Ethan Zohn’s “Do Something Moment”
Ethan Zohn, pictured above at the first Better World Media Workshop in New York, is winner of Survivor: Africa reality TV show. He will give a Better World Radio episode about his Do Something Moment in Africa. After discovering that the children he was playing with were dying of AIDS, he decided to use his $1 million show winnings to fight HIV/AIDS. He is now using his celebrity to promote HIV/AIDS prevention via Grass Root Soccer and frequent college speaking engagements.
Here is a summary of his story:
“He tells about how devastating the beginning of the game was, how he was stripped from everything he knew, no comforts, fearful, no labels. All that he had left was his character and his values, and a hacky sack ball that the producers allowed him to take with him as a “luxury.” (A soccer ball was too large)
During a break at a hospital in Wamba, Kenya, he started playing hacky sack with some children. The experience filled him with joy, “the sun shined, the kids were laughing and screaming.” He asked a nurse why they were in the hospital; and only then discovered that they would soon die of AIDS.
He gave them his hacky sack ball.
When the final session of the game came around, people asked what he would do with his winnings. He said that he would start an organization to bring soccer players to classrooms to teach AIDS prevention, and that is the beginning of his journey for Grassroots Soccer.”
This will be a prototype for Do Something Moment episodes, describing people whose lives have been transformed by some event to Do Something to make the world a better place. These episodes are not cast as political or religious experiences, it is simply people touching their positive core values.