NEWSWEEK: America's Best

NEWSWEEK: America's Best

In Series Honoring Unsung Heroes, Newsweek Spotlights Blaise Judja-Sato, Founder of Seattle-Based Nonprofit VillageReach

Also Featured: Actor Gary Sinise, Co-Founder of Operation Iraqi Children

NEW YORK, July 17 /PRNewswire/ -- In the latest installment of a summerlong series "America's Best," which honors those who make helping others their priority, Newsweek spotlights a Wharton M.B.A. who brings basic health care to the poor of rural Mozambique and an Oscar nominee whose charity brings school supplies to war-torn Iraq. Profiled in the July 25 issue (on newsstands Monday, July 18):

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050717/NYSU002 )

* Blaise Judja-Sato: Five years ago, at age 36, Cameroon-born Judja-Sato was living in Seattle and traveling the world to cut deals for Teledesic, a satellite communications venture started by Bill Gates and Craig McCaw. Then he found his calling. In 2000, after freak rains caused devastating floods in southern Africa, Judja-Sato used his U.S. connections to raise $1.5 million for relief efforts in Mozambique. After visiting the country, he quit his job and founded a Seattle-based nonprofit called VillageReach, a group that is spearheading an effort to bring basic health care to 1.5 million people throughout Mozambique's impoverished Cabo Delgado province. Backed by donors such as the Gates Foundation, the World Bank and the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, the effort has already raised the province's child-vaccination rates by 40 percent, report Special Correspondent Karen MacGregor and Senior Editor Geoffrey Cowley. And VillageReach plans to expand into the neighboring province of Nampula this year. The goal is not just to vaccinate kids but to build a functioning health system.

* Gary Sinise: The 50-year-old Sinise, star of "CSI: New York" and an Oscar nominee for "Forrest Gump," started the humanitarian organization Operation Iraqi Children in early 2004 with "Seabiscuit" author Laura Hillenbrand. Since last August, reports Senior Writer Devin Gordon, OIC has shipped nearly 150 tons of school supplies to the Middle East, reaching about 250,000 kids.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8598488/site/newsweek/

(Read Newsweek's news releases at www.Newsweek.com. Click "Pressroom.")

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050717/NYSU002 AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/ AP PhotoExpress Network: PRN2 PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com Source: Newsweek

CONTACT: Abigail Lorge of Newsweek, +1-212-445-4078

Web site: http://www.newsweek.msnbc.com/

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