Ricardo Pun Chong, a Peruvian physician working in Lima with sick children from all over the country, was the winner of CNN’s Hero of the Year award for 2018, granted Sunday in a ceremony held at New York’s American Museum of Natural History.
When Pun was a medical intern, he noticed relatives of sick children sleeping on the floors in the hospital. He soon discovered these families were bringing their sick kids from rural areas far from Lima, families with little if any resources to pay for hotels or even a room somewhere.
“I couldn’t get the picture of the families sleeping on the floor out of my mind,” Pun told CNN earlier this year. “So, I decided to do something for them.”
In 2008, Pun founded Inspira, a non-profit organization that since then has helped more than 800 families. In 2011, it opened its shelter, providing free lodging, meals and transport for children and their families while they are receiving treatment in Lima. The mothers help volunteers clean the rooms of bunkbeds and wash dishes, when they are not at the hospital with their children —many of the children are cancer patients, sometimes undergoing 12-hour chemotherapy sessions.
Pun was selected by online voters from the Top 10 CNN Hero finalists this year, who work on projects as far away as Lagos, Nigeria and in Brooklyn, Aspen, North Nevada and Oklahoma. All the top ten receive a $10,000 cash award and matching funds up to $50,000 for their organizations.
As Hero of the Year, Pun is to receive $100,000 to expand his project.
“We can start building our new shelter with this — with this prize, we can triple our assistance,” Pun said. “Thank you so much CNN — thank you so much everybody.”
Inspira currently occupies rented facilities but the municipal government of Surco in southwest Lima has already donated 680 sq. m. of land, and an architect has designed the new shelter, with lots of space for kids to play.
