Photo courtesy of www.wikipedia.org

In June 1972, AP photographer, Nick Ut took a photograph in South Vietnam, featuring a nine-year-old girl running naked with third degree burns on her body, caused as a result of a Napalm attack (a extremely harmful chemical). Some say that this photograph played an important role in bringing about the end of the war.

That girl was Kim Phuc, and instead of simply looking back at the horror she faced in her childhood, she has spent her life as a peace activist and founder of the Kim Phuc Foundation: Healing Children of War.

Find out why she was in NYC last week after the jump:

Kim Phuc spread her message of hope at a conference in NYC organized by the Phoenix Society for Burn Survivors, the nation’s largest non-profit support and advocacy group for burn survivors. The conference was co-sponsored by the Hearst Burn Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and the NY Firefighters Burn Center Foundation. Read more about the conference here.

Speaking about the way that her life has been impacted by Ut’s photograph she says, “It seemed that picture didn’t want to let me go. At first, I was very upset. And then a wonderful thing happened. I thought, if I can’t escape that picture, I can work with it for peace. I accepted it as a powerful gift for me… I don’t want to see another little girl running like that with hopelessness, with terror.”

In 1997, Kim Phuc was named a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the work she has relentlessly campaigned for child welfare and been an inspiration to war victims and burn survivors world over.

We salute your courage and great work Kim!

September 14, 2009 by ishita
Tags: anti-war, Burn Victims, child welfare, Kim Phuc, Nick Ut, Phoenix society for burn survivors, UNESCO, UNESCO Goodwill ambassador, Vietnam War, war victims
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