J.K. Rowling: Ripple of Hope

Learn English with J.K. Rowling. In this inspiring acceptance speech for the Robert F. Kennedy Ripple of Hope Human Rights Award, J.K. Rowling discusses the profound impact of Robert Kennedy on her life and career. She also highlights her dedication to ending child institutionalization through her NGO, Lumos. Listen to Rowling as she shares the emotional journey that led her to become an advocate for the world’s most vulnerable children and how we all can make a difference.

I’m disappointed I was told I’d meet some Kennedy’s. You should you should know that among the British being forced to watch a film in which people say how great you are is actually considered cruel and inhumane treatment. We are a people of the firm handshake. If we’re feeling particularly effusive we may say well done but that’s generally followed by something like you bastard in case the recipient becomes inappropriately giddy. And I’m… So I’m feeling very shaken honestly and I’m going to try and express why I feel so emotional about this award and I’m going to try and do that quite briefly because no one wants to hear from Nancy Pelosi more than I do.

So… briefly then on the top floor of my house in Edinburgh is a framed poster from Robert Kennedy’s presidential run and I bought it in a from a memorabilia store in DC during my first ever Harry Potter tour in the States and I bought it of course because Robert Kennedy has been since my teens one of my greatest heroes. We overlapped on this earth for only three years so I know him by his legacy and by the many biographies I’ve read. Robert Kennedy embodied everything I most admire in a human being. He was morally and physically courageous and like Churchill I believe that courage is the foremost of the virtues because it… it guarantees all the others. He looked beyond the invisible but powerful boundaries that can insulate people of privilege from the rest of the world and he looked into those dark corners where poverty and discrimination and injustice breed. He was a man of both empathy and action and he brought about real change and he continues to inspire people beyond the boundaries of his own country and I’m not sure we can ask much more of any politician or indeed any human being.

Having said all of that I do understand the very human desire not to go poking into too many dark corners. As you’ve just seen on the film I experienced that feeling myself when I saw a picture of a small child screaming through wire in a British newspaper and I went to turn the page. Now I’m not usually very good with dates or counting as anyone who would like to check the shifting numbers of house elves at Hogwarts can confirm but I always know exactly how long ago it was that I saw that picture because I was pregnant with my youngest child at the time and she turns 15 this January. I was very ashamed of my impulse and so I turned back and I thought if it’s as bad as it looks you have to do something about it and I read the accompanying article which was by an undercover reporter and it was bad and so I knew I had to do something about it and I began writing letters and then I met many experts in the field and that led to the founding of my NGO Lumos which aims to end child institutionalization. Thank you.

I think it isn’t widely enough understood as Roger said on the film that 80% of the children living in so-called orphanages worldwide have at least one living parent. Research shows us that even well-run institutions have catastrophic effects on child health and development. Statistics show us that one in five will have a criminal record, one in seven will enter the sex trade and one in ten will kill themselves. We know that many institutions are hotbeds of abuse and we understand that parents are pressured and sometimes even tricked into giving up their children on the promise of food, health care and education that they know isn’t available anywhere else in their communities. Now I’ve often been asked why this issue and my answer is there are few people on earth more vulnerable than a child who has been taken from their family and hidden from mainstream society.

I’ve now met children with attachment disorders so severe that they will crawl into the lap of any stranger who smiles at them. I’ve seen profoundly ill children lying three in a bed with minimal human contact and no stimulation and I’ve stood in roomfuls of babies who’ve learned not to cry. Now there is good news, believe it or not, and the good news is that this is an entirely man-made problem and we can fix it. Yeah that is good news, we have… we have to have hope here and it is fixable as long as we have the individual and the political will. Incredibly it is cheaper to support children in their own family than it is to warehouse them in this way and most importantly of all the outcomes for children are hugely improved if they’re brought up in loving family care and that includes foster care and we can all make small changes to bring about that outcome by making sure we never donate to so-called orphanages and we don’t volunteer in them.

So I’m very, very proud and grateful to all of our incredible Lumos staff around the world. We’re now providing support on deinstitutionalization to 50 countries globally and we’ve so far helped just under 50,000 children directly either moving them from institutions into loving families, often their own, or by preventing the mentoring the institution in the first place and I cover all core costs of Lumos so all donations go directly to programs and that help children.

Can I just say this speech is full of typos so whoever got it on the silent auction send it to me and I’ll copy edit it for you. It’s really annoying me as I read through it. Anyway… I’m nearly there. I didn’t know the sex of the baby I was carrying when I first read about that caged child but I did know that if it was a boy I would I would name him Robert after Robert Kennedy and in fact she became Mackenzie and I became Robert. When I was thinking up a pen name for the crime series that has been one of the great joys of my writing life I took the name Robert Galbraith in tribute to my political hero. So I’m currently just a few pages away from completing JK’s 13th and Robert’s fifth novel and if I hadn’t come to New York to accept this award I would have I would have finished it this week. So… and I should say that I enter a state that can best be described as feral when I’m in the final stages of a book. So… one of the many extraordinary things about this evening is that I’m standing in front of you not looking like a cave dwelling hermit and for this my husband thanks you.

So… I just want to say thank you this truly is one of the most extraordinary honors I could have possibly been given and I shouldn’t ask for anything else while I’m standing here but I will. If you would like to know more about how to help some of the world’s most vulnerable children please visit wearelumos.org. Thank you.