Wanjiru Kamau , African Immigrant and Refugee Foundation

Watch a video of Wanjiru Kamau

Visit African Immigrant and Refugee Foundation's website

Contact Wanjiru Kamau

When Wanjiru Kamau, a university administrator and adjunct professor, met the asylum seekers – victims of the Rwandan genocide and relatives of her colleagues at Penn State – she saw that some were illiterate and bewildered by modern city life.

Seeing them took her back to her own childhood, growing up in rural Kenya without running water or electricity, carrying heavy loads on her back. How would they survive in a complex society like the United States?

Michael L. Smolens , dotSUB

Visit dotSUB 's website

Contact Michael L. Smolens

Early in his career in the garment industry, the St. Louis-raised Michael Smolens took his first trip abroad to the southern Philippines. The trip influenced his life’s direction, and he spent the next 30 years doing business with emerging economies. After 9/11, he saw the negative effects of language barriers first hand as public opinion of the United States rapidly deteriorated in countries where he had long worked.

Henry Reese , City of Asylum/Pittsburgh

Visit City of Asylum/Pittsburgh 's website

Contact Henry Reese

Henry Reese has always been an avid reader. But more than 30 years ago, instead of pursuing a literary career he and his brother turned a $700 investment into what eventually became the largest private U.S. telemarketing and call center business. Yet Reese's love of books persisted. In 1997, when he learned at a talk by author Salman Rushdie about a European network that provides sanctuary to exiled writers, Reese vowed to one day focus on literary arts causes.

Caitlin Ryan , Family Acceptance Project

Visit Family Acceptance Project 's website

Contact Caitlin Ryan

At age 50, Caitlin Ryan decided it was time to pursue a doctorate in public policy. A social worker who pioneered community AIDS programs in the 1980s, she was acutely aware that many in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community had complicated relationships – or none at all – with their relatives.

With a doctorate in hand, Ryan quickly found inspiration for what to do next. Moved by a remorseful mother who had thrown her lesbian daughter out of the house never to see her again, Ryan started the Family Acceptance Project at San Francisco State University in 2002.

Anne O'Callaghan , Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians

Visit Welcoming Center for New Pennsylvanians' website

Contact Anne O'Callaghan

As a volunteer at the Philadelphia Area Immigration Resource Center, Anne O’Callaghan saw that many immigrants’ needs – including learning English and finding well-paying jobs – weren’t being met.

She understood their plight, having emigrated from Ireland in 1970. O’Callaghan built a steady career as a physical therapist for 20 years, and later started a successful software firm for the home health care industry. She wanted to help immigrants achieve the same kind of stability and economic independence.

W. Andrew Harris , Oregon Health & Science University

Visit Oregon Health & Science University's website

Contact W. Andrew Harris

As both a medical professional and an avid traveler, ophthalmologist W. Andrew Harris knew the need for skilled medical care in developing regions of the world. He also knew his colleagues, many of whom were nearing retirement, were devoted to helping others but lacked the training to practice medicine in often difficult circumstances, including limited supplies, inadequate facilities or familiarity with diseases they were unlikely to have treated in the United States.

Carla Kelley , The Human Rights Education Center of Utah

Visit The Human Rights Education Center of Utah's website

Contact Carla Kelley

As a young single mother, Carla Kelley learned her middle child was gay.

“I knew how dangerous it was to be gay then ... and my first instinct was to protect him,” she says. She quickly grew to accept her son’s sexual orientation. Years later, in 1998, she was jolted by a trio of national tragedies: the race-related murder of James Byrd Jr., a black man in Texas; the torturous death of Matthew Shepard, killed for being gay by two men in Wyoming; and the Columbine massacre in Colorado, in which two students killed 13 classmates and then themselves.