Girl child-rights advocate Betty Makoni will be in Friday Harbor for a two-hour speaking engagement, Saturday, at San Juan Community Theatre.

Makoni, the founder and director of Girl Child Network, was honored as a Top 10 CNN Hero for 2009, for her advocacy and tireless efforts on behalf of survivors of sexual abuse, worldwide.

An activist, as well as a poet and radio host, Makoni is also a recipient of the WCP Decade Global Child Rights Hero 2010 honorary award, and a 2010 humanitarian Interaction Forum Awards recipient. More recently, she received an honorary award during a visit at Duke University Medical School.

Founded by Makoni in her home country of Zimbabwe in 1998, Girl Child Network provides a haven for young victims of abuse. It now operates in eight countries and has reached more than 300,000 girls.

Makoni, herself a survivor of sexual abuse, will take time out from a January tour of the Seattle to visit Friday Harbor. Her speaking engagement at the theater begins at 1:30 p.m. Admission is free.

The event is sponsored by Spring Street International School, Soroptimist International of Friday Harbor, and San Juan Community Theatre.

San Juan Island’s Jill Hopkins, one of the event’s organizers, has this to say of Makoni, “Betty’s work is about changing the world, one girl at a time.”

For information about Girl Child Network, visit, http://girlchildnetworkworldwide.org/

For info about the event, call 378-5390.