World People’s Blog

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Having suffered Stalin’s deportation of the Chechen people to Central Asia, Maya Shovkhalova (born 1936) returned to Grozny in 1958. She graduated from the Tbilisi Music Conservatory. In the 1990s, she was a member of the Commission on Rehabilitation of Victims of the 1944-1956 Repressions in Chechnya. Since the beginning of the Russian-Chechen armed conflict, Maya has been engaged in anti-war activism, cooperating with international as well as Russian NGOs. She is also head of the NGO Iberia which focuses on the issues of demining and banning of land mines … (1000peacewomen 1/2).

She says: “We condemn acts of terrorism irrespectively of whether they are committed by groups of bandits or by the Russian military.” (From the appeal of Chechen peace advocates to the world community)

She is signing the Public Appeal of Chechen NGOs of Prague Watchdog, 29th 2003,
… and here the appeal on Kafkas Vakfi.

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Sorry, no photo found of Maya Shovkhalova - Russian Federation

She works for Iberia, and for Yaltinskaya initsyativa za mir v Chechnie YIMC.

Maya Shovhalova was born in Grozny in 1936. Having suffered Stalin’s deportation of the Chechen people to Kazakhstan, Maya returned to Grozny in 1958. After graduating from Tbilisi Music Conservatory (Georgia), she worked as a soloist at the theater and the Philharmonic Hall in Grozny. For some time she was engaged in teaching. She was a member of the Commission on Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions in Chechnya during 1944-1956. Since the beginning of the Russian-Chechen armed conflict Maya has been taking an active part in human rights advocacy activities.

In February 1944, during the deportation of all the Chechens and Ingushs to Central Asia, staged by the Soviet regime, a horrible tragedy happened: 700 inhabitants of Khaibakh, a high mountain Chechen village, were burnt alive in the building of the local club by a Soviet punitive detachment.

It was not until the 1990s that this barbarous act was investigated. Maya Shovkhalova took an active part in the work of the Investigation Commission on Khaibakh events that made public this and other crimes against humanity at the time of Stalin’s repressions.

The beginning of democratic changes in the Soviet Union and the committed work of human rights activists who revealed the crimes of the communist regime gave hope that such tragedies would never be repeated. But hopes were dashed by the following developments which resulted in the Russian-Chechen armed conflict. During the first military campaign Maya helped the wounded, took part in negotiations between the Chechen president Dudaev’s representatives and the Russian soldiers’ mothers who wanted to return their sons back home. Unfortunately all the efforts of the peace advocates failed to stop the savage war.

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She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Nilda Estigarribia grew up fighting against the abuses committed by the Paraguayan military dictatorship led by General Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989). She was part of the only organization for the defense of human rights to exist during that period. She was under observation by the military forces. Several times, she escaped becoming a victim of repression. She was constantly banging on the doors of police stations and jail cells to find and assist torture victims. The Dictatorship ended–but her activism did not. There are still many tasks pending … (1000peacewomen 1/2).

She says: “During the dictatorship, torture had its most visible identification in men, while the faces of women were evidenced for giving humanitarian assistance in prisons, hospitals and cemeteries.

She is mentionned as Political Heroe.

Las pantallas del poder. (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos) (TT: Screens of power.)(TA: Human rights comission).

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Nilda Estigarribia - Paraguay

She works for Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos CONADEH.

… “When I was 13 years old I escaped through the roofs and I jumped over the walls slipping away from the repressive police of that time”. Thus said Nilda Estigarribia, who was born and grew up in Paraguay. The memories referred to are from the time of the military dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989). Nilda was then a militant member of the Youth Section of the Partido Liberal Radical Auténtico (PLRA), known as the “Avalón Club“. The experience of seeing her companions taken by the police and returned having been tortured had a decisive influence on her in her untiring fight for the defence of human rights.

She was born in the rural community of Natalicio Talavera, a jurisdiction in the administrative district of Guaira. Nilda had a happy childhood. She was born the middle child of nine brothers and sisters under the discipline of a father who instilled into her the value of honesty and dedication to work. As an adolescent that gave her the security she needed to enter the Youth Organization.

“We used to arrange clandestine meetings in cellars, inner patios and family houses, fearing that the repressive forces would come at any moment. We distributed pamphlets, painted murals on the walls of the streets and we slipped into schools and universities to make denunciations and we had to do it quickly, to erase all traces as soon as possible”.

At that time she got to know Doña Coca - Carmen Lara de Castro -, from whom she learned ways to approach and to defend the rights of the most needy people in society.

“When some political leader, farmer or unionist was caught by the police, Doña Coca and I, as an eternal couple, went into the police stations and the jails offering food, water and medicines or whatever we had, to the victims”. With Coca, she came to understand that to defend human rights in a society dominated by a totalitarian government was not an easy or sensible activity. Instead it was an adventure where they were frequently venturing into the jaws of death. “In spite of everything, I was never scared, nor do I regret what I did”.

In 1966 Nilda obtained a medical degree. During the first year she did her practice periods in public hospitals in the Paraguayan inland where she met the real poverty suffered by the population living far from the metropolis. But it was the period when she worked as medical resident in the Hospital of Clinics in Asunción, the capital city of the country, that gave her the possibility of openly expressing her discord with the repressive state. Along with a group formed by doctors, nurses and students of medicine, she made public denunciations and confronted the repressive organs of the State.

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Linked with 2080 land cases treated in Mozambican city in 18 months.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Zaida Cabral, born in 1951 in Maputo (Mozambique), is an educationalist. She is currently an education advisor for the Danish NGO Danida in the Mozambiquan capital Maputo. She has a master’s degree in education and has served as a researcher and as national director of primary education at the ministry of education. She was also a member of parliament. Her focus is on empowering women and the girl-child. She is one of the most prominent educationalists in Mozambique … (1000peacewomen 1/2).

She says: “I believe in education. If people have access to education, they can make a difference in their lives, Particularly women” … and: ““Children in Mozambique grow up in their mother tongue, which is the language of their community. Once they start going to school, the language of instruction is Portuguese, which they don’t understand at all. Entering school this way is a traumatic experience for our children” … and: “It was so difficult to convince the parents. They want their children to speak Portuguese as soon as possible, the language which is perceived as superior. Parents think that when their children speak the vernacular, they will remain as poor as they are.” Even the government was not supportive. “I was accused by people in the ministry that I wanted to delay the children’s development. But I just wanted to make it easier for the child.” … and: “I feel very frustrated in many aspects of my professional life. Most people in authority are not interested in changing things. But I think I am a fighter. I believe we can achieve lots of things in life by being honest, fighting for our ideals and not thinking of ourselves, but the next generation and the women. People deserve a better life.” (1000peacewomen).

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Zaida Cabral - Mozambique

She works for the Danish International Development Agency DANIDA ActionAid.

Diaporama: GENDER EQUALITY AND EDUCATION IN MOZAMBIQUE.

Find her name on Google Book-search.

(1000peacewomen 2/2): … Those white papers with signs on it did not mean much to Teresa. The 30-year-old village woman had seen them regularly for years in her husband’s wallet. That was before she ever had the opportunity to go to school. But efforts were made by the government of Mozambique and international organisations to educate rural women, and Teresa managed to learn to read after she turned 30. As a result, her husband was in trouble. Teresa discovered that those papers she had found over the previous years were letters from her husband’s lover.

When Zaida Cabral narrates the story Teresa herself had told her, pride flickers in her eyes and a big smile forms on her lips. “Teresa realized that her husband had cheated on her for long. But as a literate woman, she was now able to make her own decisions”, Zaida comments. Her conviction is clear: “I believe in education. If people have access to education, they can make a difference in their lives. Particularly women.”

The 53-year-old mother of two grown sons knows what she is talking about. Her way to being one of the most prominent educationalists in Mozambique was one of struggle. Born in a poor Muslim family in the capital Maputo, she could only complete four years of primary education. It was not until she was 19 that she was able to further her studies by attending evening classes while working during the day. She got married, had two sons and had to keep on working as a secretary, librarian and accountant. At age 28, she began studying education science. In 1995, aged 44, Zaida obtained a Master’s degree in Education from the University of Stockholm in Sweden.

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She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

When the Children’s Center “Nadjeschda” (hope) began to work with abandoned children in 1989, hardly anyone in Kyrgyzstan knew what future these children would face. In the village where the children were to be cared for, feelings of fear, hate, and aggression arose. It was difficult to find people to help. However, it eventually became possible to improve the health of these children and help them become part of society. The Kyrgyz public was made aware that these children are human beings who can be helped. A journalist dubbed the Children’s Center Nadjeschda “Island of Brotherly Love” … (1000peacewomen 1/2).

She says: “These disabled, rejected, so-called ineducable children show us adults what we so often forget in our daily struggle: without love between people our lives would be cold and barren” … (1000peacewomen).

Impressum.

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Karla-Maria Schälike - Germany and Kyrgyzstan

She works for the Children’s Center Nadjeschda (see more next paragraphe).

… After this meeting and visit, Bermet took us to the “Children’s Rehabilitation Center‘s Umut-Nadjeshda”: If parents in Kyrgyzstan are confronted with the birth of a disabled child a heavy fate is in front of them. These children find themselves isolated from the community and a few people are interested in their fate. Many disabled children are admitted as retarded and all kindergartens or schools close their doors to them. It was Karla-Maria Schälike, living in Kyrgyzstan, but a native German woman, started this Centre where mental and physically disabled children with help of adults, sign, draw, study, work and have fun as all children in the world do. The Nadjeshda Children’s Center is a home for 60 children and teenagers, aged between 2 and 21 years. They are regarded as “worthless, discarded children”. They work with these children using therapeutic pedagogical methods, including elements of the Waldorf pedagogy and that of Janusz Korczak. The result is that with time around half of the “uneducable” are able to move into the state institutions … (full text).

… Sichtlich berührt stellte Karima Hartmann die Friedensfrau Karla-Maria Schälike vor und befragte sie zu „Nadjeschda“ („Hoffnung“), einem Zentrum für ausgesetzte behinderte Kinder, das Schälike 1989 nach dem Tod ihres Sohnes in Kirgisien gegründet hat. Offen berichtete sie von den Schikanen und Einschüchterungsversuchen der örtlichen Behörden, die das Projekt jahrelang begleitet haben – aber auch von dem Stolz und der Freude, die es ihr bereitet, „ihre“ Kinder dort aufwachsen zu sehen … (full text).

(1000peacewomen 2/2): … “In the Children’s Center Nadjeschda I experience daily how the buds of my vision for a loving future shared by children and adults living together blossom, in the Children’s Center Nadjeschda I experience daily how the buds of my vision for a loving future shared by children and adults living together blossom,” says Karla-Maria Schälike. This is her account of how this center came about: In 1977, I was awarded a scholarship by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) to attend the Pushkin Institute in Moscow.

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Linked with Global Partnership for the Prevention of armed conflict GPPAC, and with Center for Education, Counselling and Research CESI.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Before the war, Dragica Aleksa lived comfortably with her husband and two children on their farm in the village of Berak. The war in 1991 tore mothers and their children from their families, and Dragica and her son were not spared. Her family was reunited in another village later, but after the war, in 1998, Dragica returned to Berak. She joined the Center for Peace, Nonviolence, and Human Rights and took part in its Active Listening project. The result was her collection of “Stories from Berak.” Dragica also actively worked to find missing persons and in peace building efforts. Dragica Aleksa was born on 3 August 1952 in Svinjarevci, a small village in eastern Croatia. After attending primary school she went to a high school in Vinkovci … (1000peacewomen).

She says: “The past is memories, the future – hope. And only present moments give us the opportunity to do something for ourselves and others”.

download: Stories from Berak.

Predstavljene kandidatkinje za Nobelovu nagradu za mir.

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Dragica Aleksa - Croatia: sorry, the photo of this link of this peacewomen page cannot be downloaded, and I found no other one in the internet.

She works for the Center for Peace, Nonviolence, and Human Rights.

Since she had good grades, her parents expected that she would study economics or medicine. But Dragica wanted to study forestry, a field largely reserved for males and which her parents opposed. So instead of going to the university, Dragica married a farmer. Since then she and her husband engaged in agriculture in Berak.

Life was not easy, but she and her husband worked hard and even applied innovations, so they were quite successful economically. She was contented although she differed from the usual woman peasant in her love for reading, an activity largely considered a waste of time. She enjoyed talking to people but rarely felt that they truly understood her.

That is why she turned all her joy and sadness, hopes and fears into writing. She did not care any more what other people would think. In her own world she could write freely, unlike the “peasant woman who is not supposed to write.” Life went on as usual. She had two children and thought that life was good. She had many friends that she could always rely on.

Then the year 1990 came. Incomprehensible things began to happen. The once forbidden ultra-nationalist songs were being sung more and more frequently and loudly. The news on television and in the papers was about the impending war. People could not understand how and why there should be war. Dragica thought that if there should be war, it would certainly not be in Berak.

But on 30 September 1991, two men from the village came and told her that she and her eleven-year-old son had to leave for a couple of days. All the women and children from the village had to leave in a transport that was organized for them. Through a forest and across the fields they drove to a village 30 kilometers away.

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She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Binda Pandey (born 1966) has been involved in Nepal’s trade union movement for the past 15 years as an activist and educator. She is a leader of the iron and chemical workers’ unions, and the driving force behind most publications brought out by Gefont, one of the largest confederations of Nepalese trade unions. Responsible for many women joining trade unions and fighting for their rights, she currently plays an active role in the movement for the restoration of democracy in Nepal. (1000peacewomen).

She says: … “After being admitted at the school, I used to need to take care of my family as well as domestic animals, because elder sisters had already married and brothers were in city. For the purpose, collecting fodder and grasses as well as fetching water for cattle in the morning as well as in the evening during out time of the school, used to be routine work. Similarly, I used to need to work in the land in the weekend and holiday. Anyhow, I should consider myself lucky enough for the educational opportunity in compare to my elders sisters as well as other village girls in my age, regardless how difficult it was” … (full long text about herself).

It is said: Labor activist and educator Binda Pandey has brought many women into Nepal’s active trade union movement, and is sticking her neck out for the restoration of democracy in Nepal.

A website in Nepalese language.

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Binda Pandey - Nepal

She works for the General Federation of Nepalese Trade Unions GEFONT (on wikipedia, the GEFONT-homepage beeing blocked by a virus, as mentioned), and for the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mines and General Workers’ Unions (Icem.org).

AIT alumna from Nepal Nominated as a Single Entity for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005.

Find her name on Google blog-search.

She says also (about on quotas for the participation of women in trade union decision-making structures and meetings): … “They are, without a doubt, very useful in developing countries, where it is very difficult for a woman trade union leader to gain acceptance. Although the delegations attending international trade union congresses are more mixed than in the past, it’s still rare to see a woman getting up and speaking, because there are still too few of them in the posts of general secretary and chairperson. I’m convinced that it would be even more difficult without quotas for women (and young people), which is why this system has to be maintained, and even strengthened, for some years to come. The ITUC Constitution demands at least 30% female participation in trade union delegations and meetings, but women represent 40% of the ITUC’s membership. So why not demand 40% female representation in delegations and meetings?”. (full interview text).

1000peacewomen … Unfazed by teargas shells, batons and rubber bullets, Binda Pandey (born 1966) is at the vanguard of those fighting to restore democracy in Nepal. This firebrand trade union leader was arrested and released three times in 2004 for campaigning for democracy on the streets of Kathmandu. Since February 1, she has been on a government watchlist, and is disallowed from leaving Kathmandu valley.

Pandey is the leader of a major iron and chemical workers’ unions in Nepal. From May 2004, she has been deputy secretary general of GEFONT, a confederation of Nepali trade unions. She was a central secretariat member and chief of its department of education from 2001 to 2004, and secretary of its department of foreign affairs from 1997 to 2000. From 1993 to 2000, she was secretary of its central women workers’ department.

Pandey has close ties with the international trade union movement, and is presidium member of the International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mines and General Workers’ Unions (ICEM). Addressing her fellow trade unionists last year, she emphatically condemned the crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Nepal. She has also been a member of the national executive committee of the National Labor Academy from September 2003.

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She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Zuleika Alembert (1922) started her political militancy fighting against the dictatorship of Getúlio Vargas during the Estado Novo (New State – second phase of Vargas’ first government – 1937-1945). She was elected constituent deputy for the state of São Paulo, affiliated to the Communist Party of Brazil. She fought for the formulation of a specific public policy for women. She was one of the founders of the State Council for the Female Condition in São Paulo. Since 1992, she supports eco-feminism. At age 83, living alone in Rio, Zuleika Alembert is a woman that exhales physical strength and, above all, an impressive intellectual knowledge when it comes to defending the union between the preservation of the environment and gender equality … (1000peacewomen 2/2).

She says: “Today, I am aware of the fact that women will not be free until the environmental problem is solved. As long as I have a strand of life, I will dedicate it to these two causes”.

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Zuleika Alembert - Brazil

As a congresswoman, she defended the Christmas bonus that led to the 13th salary benefit. As a militant of the Communist Party in the 40’s, she began supporting the incorporation of gender matters to the Marxist battle. For many years, she considered herself a “Marxist that used to study women’s problems”. In 1980, she accepted a feminist identity inside the party and, three years later, when she left the party, she dedicated herself exclusively to the cause.

Her militancy as a communist began when she was a congresswoman in the 40’s. She lost the right to fulfill her term of office when the Communist Party was classified as illegal. Between 1951 and 1954, she was the general-secretary of the Communist Youth.

Ten years later, the military coup persecuted her and so she carried on her mission illegally. Exiled, she militated against the Vietnam War, helped other Brazilians that had been exiled and was one of the creators of the Committee of Brazilian Women Living Abroad - to help refugees that arrived in Paris, running from the military coup that brought down Salvador Allende from the presidency of Chile.

Author of eight books, she has just published a collection of articles called “Women in History - The History of Women”. Zuleika sustains that, in the search for gender equality, democracy is a fundamental aspect. “As long as, in Brazilian politics, only 10% of the elective positions are occupied by women, we will not be able to say that democracy is a reality.”

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She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Letizia Battaglia, Sicilian, born in 1935, is a photographer. With her camera she captures Sicilian life: the cruel violence of the Cosa Nostra and the deep pain of Mafia victims. With her photographs, she breaks the “omertà”, the silence that surrounds the Cosa Nostra. Although she has received death threats, she keeps taking pictures. From 1991 to 2001, as head of the environmental department, she tried to improve living conditions for the inhabitants of Palermo. With women from the anti-Mafia organization Mezzocielo (Half the Sky), she fights against inhumanity and injustice … (1000peacewomen 1/2).

She says: “My land free from the Mafia: this is my dream, this is my struggle” … and: “I am angry and will most likely die angry” … and: “We Sicilians suffer,” says Letizia Battaglia. “We live in Italy, in Europe, but this is a war and we are not free. That is not an exaggeration. That is the reality. The Cosa Nostra deals in weapons, drugs and people. It demands so-called protection money from businessmen. It obtains public works contracts by fraud and sells highly toxic waste. The Mafiosi make billions” … (1000peacewomen 1/2).

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Letizia Battaglia - Italy

She works for Mezzocielo.

Letizia Battaglia (born 1935) is a Sicilian photographer and photojournalist. Although her photos document a wide spectrum of Sicilian life, she is best known for her work on the Mafia … (wikipedia).

The video: Letizia Battaglia, 5.14 min, added December 27, 2007.

Photogalleries: In mostra Letizia Battaglia; and Foto di Letizia Battaglia; and 1999 Life Time Achievement; and Letizia Battaglia: Bildmaterial der Dr.-Erich-Salomon-Preisträgerin 2007.

Images results for Letizia Battaglia by Google images-search.

Se says also: … “The Italian Government has stopped the State’s fight against the Mafia. And the Mafia has stopped its war against the State. But the Cosa Nostra has not disappeared. Rather, it has become invisible and changed its strategy. They don’t have to shoot anyone anymore. They already have all the power and are stronger than ever. Policemen and district attorneys confirm this terrible allegation” … (full text).

Documentary: BATTAGLIA, by Daniela Zanzotto.

… Der Dr.-Erich-Salomon-Preis der DGPh geht dieses Jahr an die Fotografin Letizia Battaglia, die sich ganz dem Kampf gegen die Mafia verschrieben hat … (full text).

Vita di una fotografa antimafia: “Lotta, amore e gioia”, Intervista a Letizia Battaglia di Elena Ciccarello (an interview in Italian).

… L’Associazione Belvedere ha ospitato tra gli altri grandi fotoreportercome Uliano Lucas, Letizia Battaglia, Tano D’Amico … (full text, 23 July 2008).

Find her and her publications on amazon; on ; on Google Video-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Book-search; on Google Scholar-search; on Google Blog-search.

(1000peacewomen 2/2): … Violence and injustice, poverty and lawlessness make the photographer furious. She does not want to accept inhumanity, not in Sicily or anywhere else. This is what Letizia Battaglia fights against. The camera is her weapon. “I do not like that word, I am a pacifist.”

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Linked with AKHA.net; and with Articles for Indigenous Peoples on our blogs.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Sinuan does not know exactly when she was born. In 2005, she estimates that she is around 40 years old. Born in Huay Ung, on the Burmese border, her parents moved to Laos when she was young. Her family moved often to find good land to till, so Sinuan had no chance to go to school. Sinuan works as a field officer for the Rural Development Project which operates in the mountainous northern area of Laos, responding to the needs of the tribal communities who live there. The project is supported by the German International Technical Development Agency … (1000peacewomen 1/1).

The Akha are an ethnic group which originated in China and Tibet. Most of the remaining Akha people are now distributed in small villages among the mountains of China (where they are considered part of the Hani by the government, though this is a subject of some dispute among the Akha themselves), Laos (where they are considered Lao Sung), Myanmar (Burma), and northern Thailand, where they are one of the six main hill tribes … (full text).

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Sorry, I found no specific photo of Sinuan, of the Akha tribe in Laos, but a picture of an elderly Akha-women.

She works for the Rural Development Project.

Watch this videos: Akha Festival, 6.21 min, added March 17, 2008; Akha Swing Festival, 2.49 min, added November 20, 2006; Akha TV 6 Amue Athu, 32.55 min, added April 15, 2007; Akha TV 4 Akha Crab Hunt, 22.50 min, added February 09, 2007; Akha Children Sing, 4.51 min, added December 26, 2006; Akha: Queen’s Royal Project Rips off Hooh Yoh Akha’s Land, 2.08 min, added December 11, 2006.

She says: “I shall wage war against traditional culture that subjugates Akhan women” … and: “All the curses are dumped on Akhan women, men are good for anything, but women are often treated badly. Men have rights, but women have nothing”.

Specials: AKHA.net; the Akha Heritage Foundation; The Hilltribes of Thailand: AKHA; The peoples of the World Foundation: the AKHA; the AKHA hill tribe; The virtual Hilltribe Museim: Akha.

… The Akhas, often by the Thais called ‘Egor’ (a derogatory name) have one of the lowest status levels in Thailand. There are even other hill tribes who look down on them. Originating from Tibet, the Akha migrated south into Burma, Laos and Thailand more than a century ago, along with the other hill tribes. Persecution under the military regime in Burma caused many more to arrive in Northern Thailand as refugees over the past few decades, and though many have lived here since childhood they remain stateless and subject to exploitation from drug lords, abuse by corrupt and immoral police, as well as being considered worthless peasants by many Thai people … (full text The real story of Thailand’s Akha tribe, by Paul Horstermans, March 16, 2006).

(1000peacewomen 2/2) … “I shall wage war against traditional culture that subjugates Akhan women”. This beautiful, yet audacious remark, was made by a forty-year-old woman from the Akha tribe. Sinuan, whose indigenous name is Eusue, resides in Ban Huaykaem, Muang Singha District, Luangnamtha Province.

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Elisa Gahapon del Puerto has passed away … (just this mention on her 1000peacewomen 1/2-page) …
… but not any mention of her dead’s date, nor how she died !!! Nothing in any online-news or articles. Was this all about a brave women on this planet ??

She was one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Elisa Gahapon del Puerto, a social worker, had spent more than two decades forging peace and healing the wounds of war in the province of Basilan. Her efforts had led to a continuing dialogue among warring rebel factions such as the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and the Abu Sayyaf Group. Under the Prelature of Isabela and the Christian Children’s Fund (CCF), she implemented programs and services to address the people’s urgent needs such as health, water supply, housing, literacy, environmental conservation and peace advocacy. Elisa del Puerto was born (1957) to an upper middle class family. Her mother was a nurse; her father was head of a private company in Maluso. Her childhood was almost idyllic. Basilan was then a quiet place to live in, where Muslims, Christians and Yakans, the indigenous people of the place, went about their daily lives peacefully and in harmony … (1000peacewomen 1/2).

She said: “I am childless but I have 40,000 children. The children in Basilan suffer the most from this senseless war and they need all the love and help we can give them”.

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Elisa Gahapon del Puerto - Philippines (1957- *).

She worked for the Christian Children’s Fund CCF.

… This peace was shattered by events that presaged the declaration of Martial Law in the Philippines in 1972. And so, while Elisa’s older siblings were afforded a college education in Manila, she was forced to stay behind and quit school. “You see,” she said, “I, myself, am a victim of this conflict.”

Undeterred, Elisa at 17 took on a job cooking for soldiers stationed in their town. She recalled with amusement her early efforts to earn her own money. Soldiers took pity on this earnest young woman and agreed to have her to cook for them. “Actually, it was my grandmother who cooked. I just brought the food to the soldiers,” she recalled.

There were times when the soldiers would let her go with them to various places in the province. Impressed by the unspoiled beauty of the places she visited, Elisa vowed to stay and help keep peace in her home province.

With her earnings from catering, she resumed her studies, switching from Political Science which she started at the Ateneo de Zamboanga, to Social Work at the Zamboanga State College (now Western Mindanao State University) She felt that social work would be of useful if she was to keep her vow to do her share in building peace in Basilan.

At 19, even as a student, she served in the Prelature of Basilan doing community organizing at the request of Bishop Querexeta, who nurtured her youthful idealism. She got deeply involved in adult literacy work, rehabilitation and peace building from 1977-1990.

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Linked with Derechos Chile.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Since 1976, when her father was kidnapped by the Chilean Armed Forces, Viviana Díaz has never stopped looking for him. Along with the Association of Relatives of Disappeared Political Prisoners, she broke the wall of silence that tried to hide the facts from the world and from Chilean society’s conscience. Her constant claims and protests saved uncountable lives from the claws of the Chilean dictatorship. Her fight for justice reached its highest point with the capture of General Pinochet, in London, in 1998 … (1000 peacewomen 1/2).

She says: … “We would give our own lives in order to know what happened to our missing relatives and to make the executioners assume their responsibility” …

She says also: … “On September 11, 1973, my life changed for ever. That morning my father left the house and never came back. I was 22 years old. I believe that the love and the happiness he gave us in my childhood and afterwards, gave me the strength to live life with the intensity that I have” … “When we claimed that our relatives were being tortured they said: That does not happen in Chile. Three months after the disappearance, the president of the Supreme Court suggested that I write a book because as he said: You have a great imagination” …

And she says: … “Until ´78, we still believed in the possibility that they were alive, but then the rest of 15 farmers that had been shot were discovered. They had been left in a limekiln where they had been incinerated. Then I sensed that I would never see my father alive. As those in power erased all the tracks after them they condemned us to live with the uncertainty of not knowing what had actually happened. A lot of people could not understand us and asked: But if you already know that they are dead, why do you look for them? Because we want to know what happened and we want the military forces to be held responsible for their acts and because we do not want those terrible deeds to be repeated ” …

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Viviana Elisa Díaz Caro - Chile

She works for the Agrupación de Familiares de Detenidos Desaparecidos (Association of Relatives of Disappeared Political Prisoners).

… One cold dawn in May 1976, Víctor “Chino” Diaz, trade union leader and under-secretary of the Communist Party, was taken by force from his place of refuge. They tied his hands behind his back. One of his eyes had closed up. His lower lip was swollen as a result of the blows he had received and he could only breathe with difficulty. He had spent the last three years living clandestinely, far from his adored family. Since then they have never stopped looking for him.

While she was studying pedagogy at the University of Chile, the political activity of Viviana Diaz was sporadic, although she participated in the presidential campaign dedicated to Salvador Allende in 1970.

The first time was difficult. The ‘powers that be’ denied that he had been arrested.

The search for their dear disappeared relatives brought families together. They met each other in the penitentiaries, the jails and the hospitals and joined together in their fight. Thus was developed the first Committee for Peace and in 1975 the Association of Relatives of the Detained and the Disappeared (the AFDD) was given a name. Our aim was to find out where our dear ones were kept and save their lives.

The AFDD began an untiring campaign of protest during which women chained themselves to the doors of the Ministries, began numerous hunger strikes and even went to the UN.

In 1978, as a result of the investigation into genocide, the de facto power sanctioned the Law of Amnesty. The AFDD responded with a hunger strike that lasted 17 days.

Until 1977 the disappearance of people was a systematic practice. When the AFDD initiated international hunger strikes and denunciations, the murders continued, but they could not hide the bodies anymore. That fight prevented more prisoners being taken and forced the dictatorship to modify its repressive strategy.

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Linked with Women in Black worldwide, with The Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, with Global Action, and with Britain’s new nuclear abolitionists.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Rebecca Johnson is a feminist, peace activist and citizen diplomat, whose work on disarmament negotiations prompted government diplomats in 1996 to call her ‘civil society’s ambassador’. While living at the Greenham Women’s Peace Camp (1982-87), she co-founded the Aldermaston Women’s Camp(aign) in 1985, extending the resistance to US and Soviet nuclear weapons to the UK nuclear programme and Trident. She currently directs the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy and is a member of the international steering group of Global Action to Prevent War … (1000peacewomen 1/2).

She says: “My passions are women and peace”.

While her present research priorities (2005) are WMD, space weaponisation and international security, Rebecca Johnson has authored numerous articles and reports on the United Nations system and multilateral disarmament and negotiations, notably the NPT and CTBT; civil society; and British defence policy, and gives papers and lectures on these subjects to a wide range of UN and other international conferences, seminars and meetings … (full text).

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Rebecca Johnson - England

She works for (Women in Black WiB) for justice, against war, for the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy, and for Global Action to Prevent War.

Find her and her publications on The Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy.

Dr Rebecca Johnson combines her job as director of an internationally-renowned think tank with voluntary campaigning with various grassroots anti-nuclear and women’s groups. The youngest of eight children born into the Hutterian Society of Brothers, Rebecca was raised in North Dakota, USA and Sussex, England. After studying physics, philosophy and politics, her travels took her to Japan, where she became involved with a radical group of feisty Japanese lesbian feminists and never looked back!

She arrived at the US Airbase at Greenham Common on August 9, 1982 and ended up living at the Women’s Peace Camp for the next 5 years, during which she campaigned for the removal of nuclear weapons from Europe, danced on the missile silos, occupied the air traffic control tower, took President Reagan to court, painted cruise missile launchers while they were on military exercises and poured blood, paint and porridge on cluster bombs and other munitions at the nearby US base at Welford, for which she was brutally beaten by US soldiers and then imprisoned by the UK courts.

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She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

A nurse and therapeutic specialist, Sr. Maria Christina Färber (born in 1957) worked with children from broken homes in Germany. In 1999, during the Kosovo War, she moved to the Albanian city of Shkodra, where she helped refugees from Kosovo. After the war she took over Caritas International’s psychological and social care of Albanian families involved in blood feuds. With the reconciliation of hostile clans, counseling mothers, and organizing children’s therapy sessions, Christina does everything possible to help families step out of the vicious circle of violence, revenge, and death … (1000peacewomen).

She says: “We must break the cycle of killing. The first step is that the victims of violence do not become offenders themselves”.

Verleihung des Bundesverdienstkreuzes am Bande an Schwester Maria Christina Färber.

Am 02.02.02 fand die erste Profess der Schwester Maria Christina Färber in Kehrsiten/Schweiz, am Vierwaldstätter See, statt.

Der Albaner Pal und sein Sohn Marresh haben ihr Haus seit Jahren nicht verlassen. Sie haben Angst, erschossen zu werden - aus Blutrache.

Maria Christina Färber: “Wenn der Vogel kein Nest mehr hat“. Hilfe für Inlandsflüchtlinge in Albanien.

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Maria Christina Färber - Germany

She works for Caritas International, and for the Spiritual Community.

Sister Christina has been invited into Albanian houses for Raki countless times, and always politely refused. But here, in the Laçi family house (all clan names have been changed to protect the families) it is impossible. Dede Laçi pours his distilled spirits to the brim. The men in the smoke-filled parlor rise. Only Dede’s wife Mira remains seated in the corner of the sofa, in a black dress of mourning.

Her youngest son cries on her lap, too small to understand what his father and the nun from Germany have just discussed and will now confirm with liquor: That the murder of Dede Laçi’s nine year old son Elton will not be avenged with further murders.

Sister Christina had been fighting for this agreement for months. Again and again she tried talking to the men of the Laçi clan in the northern Albanian city of Shkoder, for the first time on the very day that Elton Laçi was shot. And now the father of the family has asserted before witnesses, that he wants to reconcile his family with the family of his son’s murderer. “The first step is that victims of violence do not become offenders themselves,” says the 47 year old. Thoughtfully she adds: “If the promise can be kept.”

Because Dede Laçi does not decide alone. The family is large, with many branches. All of them have to renounce something they see as their right for the sake of reconciliation. A right that, says Christina Färber “is still very much in peoples’ minds” in northern Albania: The right to revenge, faithful to the unwritten law of blood for blood.

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Linked with Women’s Earth Alliance WEA.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Marta is a Salvadoran activist, theologian and educator. She is the Founder of Ecohouse and the International Institute for Cooperation Amongst Peoples-IICP. Marta has developed ecological programs at the local, regional and national levels, teaching permaculture and soil and water conservation and management to rural and indigenous communities with emphasis on women and youth. She works on environmental issues at the regional and global levels with the UN processes and other concerned groups. Marta is also the recipient of the 2003 U.N.’s Prize for Women’s Creativity in Rural Life and one of the 1000 Women for the Nobel Peace Prize, 2005 (on Women’s Earth Alliance).

She says: “Peace is not built, peace is something within us. What we need to build are the processes to manifest it. We cannot buy or obtain it, because peace is inherent”.

Listen her Video: Marta Benavides, 10.56 min, from June 26, 2008.

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Marta Benavides - El Salvador

She works for the Rural Cooperative of Planta Nueva, for the Lenca Civil Association, and for the Highlander Center for Popular Education (no website found for El Salvador of these three groups).

TESTIMONIES FROM EL SALVADOR, BY MARTA BENAVIDES.

Reclaiming, February 2001.

Marta also participated in the peace processes to stop the armed conflict in El Salvador between 1980–1992. During the peace process she advocated for human right processes that support the people who were hurt by the armed conflict. Marta live in exile for the duration of the armed conflict and the peace process because of threats made on her life. In 1992 Marta was able to return to her home country and has continued to foster peace through teaching people how to respect all life from butterflies to people. (pielc.org).

Reflecting on El Salvador … Finding the Meaning of Life … Touching Hope.

Handbook of Spirituality for Ministers, 592 pages.

Women’s Consultation Briefing Paper, Financing for Development, Issue #7, INTER-LINKAGES, by Marta Benavides with Alejandra Scampini.

Find her name on Google Book-search.

Research Report: … The Reverend Marta Benavides is an activist working in community in her homeland of El Salvador. Her strategy is to work locally, to work on national public policy, and to work internationally simultaneously. She brings proposals with her to every meeting she attends … (full text).

WILPF Newsletter March 2008.

… She has been active in various UN processes, in particular those associated with WSSD 2002. She was one of the speakers at the Partnership event at the UN in 2004 … (full text).

Marta Benavides is a spiritual leader who has led many initiatives towards peace in El Salvador. Marta has faced great dangers and lost many friends to violence. She currently lives in Sonsonate, one of the most violent cities in El Salvador, and in Santa Ana where she cares for her elderly parents. In both places, she works with local people, manifesting peace through the creation of opportunities that nurture life, including training for livelihoods, cultural activities, education for sustainability and planting butterfly gardens.

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She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

… NASRA DU SAHARA OCCIDENTAL est une des 1000 femmes candidates pour le prix Nobel de la paix 2005: Nasra Mahmoud Souelem est née probablement en 1958, à Agmar dans le Sahara Occidental, dans une famille d’esclaves. Comme elle le dit, leurs maîtres ont toujours été très bons avec eux, considérant et traitant les esclaves comme des membres de la famille … (texte entier 1/2, par Elisabeth Bäschlin, page 14/16).

She says: “I have been working as a nursery teacher for over 29 years. A whole generation has passed through my hands”.

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Nasra Souelem - Western Sahara

She works for the Polisario Front PF, (mentionned /explained on Global Policy Forum; on wikipedia; on Prophet of Doom; on Freebase, the world’s database; and on many more); and she works also for the National Union of Saharawi Women NUSW, (mentioned /explained on arso.org / and same in french; on the blog ZEINA; on IIAV.nl; on Womens Organisations Western Sahara; and on wikipedia.

Nasra Mahmoud Souelem has been working as a nursery teacher in the camps in Western Sahara for 29 years. She has suffered great afflictions in her life; perhaps the most harrowing of which was losing her husband in the war four years after their marriage. In the Saharan camps, to where her family had to move, she began her training as a nursery teacher. Despite the gradual improvement of the conditions in the camps, the situation there often remains bleak. In this climate, Nasra’s work to provide education for children is an investment in a more promising future. (1000peacewomen).

… Là, Nasra, sa mère et ses soeurs vivent d’abord dans le camp de Dakhla, à 160 km au sud de l’oasis algérienne de Tindouf. Comme tous les adultes, la jeune Nasra, qui avait alors 17 ans, participait à l’organisation autogérée des camps en travaillant comme membre du Comité populaire de production de sa daïra. Ce comité, responsable de la production de base, organisait le travail dans les jardins et dans les ateliers de tissage et les ateliers de production de cuir. Au bout d’un an, Nasra devient membre du Comité d’alimentation qui, sous les auspices du Croissant Rouge toujours active dans le secteur de l’éducation. En 1982, elle a été envoyée pour un an à l’Ecole du 27 février, l’école de femmes, pour une formation d’éducatrice pour les crèches. Comme elle avait de très bonnes notes, elle a été désignée par la suite membre de direction de l’école. Depuis ce temps, Nasra travaille comme éducatrice pour les crèches au 27 février; actuellement, elle est responsable de la crèche du personnel de l’école. Durant toutes ces années, des générations entières de jeunes sahraouis ont passé entre ses mains … (texte entier 2/2, par Elisabeth Bäschlin, page 14/16).

Sorry, no more any information in the internet about our peacewomen, Nasra Souelem, Western Sahara. Not any mention about her work appears in the public room, only what is told about the peacewomen project (like the following in german: Frieden ist eine Männerbastion).

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Daphne Jansen is a project coordinator for the Network on Violence Against Women in Mitchell’s Plain, Cape Town. Born in 1956, Daphne has been involved in bringing change for women in her community, focusing on eradicating violence against women. She is also a motivational speaker. Daphne is a graduate of Development Education Leadership Teams in Action (Delta). She obtained a certificate in adult education and a higher diploma in adult education training and development from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa, where she worked as a part-time tutor.

She says: “Domestic violence happens all the time. It is not predictable when it is going to take place. Peaceful homes and peaceful communities is what we wish for, and for it to happen we must work hard”.

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Daphne Jansen - South Africa

She works for Network on Violence Against Women (described on Rape Crisis, Cape Town),
and for Development Education Leadership Teams in Action DELTA (described on W.K.Kellogg Foundation - and see also the scholar texts about this item).

Daphne works for the Network on Violence Against Women in Mitchell’s Plain, Cape Town. The Network as it is known started in 1996 and since its inception Daphne has been instrumental in its sustenance. Before joining the Network, Daphne worked all her life as a volunteer in the community, but now she is the Network’s Co-ordinator of the Mitchell’s Plain branch.

The work that she does is difficult. It is not only about awareness raising and training for women but also involves the courts of law. Legal systems in South Africa have never been fair to women and children and to change these systems is a challenge. Trainers like Daphne need to know how these systems work yet they have not studied law. Because of such processes and procedures Daphne spends a lot of time working and negotiating referrals for women.

The work of the Network has benefited women and the community in general in that it has managed to make society understand what domestic abuse is. It has also helped semiliterate communities to familiarise themselves with new government legislation on human and women’s rights. As part of the Network’s activities a focus group on human rights was established.

Daphne works for long hours and always goes the extra mile. As a result, she spends minimal amount of time with her family. She has influenced other women to take up the fight to eradicate violence against women. Women who have attended her workshops are encouraged to become members of the organisation and to become part of the voluntary focus groups. Daphne is also a motivational speaker.

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Linked with Center for Civil Initiatives CCI.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Biserka Momcinovic, a mother and grandmother, accountant and commercial officer before the war, was born on 9 December 1946 in Zagreb, Croatia. In 1991, the year when war broke out in Croatia, Biserka, moved from Zagreb to Porec. Having ethnic Serbs as friends made her a strong believer in a multi-cultural society where people practice respect and tolerance. For this reason, she was one of the signatories in the 1991 Antiwar Campaign Charter declaration that affirmed that, despite cultural differences, people can work together. (1000peacewomen).

She says: “Peace building is the first prerequisite for development, along with respect for human rights”.

Biserka Momcinovic spoke of the importance of the support from the Kvinna till Kvinna Foundation in enabling the Croatian Women’s Network to meet and grow strong … (full text).

… “We know there are verbal provocations,” said Biserka Momcinovic and Veronika Reskovic, activists of the Croatian Anti-War Campaign and civil human rights board … (full text).

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Biserka Momcinovic - Croatia

She works for the Center for Civil Initiatives CCI (named on Bosnia News; on Caucasian Knot.ru;
and on Center for Citizen Initiatives.ru).

For the last 13 years, she has engaged in the promotion and protection of human rights and helped hundreds of people, especially the missing Serbs to reunite with their families. She was co-founder of the Civic Committee for Human Rights, which was later renamed the Center for Civil Initiatives (CCI), and led its office in Porec. She has organized public discussions in order to promote human rights, while simultaneously offering direct support to victims of human rights abuses. She was the first coordinator of the Women’s Network of Croatia and has contributed significantly to its becoming one of the biggest and most respected Croatian NGO networks.

Before the war formally ended in August 1995, the Croatian military and police undertook several operations that were intended to drive out the ethnic Serbs from Croatia. This resulted in many deaths and destruction among the Serbs and many of them were expelled. Whatever was left in their homes was either stolen or burned. In May 1995, operation Flash was launched by the Croatian military. Biserka immediately went to the heavily destroyed town of Pakrac, together with other human rights activists from Croatia (e.g. Veronika Reskovic and Petar Ladevic). They supported the remaining ethnic Serbs there in their fight for their citizenship. They also monitored the Croatian authorities, the civil, police and military institutions and applied constant pressure on them to respect the rights of the remaining Serbs and to respond to their needs. While in Pakrac, Biba and her group established the Human Rights office, which continued to function for several years after they left.

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Linked with Mahila Samakhya, Uttar Pradesh .

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Sumitra (born 1949) comes from a scheduled caste family and has received no formal education. But she is at the center of a social upheaval in her village. In 1996, braving disapproval and hostility, she set up the self-help Milori Women’s Group. The group runs women’s courts in the village, making dispute resolution quick, inexpensive, and mutually consensual. The fallout of the popularity of the women’s courts has been a drastic reduction in violence against women, and the consolidation of women’s power … It is said about her: Sumitra is reputed to have a way of getting right to the heart of the matter of any dispute, which she then judges without considerations of caste, class, gender, or community coming in the way.

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Sumitra - India

She works for the Milori Women’s Group (MLG), and for Mahila Samakhya, Uttar Pradesh.

Sumitra was born in 1949 into an indigent family of laborers. After her father died, her mother slaved to feed Sumitra and her four siblings. No one, least of all Sumitra herself, would have imagined then that she would one day lead a women’s group in a block consisting of 60 villages.

When she was 16, Sumitra married into a family of equally poor laborers. Poverty and its attendant problems remained Sumitra’s constant companions. The turning point in her life was her association with the Mahila Samakhya in 1991. Initially, Sumitra worked as a Sakhi for five years. In 1996, she formed the Milori Women’s Group.

One of the most important of this group’s activities is the women’s courts that deal with problems within families, violence against women, and disputes relating to land and family affairs. Sumitra’s method of functioning is to listen to both parties and solve the problems through mutual agreement. If either party fails to honor the court’s decision, the group calls in the cops - a surefire kick in the pants.

Today, the 60 villages resolve virtually all their disputes through the women’s courts. The lower cost and quick resolution - and the fact that decisions are arrived at through mutual consent, not legal brawling - have helped making these courts universally acceptable.

Sumitra is reputed to have a way of getting right to the heart of the matter in any dispute, which she then judges without considerations of caste, class, gender, or community coming in the way. Nor does she believe that because she is a woman, only women deserve her help. In fact, in one case where a woman’s family falsely accused her husband’s family of dowry harassment, Sumitra stepped in and resolved the issue with clinical detachment. But the group has succeeded in drastically reducing violence against women by ensuring very thorough punition for the perpetrators.

When Sumitra first joined Mahila Samakhya, the idea of women forming a group was received negatively. It was a very difficult decision for a frail, uneducated woman from a Scheduled Caste background to step out of her home and work on development issues. Sumitra also had to face some initial opposition from her in-laws. Thanks to her perseverance, though, women from all 60 villages in Nagal block today participate in the group’s activities.

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Linked with Transparency International TI.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

María del Pilar Callizo López Moreira–“Pili”–comes from a very traditional family from Paraguay. She had a happy childhood, without any kind of deprivation or needs. This situation, however, did not prevent her from feeling the need to contribute to the construction of a better country, championing the cause of women and encouraging them to take on a leading role … (1000PeaceWomen).

She says: “When I was 14 years old, I acquired the consciousness that no power should snatch from human beings their most valuable possession: freedom”.

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María del Pilar Callizo López Moreira - Paraguay

She works for Transparency International, Paraguay in english, same as Transparencia Paraguay in spanish. (See also Transparency International TI).

“The fact that something or somebody out there felt superior and was denying me my freedom and my rights helped me to see the reality. From that moment on, I knew that, as a woman, my duty was to do something to change that state of affairs. I also realized that to achieve my goal, I would have to take down many barriers. It was a challenge, and I began at home”, remembers María Del Pilar Callizo López Moreira, Pili.

“The first thing I did was study. In 1978, I got my degree in Law. Later on, I specialized in arbitration and mediation, in Buenos Aires, Argentina”. The first step had been taken. The next step was to put into practice her new knowledge and make use of her ideas and observations.

She comes from a solid family nucleus. She grew up in a happy environment, absorbing the values of her family. She transformed those values into a need to collaborate to the promotion of human rights. She also championed women’s rights and worked to promote greater transparency and efficiency in public life.
In 1986, along with a group of women, she founded, in Asunción, the capital of the country, “Mujeres por la Democracia” (Women for Democracy), one of the first organizations to fight for the improvement of the situation of women in Paraguayan society. She worked to examine and revise the judicial framework that maintained her fellow countrywomen in an inferior position, without even the most basic human rights. “These were the times of one of the cruelest and longest dictatorships in Latin America, and it was not easy to talk about gender, when we could not even speak of human rights”.

Pilar remembers that the meetings where strategies were outlined were clandestine: “Once, during the Paraguayan dictatorship, public demonstrations were forbidden and the people, who dared to participate, were victims of repression, imprisonment, torture and, in the majority of cases, went on to swell the lists of the ‘missing’ or murdered people. We knew that we were under observation. In our phone calls, we used nicknames and diminutives. Some documents about legal revisions were kept under conditions of extreme secrecy, because they were the fruit of constant discussions with other similar groups. Those times before democracy were especially hard”.

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Linked with the Restoration Advisory Board RAB.

She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Nilda Medina Diaz has dedicated her life to the demilitarization of Vieques. This tiny (21 miles by 3 miles) Puerto Rican island was used by the U.S. Navy for military exercise and weapons training and testing for 63 years. Largely because of the work of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, co-founded by Nilda, the U.S. closed its bases in 2003. In addition to coordinating the movement’s civil-disobedience-organizational center, Nilda continues to play a crucial role in the post-Navy struggle to ensure that her community is informed and involved in their homeland’s environmental cleanup … (1000PeaceWomen).

She says: “The Navy is not leaving because it wants to, but because the people have forced them out”.

She is also mentionned als Political Heroe.

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Nilda Medina-Diaz - Puerto Rico

She works for the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, for the Restoration Advisory Board, and for the Military Toxics Project.

On the morning of Dec. 21, 2000 Nilda and other members of the Committee for the Rescue and Development of Vieques, placed themselves in front of huge Navy tractors to block yet another military action. Riot police arriving at the scene were well equipped with dogs, pepper spray, and handcuffs. But when a large group of community members joined the protesters, the police withdrew. Such scenes as these were common in the battles Nilda fought with and for the citizens of Vieques. Leading the struggle for “the four D’s” (demilitarization, decontamination, devolution and development) members of the Committee often put themselves in harm’s way.

Born in 1950 in Vega Alta, Puerto Rico, Nilda is the youngest of five children. As a student at the University of Puerto Rico, she began organizing for labor rights and was regional coordinator for the Puerto Rican Socialist Party during the 1970s. Armed with a certificate to teach science – and fierce determination – she moved to Vieques in1980.

Her work has not ended with the withdrawal of the U.S. military.

As a member of the Restoration Advisory Board, she reviews and reports on military clean-up efforts. She organizes community forums to discuss the clean-up, independent expert evaluation of its progress, activities for teen mothers, and leadership opportunities for the local youth organization. She helps to resolve transportation issues for families with loved ones in the hospital or in prison, and arranges legal representation for Viequenses who have been arrested by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service for using ex-military lands for community functions. She is a coordinator of “Radio Vieques,” a weekly radio program – a vital service for a community that has no newspaper. To help similar communities dealing with problems left by military bases, Nilda serves on the Board of the Military Toxics Project.

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She is one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Lenira Maria de Carvalho (1932), in her childhood, had to take care of children instead of playing with dolls. Just like her mother, she faced a working day of twelve hours in exchange for food and a place to sleep. She did not put with that situation. Along with other young women, she took on the task of increasing awareness in the districts of Recife. (1000 peacewomen 1/2).

She says: “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was written over half a century ago and we still see a lot of inhumanity. Most of us are not aware of the right to preserve our dignity”.

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Lenira Maria de Carvalho - Brazil

She works for the Sindicato dos Empregados Domésticos da Região Metropolitanado Recife.

In 1988, she founded a Union that provides judicial support to fifty maids per day. For over 50 years, Lenira Maria de Carvalho has pursued ideals to conquer rights for domestic workers.

Lenira was born in a sugar-cane plantation farm inside Alagoas. Her mother worked in the “big house” (the farm owner’s house). Without a father and with no house to call her own, she shared a bed with her mother and sister and she ate leftover food. “My mother worked her whole life and never saw any money.”

Lenira moved to Recife, when she was 14, to work as a maid for her mother’s boss’ son. She managed to enroll in a night school run by nuns, where she concluded elementary school. Her awakening to militancy occurred when she was 24 years old and attended meetings at the JCO - Juventude Católica Operária (a group of young catholic manual workers).

As a missionary in the JCO, Lenira helped organize state and regional meetings. In 1964, with the Military Coup, came the repression. She was taken into prison. After, she continued mobilizing maids. In the 70’s, she founded the category’s association. She traveled to other states and met many leaders to make sure that their rights would be recognized in the 1988 Brazilian Constitution. “We got the right to vacation, to receive prior warning before getting fired, to be paid a 13th salary at the end of each year and to continue getting paid during maternity leave.

Lenira and her partners inaugurated the Domestic Worker’s Union in Recife, which sees about seven thousand people a year. She was elected president of the Union. She also wrote a textbook called “The Social Value of Domestic Work”. Now, 72 years old, she is tireless. Currently, she fights to be able to give domestic workers the right to their own house and to a fair retirement.

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Linked with Earth Systems.

Ny Luangkhot was born in Nongbon village Chaichettha district, Vientiane in 1953. She has a master’s degree in economics from the University of Kiev and another in Sociology from the Sociology Institute of Moscow State University. She worked for the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, and was an interpreter for high-ranking officers. She lectured on Marxism to senior members of the Communist Party and worked for NGOs. Currently a consultant on development issues, she trains local workers in community development project evaluation for local and international organizations … (1000PeaceWomen 1/2).

She says: “There are two types of people in this world, the strong and the weak. We can choose to belong to either kind. But for women, I wish they would seek to belong to the strong rather than the weak”.

The Rural Research and Development Training Center RRDTC is an independent, non political Lao Not for Profit Association which is locally managed. We provide training, research and resources for community development in Lao PDR … (full text).

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Ny Luangkhot - Laos

She has two Master’s Degrees, one in economy from the University of Kiev, and one in sociology from the University of Moscow. She has extensive experience of work at village and grass-roots level in rural Laos within a number of professional areas, including water supply and sanitation. She is well versed with applying participatory working methods, and has extensive experience of statistical investigations and studies at village level. At the same time, she has worked with education and process facilitation at high national level, amongst other things she has participated in the development of a national strategy for rural water supply and sanitation … (geoscope.se).

Found on 1000PeaceWomen: … “I feel I am aging and am slow at times. To work with the youth, you need a lot of power. I think if I am no longer hired to work, I will attempt to do small work to share my knowledge with the youth and to give them moral support. No one rules over the other. We all simply want to share our experience and I want to continue working as a stimulant.”

Those are the words of Ny Luangkhot, a development worker who has lived for more than 50 years. She was born in 1953 to a poor farmer family in Nongbon village, Chaichettha district, Vientiane. Her mother was a rice farmer, and her father organized the first charity in Vientiane to make coffins for the destitute. From 19 siblings, only eight survived. The oldest sister among the remaining offspring, Ny Luangkhot had to take on great responsibilities. After school, she collected vegetables and fresh water crabs and fish from a rice field and sold them to earn income for her family.

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