A 34-year-old Ghanaian, Mr James Kofi Annan, has been honoured with one of the most prestigious awards in the world, the Frederick Douglas Freedom Award. Mr Annan was bundled into servitude at the age of six, working 17 hours a day in some of Ghana's fishing communities for seven years, during which he was subjected to continuous abuse without food and shelter. The Freedom Award, which was instituted by the John Templeton Foundation, would be presented to Mr Annan by Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, the 1984 and 2007 Gandhi Peace Prize and 2007 Nobel Peace Prize award winner, on September 15, 2008 in Los Angeles, California. The $20,000 award would be disbursed over a two-year period, $10,000 of which would be for the personal use of the awardee, while the remaining would be used for training and capacity building for "Challenging Heights", an organisation founded by Mr Annan, to expand and improve upon their work. Mr Annan is being given the award for not allowing his bitter experience in slavery dampen his spirit at the age of 14 when he had not set foot in a classroom, but took the challenge upon himself and studied how to read and write with some of his friends in primary school, while working to foot his school bills and feed himself. Despite the hustle and bustle that characterised Mr Annan's childhood life, he managed to scale through and got a job at Barclays Bank. While with the bank, he continued to work tirelessly to assist in the development of orphans and vulnerable children, halted child slavery and improved the lives of its victims, as well as the poor and destitute within his area of abode. Mr Annan, who said goodbye to his banking profession as a manager in 2007, is currently the Executive Director of Challenging Heights, a non-governmental organisation operating in the Efutu Municipality of the Central Region. Challenging Heights is recognised by the National Youth Council as a national organisation, frequently sensitising parents to the need to educate their children and also advocating against indiscipline, poverty and diseases, as well as worse forms of child labour, commercial sexual exploitation of children, kayayo, street vending and mining, which seriously affect child development. After he had elected himself to create access to quality education and health for the youth, Mr Annan put up a classroom block to ensure that children in his community had access to quality education. Currently, Mr Annan runs a school with 251 pupils with ages ranging from four to 15 years. He has offered scholarships to a number of pupils and students and also presented materials to assist the less privileged in society to enrol in school. Mr Annan's Challenging Heights received the 2008 WANGO Award in Education at the first ever WANGO African Conference held in Accra in April, 2008, and was subsequently nominated by his donor, Global Fund for Children. WANGO is an international network of NGOs and individuals whose mission is to serve its members and provide the mechanism and support needed for the organisations to connect, partner, share, inspire, and multiply their contributions to solve humanity's basic problems. Mr Annan is the latest in a line of individuals who have been recognised for subsequent awards after receiving a WANGO award. In 2003,WANGO recognised the Green Belt Movement of Dr Wangari Maathai with the environment award, one year before Dr Wangari received the Nobel Peace Prize. After receiving the 2004 WANGO Humanitarian Award on behalf of his NGO, Small Kindness, Yusef Islani (formerly Cat Stevens) was given the "Man of Peace Award" at the opening of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, particularly recognising him for his charity, "Small Kindness". In 2004, WANGO's Peace, Security and Reconciliation Award was presented to the PeaceWorks Foundation, and its initiative, One Voice, and was received by Founder Daniel Lubetzky. In 2005, One Voice was honoured by Queen Noor with the King Hussein Humanitarian Leadership Prize, in an event attended by such luminaries as the then UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan; former US President Bill Clinton, actress Meg Ryan and musical artist Sting, among others. Source: Daily Graphic