The Woohoo! Report

Julio Diaz has a daily routine. Every night, the 31-year-old social worker ends his hour-long subway commute to the Bronx one stop early, just so he can eat at his favorite diner.

But one night last month, as Diaz stepped off the No. 6 train and onto a nearly empty platform, his evening took an unexpected turn.

He was walking toward the stairs when a teenage boy approached and pulled out a knife.

“He wants my money, so I just gave him my wallet and told him, ‘Here you go,’” Diaz says.

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, “Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.”

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, “like what’s going on here?” Diaz says. “He asked me, ‘Why are you doing this?’”

Diaz replied: “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me … hey, you’re more than welcome.

“You know, I just felt maybe he really needs help,” Diaz says.

Diaz says he and the teen went into the diner and sat in a booth.

“The manager comes by, the dishwashers come by, the waiters come by to say hi,” Diaz says. “The kid was like, ‘You know everybody here. Do you own this place?’”

“No, I just eat here a lot,” Diaz says he told the teen. “He says, ‘But you’re even nice to the dishwasher.’”

Diaz replied, “Well, haven’t you been taught you should be nice to everybody?”

“Yea, but I didn’t think people actually behaved that way,” the teen said.

Diaz asked him what he wanted out of life. “He just had almost a sad face,” Diaz says.

The teen couldn’t answer Diaz — or he didn’t want to.

When the bill arrived, Diaz told the teen, “Look, I guess you’re going to have to pay for this bill ’cause you have my money and I can’t pay for this. So if you give me my wallet back, I’ll gladly treat you.”

The teen “didn’t even think about it” and returned the wallet, Diaz says. “I gave him $20 … I figure maybe it’ll help him. I don’t know.”

Diaz says he asked for something in return — the teen’s knife — “and he gave it to me.”

Afterward, when Diaz told his mother what happened, she said, “You’re the type of kid that if someone asked you for the time, you gave them your watch.”

“I figure, you know, if you treat people right, you can only hope that they treat you right. It’s as simple as it gets in this complicated world.”

Produced for Morning Edition by Michael Garofalo.

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IslamOnline.net & News Agencies

MURSHIDABAD, India – Lining up his friends and poor villagers at the backyard of his house, Babar Ali did not expect his play-acting teaching to become a reality.

“In the beginning I was just play-acting, teaching my friends,” the 16-year-old told the BBC.

“But then I realized these children will never learn to read and write if they don’t have proper lessons.”

Growing up in Murshidabad in West Bengal, Ali made a remarkable tale of the desire to help others learn amid abject poverty.

As the clock ticks 6 a.m., he gets up to start his daily journey for the Raj Govinda school, which requires a 10km (six mile) ride and a couple of kilometers walk.

“It’s not easy for me to come to school because I live so far away… but the teachers are good and I love learning,” he says in his neat blue and white uniform.

“And my parents believe I must get the best education possible that’s why I am here.”

His parents pay 1,800 rupees a year ($40) for Ali to attend school.

But many other families cannot afford to pay this small amount of money to admit their kids to schools.

Realizing that, Ali is volunteering to share the knowledge he gets in school with his fellow villagers.

“It’s my duty to educate them, to help our country build a better future.”

Ali launched his pioneering project when he was only 9, making him the world’s known youngest headmaster.

Poverty Challenger

Arriving back from school at 4 p.m., Ali rings the bell to summon his village students to his home backyard.

He lectures them on discipline and starts his lessons.

Along with Ali there are now 10 volunteer teachers at the afternoon school, all of them students at school or college.

The afternoon school now has 800 students, all from poor families, who come after finishing their day’s work.

“My father is handicapped and can’t work,” says Chumki Hajra, 14, who has never been to school.

Ever since she was five, Chumki has been working in domestic service against 200 rupees a month ($5), the amount her family bitterly needs to survive.

“If I don’t work, we can’t survive as a family…We need the money.”

But thanks to Ali, she is able to get some education with hundreds of poor children in his village.

They pay anything. Even books and food are given free, funded by donations.

The school has been recognized by local authorities after helping to increase literacy rates in the area and Ali was awarded for his outstanding work.

“Our area is economically deprived,” notes Ali.

“Without this school many kids wouldn’t get an education, they’d never even be literate.”

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