Auteur/autrice : Heidi Barathieu-Brun

Linked with our presentations of The prisoner as message, and of Human Rights… The Sacrifice on its Feast Day!.

Linked also with the presentations of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network EMHRN, and of the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies CIHRS.

He says (excerpt): « International initiatives are particularly important because Arab governments turn a deaf ear to internal calls for reforms and even suppress reformists, while they pay more attention to external initiatives.Chances of success of initiatives of the International Community initiatives are however enhanced if they meet the principles of the calls for reforms from within the Arab region ». (See fidh.org).

Bahey El-Din Hassan – Egypt

See Arab Reform Bulletin March 2006.

He says also: « With the growth of the human rights movement in the Arab world, there are several tasks that must be accomplished. They can be divided into three groups: First: Policy-Oriented Tasks … , Second: Institutional Tasks … , Third: Intellectual Tasks … « . (Read this all on The Human Rights Databank).

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Linked with the presentation of SOS Social Centre Mamelodi – South Africa.

Linked also with our presentation of Successful Social Entrepreneurs … a book review.

Veronica Khosa saw that the health care system in South Africa was unable to manage the AIDS crisis. A nurse by trade, she had visited hundreds of people with AIDS who were suffering alone in their homes, with no one around to provide simple care or pain relief. In response, she founded Tateni Home Care Nursing Services and instituted a community-based model capable of addressing the AIDS pandemic at the enormous scale of the problem. She spent years developing and professionalizing her basic home-care model, instituting an innovative system to provide training to thousands of unemployed youths so they could offer effective care to the people in their communities and families.

Veronica Khosa – South Africa

The government has adopted her model for the largest state in South Africa and it has since spread to more than fifty localities. Through the recognition of the world’s leading health organizations, the idea is spreading beyond South Africa. Khosa is now developing a community-based response to orphan care that she plans to spread nationally. (Read more on how to change the world).

Veronica Khosa is the coordinator and founder of Tateni home-based care organization. She sought out the partnership with SOS in order to address the overwhelming orphan problem she was confronted with when terminally ill patients who were receiving care from her organization passed away. “When SOS agreed to partner I was so happy to know that I was not alone – I had someone else to share burden.” When Veronica established Tateni it was the first home-based care project in South Africa. Formerly employed as a government nurse, Veronica was confronted by the fact that the hospitals had very little to offer PLWHAs in the way of care. She realized that to address the needs of people who were ill, their families had to be taught how to care for them. With regard to children from affected families, Veronica remarks, “How would you discover the situation ofchildren that need care, unless you go into the homes? » Veronica hopes that the partnership between SOS and Tateni will be able to further expand into the community and reach out to even more needy children. (Read more on SOS childrend’s villages).

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

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Linked with our presentation of Narmada Bachao Andolan – India.

Linked also with the presentation of The Narmada Dam Project – India.

She says (excerpt): « The first and the foremost are the development issues, which people are raising wherever they are questioning the development process. The point is that the communities which are based on the natural resources are compelled to sacrifice those resources in the name of development, with the principle of eminent domain that the state resorts to. The state takes away these natural resources from the communities, the fish workers, the farmers, or manual labourers. It certainly stands by the marketized, industrialized, urbanized communities, and that small section of the society then uses these resources or the benefits drawn out of these resources at the cost of all those who loose theirs. This society certainly doesn’t give a real share in the benefits to those who sacrifice their land, water, forests. This is considered as a part and parcel of development and the tradeoff that is necessary ». (Read the rest of this very long interview on India Together, about The face of the Narmada).

Medha Patkar – India

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

Among India’s most dynamic activists, Medha tai or Medha didi, as she is called by schoolchildren and police alike, knows the Narmada Valley hamlet by hamlet. Equally fleetfooted on the narrow mountain paths with only a torch and the light of the moon and stars, or on the Indian Railways where all the Ticket Collectors (TCs) are familiar with her travelling karyalaya — documents, banners, pamphlets — Medha Patkar follows the truth to its lair.

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Linked with our presentation of Nouvelle Planète.

Texts about Willy Randin himself are seldom and they are most in french. What can be found in the internet is about his devoted work for what is called the south, the poors, women, projects in emerging countries. But this work is so important, so I’ll do my best:

Willy Randin – Switzerland

The founder (of the NGO Nouvelle Planète) Willy Randin, who used to direct the hospital, and Maurice Lack, an architect specialized in bioclimatics, proposed a project based on renewable sources of energy. Research was conducted in this direction, but the people in charge of the Albert Schweizer hospital were not interested by the project. Instead of simply abandoning their ideas, Maurice Lack and Willy Randin wanted to develop the appropriate technologies with interested people in other parts of the world. To do this, they founded the « Albert Schweizer Ecological Centre » (CEAS) and the «Sahel Action of Schweizer’s Work » (now « Nouvelle Planète »), in Switzerland.

At the time, Willy Randin was working for a big development agency in Switzerland, and he had been able to see the extent to which citizens had the desire to understand the reality of Southern countries, and to mobilize themselves in view of backing small projects by establishing direct relations with the beneficiaries. (See this page of Nouvelle Planète).

Books and articles in french, by Willy Randin:

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Linked with our presentation of the KARI-OCA DECLARATION.

« …for organising to protect the rights of the indians of the amazon basin. »

He says: « We are now facing a difficult situation in Peru, where there are attempts to cut back the territorial rights of the indigenous peoples, including moves to divide, fragment and privatise our communal organisations. Now more than ever, it is a matter of urgency for us to consolidate our own indigenous alternatives for development. »

Evaristo Nugkuag Ikanan – Peru

1986 he was awarded for upholding the rights of the Amazon Indians.

Since the European invasion of South America in the 16th century, the indigenous peoples, and especially those of the Amazon, were confronted with various ‘civilising’ forces which brought the destruction of their lands, resources, cultures and rights, and even individual or mass killings. On the threshold of the 21st century , this reality still continues in different forms, using violent or subtle methods according to the country concerned. In this context, Evaristo Nugkuag Ikanan became a leader of the Aguaruna people of Peru and has devoted himself to organising the indigenous people of the Amazon Basin in order to uphold their human, civil, economic and political rights. In 1977, he was one of the founders of the Aguaruna and Huambisa Council (CAH) which represented 45,000 inhabitants of 140 communities in the tropical forest region. Developing alternative methods of land protection, human development, health care and education, the Council became one of the most effective indigenous organisations in South America …

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Linked with the presentation of Searching for the Sources of the Self.

Born in Kerman, Iran, Mahnaz Afkhami is a leading proponent of women’s rights in the Islamic world. She is president of Women’s Learning Partnership (WLP) and executive director of the Foundation for Iranian Studies. She chaired the English department at the National University of Iran, founded the Association of Iranian University Women, and served as secretary general of the Women’s Organization of Iran and minister of state for women’s affairs prior to the Islamic revolution. She is the author of many books on women’s roles in the Islamic world, including Safe and Secure: Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls in Muslim Societies. (See scu.edu).

Mahnaz Afkhami – Iran

Ferdows Naficy and her two daughters, Mahnaz and Farah became independent women in America. When Ferdows decided to emigrate to the U.S., she opened the door for her daughters to later join her in California. Both would later return to Iran as adults, where they would be torn apart by Iranian politics during the reign of the shah. Mahnaz became a minister in the shah’s government and advocated for women’s rights, while Farah and her husband joined the cause of the revolution. Ultimately, Mahnaz and Farah had to flee Iran in fear for their lives. This is the lastest update from Mahnaz and Farah. (See pbs.org).

In exile in the United States, she has been a leading advocate for women’s rights for more than three decades. She serves on the boards and steering committees of several international organizations, including the World Movement for Democracy, the Commission on Globalization, the Global Fund for Women, the International League for Human Rights, and Women’s Human Rights Net. She has made numerous international radio and television appearances, including interviews on Australian Radio, the BBC, German Radio Network, Swedish Radio, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, and CNN. Her publications include Women and the Law in Iran; In the Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran; Faith and Freedom: Women’s Human Rights in the Muslim World; Safe and Secure: Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls in Muslim Societies; and Women in Exile. (See Omega Institute).

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In 1993, a handwritten envelope arrived in Khalida Messaoudi’s mailbox. In it was an official communique announcing that she had been condemned to death by the Islamic Salvation Front. This letter came after a series of threats and an attempt on her life in retaliation for her role as a leader of the feminist and democratic movements in Algeria and a fierce opponent of Islamic fundamentalism. Khalida Messaoudi did not flee from this threat by seeking refuge outside her country. Instead, she went into hiding within Algeria, where she continued her fight for emancipation and independence from religious extremism … to restore in Algeria what she describes as « the basics of dignity »—a woman’s right to pursue her studies, practice a profession, make a living, marry and divorce freely, and walk the streets without a veil. She is a former mathematics teacher.

Khalida Messaoudi – Algeria

She said in 1995: « More than 80 people a day have been killed by Islamic fundamentalists. They concentrated on journalists, because writers symbolize freedom of expression, which the fundamentalists find intolerable. Intellectuals, teachers, writers, thinkers – these are the people killed because it is they who defend traditional notions of liberty. But sometimes simple citizens were killed too, randomly, just for the purpose of terror. One day ordinary people may decide to say ‘No’ to the fundamentalists’ ambitions and they want to avoid that happening. They killed women who opposed their views of how we should behave. They cannot allow difference. That is why they insist on veils to cover the difference. They are fascists who claim Allah is on their side and that they are marching under the banner of righteousness. » (Read this and more on this Third World Traveler page).

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