Nursing student is one of Glamour magazine's Top Ten Amazing Women

Florida State University nursing student Sophia Khawly, 21, has been selected as one of Glamour magazine’s Top Ten College Women of 2010 in an article in the October edition headlined, “Ten Amazing Women You Haven’t Heard of Yet.”

Glamour labeled her “The Healer,” and her photo in the magazine — working with a mannequin patient — was shot at Florida State’s nursing lab.

Glamour’s brief description of Khawly tells a big tale:

Her dream: “To work for the World Health Organization.”

How she’s reaching for it: While visiting Haiti, her parents’ homeland, Khawly noticed abundant poverty and few public schools. At age 14, she decided to create an organization to build a school. “My sister and I named it Hope For Haiti’s Children; our whole family got involved,” she says. Now HFHC has opened two schools, which educate about 300 children annually—miraculously, the earthquake earlier this year didn’t harm the buildings. Khawly, a nursing major, manages HFHC’s medical services (donate at hopeforhaitischildren.webs.com). After becoming an R.N., she plans to get a doctorate of nursing practice.

Khawly's service and volunteer efforts are so extensive that she won Florida State University’s President’s 2010 Humanitarian of the Year Award. At the top of her list of service is her involvement, since 2003, in Hope for Haiti's Children Inc. Working with that group Khawly has raised funds and written grants to build public schools in Port-au-Prince; bought and solicited school supplies and equipment; found sponsors for each student in the sponsored schools; and met with medical personnel to recruit them for summer mission trips. She also has traveled to Haiti a number of times, where she organized and ran health clinics in the schools. In the aftermath of the devastating earthquake that struck the island nation, Hope for Haiti's Children planned to incorporate building and sustaining orphanages into its mission as well.

At Florida State, Khawly has worked tirelessly on a variety of service projects through the Center for Leadership and Civic Education, which develops leadership skills through service learning. As a Service Scholar, she contributes a minimum of 75 volunteer hours per semester to a variety of social service and health organizations, including Westminster Oaks nursing home, Big Bend Cares (an HIV/AIDS service organization) and Habitat for Humanity. She also has mentored children in grades K-12; volunteered with an after-school program at a Boys & Girls Club; and assisted a county health department in reaching out to the community through diabetes screenings, HIV quick testing, and breast and cervical cancer screenings. In addition, Khawly helps international students to improve their English skills through Florida State's Center for Intensive English Studies.

Summers and spring breaks don't provide any down time either. Since 2007, Khawly has participated in the Alternative Break Corps, an organization that recruits young people to work on service projects around the country. Over one spring break, Khawly assisted a group in Washington, D.C., that conducts HIV education, outreach and prevention efforts directed at the city's teens. On another recent trip, she volunteered with an organization for people with developmental disabilities in Indianapolis.

The value of helping others was instilled in her at an early age, Khawly said.

"My parents taught me the importance of community service the same way they taught me how to say 'please' and 'thank you,'" she said. "Serving others has always been a part of my life, a part of me. There is something about helping others that gives me a thrill. To know that I have contributed in making a difference in people's lives gives me a sense of accomplishment."

Glamour’s 10 winners spent four days in New York City, where among other things they were feted at a banquet, visited the United Nations and enjoyed the Broadway play, “Billy Elliot.” They each received $3,000 for the charity of their choice, which Khawly gave to her family’s organization, “Hope For Haiti’s Children.”

Previous winners of the Glamour Top Ten College Women award include Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, Condoleezza Rice, Martha Stewart and Diane Sawyer.