificregion but to highlight them for the importance of this work. In providing such valuable resources for cancertreatment in Barbados, Rihanna has worked to reduce barriers such as these to higherlevel medical care and the implementation of such work has reverberations throughoutsociety. I find this quotation from Rihanna particularlytelling of the humanitarian spirit displayed by such work: "If you have the ability tohelp and lend a hand, no matter how big or small, you should definitely make that yourresponsibility". To me, the idea that ability to help others,no matter how big or small, now becomes a responsibility is one that embodies what itmeans to be a humanitarian. To prioritize helping fellow human beingsto the extent that one can is to exemplify humanitarianism. As many of us are students and we'll be navigatinglife outside of this university in a few years I hope this humanitarian spirit is one thatwe will incorporate wherever life may take us. Thank you, Rihanna, for inspiring us to useour abilities to work, work, work and to exercise these abilities in the serviceof authors. Thank you. Rihanna, we thank you for your compassion. Your philanthropy to help others in need andyour wonderful music. On behalf of the children of Cambridge I presentyou these flowers as a token of our appreciation. Thank you so much. Let’s take a picture right there.
