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What if you could identify the brightest, most resilient young people displaced or orphaned by conflict, who have survived - and thrived - despite enormous odds?
What if you could bring them together in a sheltering space and help them heal, learn, and excel through exposure to maverick thinkers and mentors in areas as diverse as entrepreneurship, spirituality, technology, design, psychology - all focused on finding ways to dramatically improve the human condition through creativity, compassion, and innovation?
What if you could give them the tools, sanctuary, and encouragement to unfold and develop from their own unique blueprint into deeply authentic, connected human beings - with humility, openness, and an understanding of their place in the world as a part of the whole?
What if they used the power of their individual and collective strength to change their worlds - and through that, they changed the world for us all?
The Strongheart Fellowship Program is a groundbreaking healing and learning guidance program designed to help bright, resilient young people from extremely challenging circumstances around the globe develop into compassionate, innovative problem-solvers and leaders that can affect significant social change.
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CORI STERN Co-Founder, Strongheart Fellowship
The creation of The Strongheart Fellowship Program has been Cori's long-time passion and goal. A writer and social entreprenuer - as well as a former television executive at Saban Entertainment and Fox Family Channel - Cori's involvement in global issues intensified during the civil war in Cote d’Ivoire when she learned of Centre SAS, an orphan-care center caught behind rebel lines in Bouake. Over 1,000 children were trapped without food or medicine, cared for by a handful of workers. Moved by their situation, Cori raised enough funds privately to purchase $100,000 worth of medicine and coordinated a convoy with UNAIDS and the Red Cross to transport her shipment in to the children. Since that time, Cori has coordinated numerous international relief and assistance efforts including a major vaccination campaign in Northern Nigeria, building a self-sustaining primary school in a refugee settlement in Ghana, and an education sponsorship program for former street and slave children in The Gambia. Together with Dr. Arthur Ammann, she created Cradle of Life, a global effort to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV through training village birth attendants in HIV testing and administration of Nevirapine. Her additional projects include co-founding The Next Right Thing, offering free medical treatment and transport for critically ill or injured children from developing nations, as well as The Name Campaign, a major awareness campaign to help end the LRA atrocities in Northern Uganda. Her work has been covered by NPR, BBC, ABC World News, the Oprah Winfrey Show, and National Geographic.
ZOË ADAMS Co-Founder, Strongheart Fellowship Zoë Adams serves as the Executive Director of Strongheart Fellowship. The mission of Strongheart has been Zoë’s life purpose since she was a teen. An internationally-known speaker and youth activist, at the age of nineteen, she founded Earth Dwellers, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating youth on the world's interconnectedness, instilling environmental and social responsibility and inspiring community activism. Zoë, whose purpose was to empower young people to live purposefully and compassionately, guided them in the form of camps, seminar programs and youth support networks where she exposed young people to innovative thought leaders from across a multitude of academic and industry arenas ranging from economics to environmental sciences to researchers in the field of human potential. Zoë was awarded the National Conservation Achievement Award from the National Wildlife Federation for leadership in environmental causes and was the keynote speaker at the National Youth Environmental Summit, a conference for global leaders of environmental youth organizations from around the world. As a young adult, she was also a featured speaker at Aspen’s Windstar: Choices for the Future Symposium. In her adult years, she became a social entrepreneur known for her visionary leadership and ability to build solid organizational infrastructure around forward-thinking people, projects and concepts. For over eighteen years, Zoë has led and supported both non-profit and for-profit corporations in their establishment from seed stage through growth. Zoë’s career spanned media, technology, public policy and economic development - becoming a key team member and senior executive for Saban Entertainment, Fox Family Worldwide, Fox Kids Europe, and TechAmerica. Zoë awakens each day in awe of the tremendous potential of human transformation.
KRISTI MANNING Co-Founder, Strongheart Fellowship
For more than fifteen years consultant, project director, and international event organizer for a variety of nonprofit organizations. She has built a career providing ongoing strategic and tactical support for nonprofit initiatives with a focus on improved quality of life for youth both in the United States and abroad. In 1996, Kristi worked with the Olympic Games, where she was involved with managing all elements of planning and operations including accreditation, transportation, administration, asset management, communications, logistics, security, and venue management. She also worked with Starbright Foundation, where she directed the expansion and implementation of a private online network in 95 hospitals across North America and Canada designed to improve the lives of seriously ill children. Most recently, her work includes Development Manager for the Painted Turtle Camp and co-founder of The Next Right Thing, offering free medical treatment and transport for critically ill or injured children from developing nations. Most recently, Kristi worked in Dubai for DUBAI CARES, an initiative that raised approximately 1 billion dollars for primary education in developing countries in support of the Milennium Goals. Recognizing that the increasing globalization of the world economy creates the need for greater cross-cultural connections and strong compassionate leadership, Kristi is excited to contribute to the success and sustainability of Strongheart.
ADVISORS
DR. ARTHUR AMMANN
A world renown pediatric immunologist and global public health activist, Dr. Ammann was the first doctor in the world to diagnose a pediatric AIDS case. Among his many awards and honors, Dr. Ammann has received the United States Surgeon General Award for Research, the United States Public Health Service Fellowship Award, recognition by POZ Magazine as an one of the 50 Most Innovative AIDS Researchers, and Heroes in Medicine Award by the International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care. As past president of AmFar and founder of Global Strategies for HIV Prevention, Dr. Ammann is not only a leading scientist but also a dedicated humanitarian crusader in the fight against HIV/AIDS. His focus is the advocacy and implementation of HIV prevention programs in resource poor areas throughout the world, in particular, meeting the needs of women and children most affected by the HIV epidemic. The programs supported by Global Strategies for HIV Prevention have provided life saving antiretrovirals to over 66,000 women and infants, conducted workshops and conferences in over 21 countries, and provided education and training for thousands of health care workers, individuals and organizations in 102 countries.
ALEXIS HEFLEY
Alexis Hefley founded the Uganda Children's Charity Foundation in 1995 after living and working with AIDS orphans and other disadvantaged children in Kampala, Uganda for 18 months. Through fundraising tours of the internationally acclaimed Children of Uganda dance troupe, UCCF provides education and living expenses for 700 orphans in Uganda. Additionally, UCCF has a US-based residency scholarship program for exceptional Ugandan young people chosen from the orphanage. The first graduate of the program, a young woman Alexis met on her first visit to Uganda, has just graduated with her Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, specializing in International Negotiation and Conflict Resolution. She is now working at the United Nations Office of Children and Armed Conflict in conflict prevention and peace building in Africa. As she recently wrote, "My aspirations would have been snuffed out long ago without the generosity of individuals and organizations like UCCF willing to answer the need to empower others to change the course of their country’s destiny. "
DR. FIDELIA BODE THOMAS
Dr. Bode Thomas is the Executive Director of Heart Aid Trust, an NGO based in Jos, Nigeria that focuses on pediatric cardiac care in West Africa. In addition to securing life-saving surgery and medical evacuation to more developed countries for scores of children, Dr. Bode Thomas is heading the creation of the first pediatric cardiac surgery unit in West Africa, to be based at National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria.
JOEL BARAL
Joel Baral is the founder of Modern Earth, an affiliate of Concierge Financial Services, Inc., a boutique real estate & finance company. A pioneer in green commercial development, Joel is one of the first lenders to be accredited by the US Green Building Council as a LEED™ Green Building Professional, working with fellow green building professionals on the impending shift of developing real estate and real estate funding toward sustainability and environmental living.
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