All beauty queens want World peace, but this one actually puts forth an effort. Born in Iran, former Miss Canada, Nazanin Afshin-Jam speaks out about world issues and does what she can to help. “I have done a lot in my life,” Nazanin says, “and I hate to be seen as one-dimensional.”

Every model or beauty icon says that, right? It’s hard to think of one that does not claim to do “good work” for kids, animals, the world, or some other deserving cause. They want you to know that there’s more substance there than just a pretty face.

Well the truth is with Ms. Afshin-Jam there is. She had help save a young woman also named Nazanin from being executed in the beauty queen’s birth place. Nazanin Fatehi has spent all of her 19 years in Karaj, an impoverished suburb of Tehran. She was walking in the park one day when she was brutally attacked by three strange men who attempted to rape her. In 2005, while walking in a park, she was attacked by three men who attempted to rape her. In self-defense, she stabbed one of the men in the chest, killing him. When her attacker died, under Iranian law she went from victim to criminal. She was charged and convicted of murder and sentenced to death.

At home, Afshin-Jam received an email telling of this occurrence from a human rights sympathizer named Vincent Maunoury. He found her when he Googled for information on the troubled woman with the same name. He made some efforts to help her case but wasn’t getting a response, so "So he e-mailed me on the off-chance that I might be able to help." Said Afshin-Jam.

She posted a petition on her website, which received more than 350,000 signatures. She was also able to work with Amnesty to secure a decent lawyer in Iran. She traveled to Montreal, Los Angeles and the United Nations headquarters in New York, lobbying for diplomatic intervention. In June 2006, four months after the launch of the "Help Nazanin" campaign, the pressure mounted and the Iranian head of judiciary announced a stay of execution.

In January of the same year, following a retrial, Nazanin Fatehi was exonerated of all murder charges and released. Hours after she walked free, the two women with the same names and completely different lives spoke on the phone. "She was crying, and I was shaking so much I could hardly hold the phone.
"She said she would never be able to thank me enough and I told her that it was the happiest day of my life," says Nazanin.