Kudo's to Kelowna's Alaina Podmorow

We do take for granted what we have here living in Kelowna or the bigger picture, living in Canada! Here is a young Kelowna girl making a difference!

At 13, Alaina Podmorow proves making a difference isn’t hindered by age. "I couldn’t believe it because those girls were like me and my friends. Girls in Canada are very lucky. Sometimes we don’t realize it." ALAINA PODMOROW FOUNDER OF LITTLE WOMEN FOR LITTLE WOMEN IN AFGHANISTAN.........

When Alaina Podmorow was a shy nine-year-old, her mother asked if she’d like to go with her to a speech about how girls and women were treated in Afghanistan.

"At the time I thought, ‘ I’m not quite sure what this is about but I get to stay up late so I think I’ll go to it,’” she said.

Four years later, having raised nearly $ 300,000 to help girls go to school in Afghanistan, she recalls eight words from that speech that she says she’ll never forget: “ The worst thing you can do is nothing.”

The inspirational speech was given by Sally Armstrong, a Toronto-based author and human-rights champion who has chronicled the abuse of women under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and their struggle now for equality.

Poised and confident, Podmorow, 13, now gives inspirational speeches herself as the founder of the nonprofit Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan, a fundraising organization that channels money for teachers’ salaries and training through Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan.

“ I found that it doesn’t matter how little or young you are, you can make this difference,” she said in an interview during a conference on Afghanistan hosted by the Canadian Federation of University Women.

Her first fundraising effort in her hometown of Kelowna was aimed at raising $ 750, the amount she was told would pay an average salary to a teacher for a year in Afghanistan.

“ We raised enough for four teachers’ salaries for one year and I was so amazed because that was more than I could have ever imagined raising at nine years old,” she said.

Chapters of Little Women for Little Women in Afghanistan have sprung up around the country and fundraisers have been held in many cities. The groups have raised about $ 160,000 from the public and almost the same amount again in matching funds from the federal Canadian International Development Agency, the foreign-aid wing of the federal government.

She seems to have tried every form of fundraising imaginable: auctions, galas, bottle drives, bake sales, car washes and swim-a-thons.

Most girls were forbidden to attend school under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan, and girls continue to face daunting challenges to get an education, including physical attacks on students and bombings of schools.

“ I couldn’t believe it because those girls were like me and my friends,” Podmorow said. “ Girls in Canada are very lucky. Sometimes we don’t realize it.”

Podmorow heads to the United States next week to receive a “ huggable heroes” award for youth activism and recently won a scholarship to attend a private school in Kelowna through high school graduation.

She’s missed a lot of school while travelling for her cause in the past two years but says she catches up on her lessons when she is home and got top grades last term.

("Teen touches Afghan lives" prepared by Julliet O'Neill/Vancouver Sun)