Scholarship winner Makwei Mabioor Deng, 23, plans to return to his Sudanese homeland to practice law.

Two years ago, Makwei Mabioor Deng had never seen a computer or a library full of books. For 16 years he lived in a Sudanese refugee camp after his village was destroyed. But, today he has access to those things and more educational resources he could imagine as a student at George Washington University.

Student activists on campus wanted to help young people from the war-torn region by setting up a scholarship. Makwei was a awarded a scholarship worth more than $200,000 to study at GW. But, the scholarship has one major condition. Makwei must go back and educate his people or pay the money back.

Makwei, 23, plans to fulfill that obligation. He plans on becoming a lawyer and move back to Sudan. “I what to replace battlefield with courtroom, guns and bullets with legal representation, and open confrontation with negotiation around the table.”

Derrius Quarles received more than $1 million in college scholarships

We have heard horrific news about young people in Chicago as of late. Derrion Albert, an honors student who was gunned down, has become the “face” of the violence. If I may, I would like to present another representation of the story. Derrius Quarles represents the strength, hope and determination of young Chicago.

Derrius could have been a statistic. His father was killed when he was 4 years old. His mother was a drug addict. Instead of getting caught up in the life that destroyed his parents, Derrius moved to break the cycle.

He graduated high school with a 4.2 GPA and more than $1 million in scholarships ($1,150,000, to be precise) with acceptance into dozens of colleges. He stood up to the image he saw plaguing his city and said, “I can be all the things I was told I could never be.” He now attends Morehouse College and hopes to pursue a career in medicine. Ultimately, he has his sights set on being the Surgeon General, so that he can shape the public health policy.

Lexi Lehrman, 11, has raised $25,000 for breast cancer research.

I recently wrote about young women tackling breast cancer early on. Never did I imagine there could be a female younger than her 20s thinking and talking about breast cancer prevention or funding. I was wrong.

Lexi Lehrman is 11 years old. For the last few birthdays, she didn’t want presents for herself. She wanted money donated to breast cancer research, something she knew would have more impact than another outfit or gadget.

Even at her young age, she spearheaded a lot of the fundraising. She launched an Art for the Cure campaign, featuring local Miami artists Romero Britto and Ferdie Pacheco. She collaborated with the artists and put her spin on the famous pink ribbon. All of the ideas for the Love Lexi Foundation come with love from Lexi herself (with driving and book-keeping help from the ‘rents). She has raised about $25,000 for breast cancer research, to date.

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Damien Declerk, 25, is a mission coordinator with Operation Smile.

“Everything OK, Damien?” I ask him every other time he zips in front of me with a different box of papers, equipment or toys. “Yeah, yeah,” he laughs. “You’re not stressed?” “No way, this is great,” he says with a genuine smile.

Damien is the mission coordinator on the Operation Smile volunteer trip I am on in Alexandria, Egypt. He’s 25 years old. His role puts him in charge of people twice his age. He oversees all the plastic surgeons, pediatricians and nurses who have donated their time and expertise to offer free operations to kids with cleft lips and/or palates, who can’t afford or don’t have access to the procedure otherwise.

Damien is the kind of guy that will make you laugh even in a crowded hospital in the Third World. He’s been on missions from Morocco to Madagascar. “We have so much and they have so little, and still, the people here are some of the kindest, most giving people I’ve ever met. There is no reason for us not to be happy,” Damien says, of course, with another contagious smile.

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Amanda Plachek and Steven Weber produced the documentary 'War at Home.'

We’ve heard a fair share about the problems troops face when they return to civilian life: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, sometimes suicide. But, it’s rare for us to actually hear from the troops living - and sometimes suffering - through that. Sometimes, it’s not a news reporter or a government official that will get to the heart of the story. In this case it was actually two students at Norwich University.

Amanda Plachek, 21, and Steven Weber, 22, haven’t been to war yet, but they know what to ask people who have. As students, they devised a set of 30 questions to ask veterans about their experiences back home. They are in the process of putting those interviews into a documentary, “The War at Home.” A goal for the film is to educate people about all aspects of military life. For example, they say, “Some civilians don't understand what questions they should and shouldn't ask when someone comes back from tour. Don't ask someone how many people they've killed. Don't ask ‘were you wounded or blown up?’”

Amanda is going into active combat duty with the U.S. Army as a transportation officer with the 82nd Airborne, 1st Brigade Combat Team. Steven is commissioning in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve. Both feel honored to be serving and to be able to tell these stories before they do.

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NBA star Dwyane Wade is the national spokesman for National Recess Week.

You already know him as an NBA champion and Olympic gold medalist. You already know that Dwyane Wade still gets up after falling down seven times. But, the 27-year-old’s acts of kindness often go unnoticed.

Last Christmas, he made headlines when he bought a home for a Florida woman whose nephew accidentally burned her house down. But, the kindness isn’t random for the Miami Heat star who founded Wade’s World, an organization that helps underprivileged kids. Once again, he has teamed up with National Recess Week as the national spokesperson to encourage young people to foster a sense of community and sportsmanship.

Dwyane’s NBA bio says he wants to leave the world a better place. When I met him, he told me he told me that things he wants the world to know him for haven’t been accomplished yet. “But, they will happen,” Dwyane assures me.

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J.R. Martinez, 25, is a national spokesperson for the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes.

J.R. Martinez wanted to give back to the country that gave him and his family so much. The 25-year-old enlisted in the U.S. Army in September 2002, much to the hesitation of his El Salvadorian mom. In February of 2003, he deployed to Iraq, promising his mom he’d return in one piece. That April, he did.

His body was in one piece, but badly burned and scarred. “I knew it was going to be a bad day,” J.R. remembers of the day he was serving as the driver of his unit’s Humvee when the left front tire hit a land mine. J.R. suffered smoke inhalation and severe burns to more than 40% of his body. His mother met him at the Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, to help him recover from the 32 different surgeries he’d undergo over the next 34 months.

During that time, he realized that the injury might have been a blessing in disguise. He became a national spokesperson for the Coalition to Salute America’s Heroes. He also became a lead actor on the daytime Soap Opera “All My Children,” not needing much preparation to play a veteran wounded overseas. Reacting to all his recent success and confidence, J.R. simply says, “Dream and dream big, because it’s free and it’s something no one can take away from you.”

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Liz Kelly, 29, donated her kidney to her fiancé when he became seriously ill.

In light of Valentine's Day, our team thought it was only fitting that we introduce you to a young person who loves. Liz Kelly met her fiancé, Matt, almost nine years ago working at a clothing store. They fell fast in love.

In October of 2007, Matt became very sick. Doctors eventually determined that he had congestive heart failure they attributed to bad kidney function. He needed a donor. Liz wanted to get him to the top of the list by donating her own kidney to someone, never thinking they would be a match.

Liz, 29, remembers when she heard they were, in fact, a match. “I said, 'Of course we are. How could we not be a match?'” Her doctors told her she had a big kidney for her size, perfect for Matt. Maybe it was always meant for him. Maybe it was meant that they share a kidney and a heart.

They hope to get married this summer, when they are both done recovering.

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Luqman 'Luke' Jubair, 22, seen here attending The Alliance of Youth Movements Summit in New York.

Luqman “Luke” Jubair is one of the bravest people I’ve ever met. I actually didn’t know what to expect when I first met this 22-year-old Iraqi man. He grew up in a well-off, well-educated Sunni family of doctors in Hit, about three hours outside of Baghdad, only to have his life turned upside down by war. He had always dreamed of being a doctor. At the height of sectarian violence in 2004, he endured daily threats of kidnapping and assassination going to medical school at the College of Medicine at Al-Nahrain University in Baghdad, in a predominately Shiite area.

Because of what he went through and the violence he saw around him every day, I thought Luke would be bitter or vengeful, but he is nothing of the sort. In 2005, he became a surgery assistant at a hospital in his hometown. Then, during the height of violence in the Anbar Province, he moved to the Al-Ramadi Hospital where the needs were greater. Even though he was helping his people, he still hid his identity from local gangs and militias in the so-called “Red Zone,” where he lives and works.

He tells me calmly and with a smile in his eye, the next year he teamed up with other young doctors and professionals – Sunni, Shiite and Christian – who were dealing with similar fears and encountering Iraqis with limited basic supplies or services. They started a group called, Iraqis Rebuilding Our Country, or IROC. The group reaches out to locals to help them help themselves primarily with language, health and computer education.  On top of his service work with IROC, he also now works at the Al-Kadhimia hospital in Baghdad, where he says he still fears for his life.

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Alicia Mixson takes care of her brother Catlin Mixson, who was hit by a roadside bomb in Iraq last year.

The Mixson family has two young heroes. Catlin Mixson, 21, is one of the nation's heroes, serving in Iraq until he was wounded. And Alicia Mixson, 26, is his hero, putting her own life on hold to take care of her brother.

Catlin was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad eight months ago. Everyone else in his Humvee died. Catlin survived, but had to have both legs amputated. Doctors wanted someone to stay at the military hospital in Texas with him. Alicia left everything she had in Florida to care for him.

They live in Army lodgings together now. She takes him to rehab, counts his pills and rolls his wheelchair. "People keep telling me that it's exceptional – but in my heart I didn't have a choice," says Alicia, a truly unsung hero.

For her selfless work, Alicia was recognized by CVS Pharmacy's "For All the Ways You Care" program.

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