Nobel Women’s Initiative – Building Peace
By Suzanne
Thompson
On April 9, Nobel Peace
Laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi and Betty Williams came to Los Angeles for
their first full planning meeting for the Nobel Women’s Initiative:
Working Together for Peace with Justice (NWI). These Nobel Peace Laureates,
along with 2004 Laureate Wangari Maathai (Kenyan environmentalists) are founders
of a new initiative to support women’s rights around the world. It is the
first time in history that Laureates of Peace have created their own
organization that uses their Nobel voices to advance peace.
One element of the work will be to sponsor
a meeting of women every two years, in a different region of the world, hosted
by the Nobel Laureate of that region to highlight issues of concern to women in
that part of the world. Mindful of not duplicating the work of existing
organizations, the Laureates want this initiative to supplement and enhance the
work by networking, sharing information and ideas to provide new ground for
discussion, debate and change. A director has been hired as well as an associate
via the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work internship
program. The Laureates have put together a working group of women activists and
academics to assist their
efforts.
Flying in the next day to meet
with the Laureates was 1992 Nobel Peace Laureate, Guatemalan human rights
activist Rigoberta Menchú. Active in Central America solidarity movements
of the 80’s, I was very familiar with the work of some of the Laureates.
Actor/activists Edward Asner introduced me to Jody Williams when she was the
Deputy Director of the Los Angeles based Medical Aid for El Salvador. And, I was
well aware of the horrific human rights abuses, especially against the
indigenous peoples of Guatemala. Menchú, a Mayan Indian, grew up during the
civil war, and fled her homeland in 1981 after her father, mother and brothers
were killed by Guatemalan government security
forces.
The Nobel Prize is an
international award given yearly since 1901 for achievements in physics,
chemistry, medicine, literature and for peace. In 1968, the Bank of Sweden
instituted the Prize in Economic Sciences in memory of Alfred Nobel, founder of
the Nobel Prize. The Prize Winners are announced in October every year. They
receive their awards (a prize amount, a gold medal and a diploma) on December
10, the anniversary of Nobel's
death.
Betty Williams was recognized
with the Peace Prize in 1976 for her work to bring peace in her native Northern
Ireland, a country at war for over 850 years. In the 30 years since her award,
she has devoted her life to creating a movement to begin the reversal of
thinking on how we deal with the injustices, cruelty and horror perpetrated on
the world’s children. “In a world that we know can feed itself,
upwards of 40,000 children die every day from conditions of malnutrition. Surely
we must question why we are allowing this carnage to continue. Thirty years in
the field has convinced me of one thing, the obvious fact that there are no
answers from the top down. Governments do not have the answers. A lot of times
they are the problem. If we are committed to helping our world’s children,
then we must begin to create solutions from the bottom up” said Mrs.
Williams. A city of compassion and peace, where children are treated with
dignity, respect and love is the result of Betty Williams many years of work in
Italy. World Centers of Compassion for Children International is building the
first City of Compassion for children in south Italy in the region
Basilicata.
American Jody Williams
received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work as the coordinator of the
International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Organizer and activist, teacher and
writer, she is an internationally recognized speaker on the power of individuals
to bring about dramatic change in the world. In 1992, Jody served as founding
coordinator of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) and oversaw
the growth of the coalition to over 1,300 organizations working together from 95
countries to eliminate antipersonnel landmines. Working in an unprecedented
cooperative effort with governments, UN bodies and the International Committee
of the Red Cross (ICRC), she served as chief strategist and spokesperson for the
ICBL as it achieved its goal of an international treaty banning antipersonnel
landmines during a diplomatic conference held in Oslo in September
1997.
Human Rights activists and lawyer
Shirin Ebadi, J.D. was awarded the Peace Prize in 2003 for her efforts to
promote human rights, in particular, the rights of women, children, and
political prisoners in Iran. She is the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel
Peace Prize, and only the fifth Muslim to receive a Nobel Prize in any field.
She was the first female Judge in Iran and served as President of the City Court
of Tehran from 1975 to 1979. She, along with other woman judges, was dismissed
from that position after the Islamic Revolution in February 1979. As a lawyer,
she has taken on many controversial cases defending political dissidents and as
a result has been imprisoned numerous times. She is also a university professor.
“I know several Israeli NGO’s that help Palestinians. It’s the
governments that fight. In a country with over 2 million Iranians it is time to
tell Bush to stop the differences” said Dr. Ebadi. Her memoir, Iran
Awakening: A Memoir of Revolution and Hope, will be published by Random House in
May 2006.
2004 Laureate Wangari
Maathai, unable to attend the meeting, has played a leading global role for
canceling the backlogged, non-repayable debts of poor African countries. She
introduced the idea of ordinary people planting trees and developed the idea
into a broad-based, grassroots organization called the “Green Belt
Movement” which was launched in 1977 and grew into a Pan-African Green
Belt Network. She has helped plant 30 million trees on farms, schools and church
compounds across Kenya.
Her recent
campaign against “land grabbing” (illegal appropriation of public
lands by unscrupulous developers) and the “re-allocation” of forest
land has received much attention in Kenya and the region. In 2003, President
Mwai Kibaki appointed her Assistant Minister for Environment and Natural
Resources in Kenya’s ninth Parliament, a position she currently holds. She
is internationally recognized for her persistent struggle for democracy, human
rights and environmental
conservation.
Only 12 women in the more
than 100 years of history of the Nobel Peace Prize have been so recognized.
Today, there are 7 women Nobel Peace
Prize Laureates representing much of the world. It is amazing and inspiring what
can happen when women from different countries, economic backgrounds, cultures
and a variety of experiences, come together for the benefit of so many. It was a
wonderful opportunity to meet these women doing some of the most important work
in the world – building peace.
Posted: Mon - May 1, 2006 at 01:15 AM