Fifty-seven year old Elissa Montati has little money and no training in humanitarian aid. All she has is “a computer and a phone” CBS correspondent Scott Pelley explained on 60 Minutes last night. Nevertheless, over the past 15 years, Montati, who lives alone on Staten Island, has transformed the lives of more than 100 children maimed, burned, and crippled in wars on five continents. She has done this by putting together a network of U.S. doctors and hospitals, one by one that agree to waive their fees and treat these children at no charge.

Montati runs her operation out of her former walk-in closet. “I added a window,” she explains. “And it works. I speak to the world right outta my walk-in closet.”

Asked where the 112 children she has helped come from, Montanti told Pelley, "Bosnia, El Salvador, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, Iraq, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Haiti. Did I say Nepal?"

“Of all the tragedies of war,” Pelley observed, “none are greater than those that involve children. Caught in the crossfire or hit by a roadside bomb, children are often wounded but rarely receive the heroic, high tech medical care that our troops depend on.” Their limbs are not replaced. Their scars do not fade.

Montanti found her mission by accident. Her work with crippled children began back in 1996 when a friend asked her to raise money to buy school supplies for kids in war-torn Bosnia. That led to a meeting with the Bosnian ambassador to the U.N . She recalls the encounter:

"He said to me, 'You know, quite frankly, we have much stronger needs right now than pencil cases.' He reached in his drawer. And he handed me this letter that this boy had written to him asking for help, two new arms and a leg. And I saw his picture. And that's really when my whole life started to change.”

Pelley asked her how she persuades physicians and hospitals to volunteer. Her reply: “I tell 'em this true story. Here's a child that's battered. I just tell them the reality. I expect them to help. I'm grateful 'cause they don't have to help. But I expect that they would, because how could you not?"

On 60 Minutes Pelley follows the life of a nine year old boy from Iraq named Wa'ad. Playing soccer at 11, he stepped on a landmine. "He was walking with his friends and they were kicking a bottle. I think the first child kicked the bottle. And then, maybe the second. And then he kicked it and it exploded," Montanti explains.

 “The blast shattered his face, tore out his eye, and took away his right arm and left leg.”

 In April of 2010, Montanti brought Wa’ad  and his mother to the U.S. after an American soldier told her about him.

Pelley asked Wa’ad’s surgeon why he volunteered to treat him: "I do this probably for the most selfish reason, which is that it feels good.”

Asked why she is immersed in this work, Montanti told Pelley, "Well, my charity is very personal. It becomes a global family. All these children, I say 'my children' so often. Because I feel that that they are – I love all of them. It's more than just an organization that is giving a child a leg or fixing his face. These children go back as little ambassadors. And they tell their town, their village, who say, 'How wonderful the American people are.'"

Meanwhile, Montanti admitted, she sometimes receives “hate” mail and phone calls from Americans who feel that she should not be helping youngsters who may be the children of an enemy.
I urge you to watch Wa’ad’s story on 60 Minutes.

Physicians and hospitals that might want to volunteer, as well as anyone interested in making a contribution should contact the Global Medical Relief Fund.

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