Mubarak Gurbanova – Turkmenistan

Linked with CANGO.net.

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

She says: « Your work will wait for you to show natural phenomena and rainbows to your child, but these will not wait until you finish your work ».

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Sorry, I can not find any photo of Mubarak Gurbanova, Turkmenistan (see also my comment ‘Brave women without photos‘, added on June 17, 2007).

She works for Medet (1), and for Civic Dignity.

Mubarak Gurbanova is the head of the NGO Medet. She provides educational and job training opportunities to refugees, orphans, the young and the economically deprived. In four years, she has organized 100 seminars for 4000 people. She trains school teachers in the use of the new educational pedagogy on critical comprehension. As part of the Civic Dignity team she contributes to building a civil society in Turkmenistan, by providing training in civic education.

She is generous and caring towards others and is involved in many charities, without seeking her own recognition.

Mubarak was born on 17 May 1963 in the village of Goynuk in the Lebap region, Turkmenistan. She is one of nine children, and before her parents retired her mother worked as a doctor’s assistant. Her father was a teacher.

She has great enthusiasm for the English language, and when she graduated from High School in 1980 she entered the English Department of Foreign Languages faculty of Turkmen Pedagogical Institute in Charjew. In 1984 she successfully graduated from the Institute and gained a Diploma as an English teacher. In 1987 Mubarak began working as a first grade teacher, while still pursuing her dream to be appointed as an English teacher. In 1989 this dream became a reality in a school in the city of Charjew.

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Dilorom Mukhsinova – Uzbekistan

Linked with CANGO.net.

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

She says: « To build a bright future we must educate the people who will construct it – our children – in the spirit of peace, love, and freedom ».

Dilorom Mukhsinova was born in 1952 in Ferghana, Uzbekistan. She has been a school secondary school teacher since 1973, whose dedication to teaching is appreciated by the local community, her colleagues, students and their parents. She is devoted to peace, freedom, and tolerance and the development of mutual understanding between people despite different views and social backgrounds. This is especially important in this region, the center of a major conflict zone in Central Asia with the danger of extremist tendencies increasing among youth and the local

population. Dilorom’s teaching supports tolerance and respect for the diverse cultures of the world and is a significant contribution to peace and harmony in her community.

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Dilorom Mukhsinova – Uzbekistan

She works for the Town Council.

She graduated from Ferghana State Pedagogical Institute, English Language Department in 1973 and the Historical Department of the same Institute in 1979. She has been working since 1973 as an English and history teacher and has also been a guide for tourists in Uzbekistan. She has taught both at Ferghana State Pedagogical Institute and at a local secondary school. She has served as Deputy Directory at her school and is currently the supervisor of foreign language teachers. She was elected as a deputy of the town council of the first convocation (1995-2000) and has received an award for her role in the education of people in Uzbekistan. She is married and has two children.

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Paul Rice – USA

Linked with Fair Traide Certified (TransFairUSA), with ashoka, and with Fair Trade and Human Rights.

Paul Rice is President and CEO of TransFair USA, the only Fair Trade certifier in the United States. In 2000 he received the Ashoka Fellowship for his pioneering work in fair trade and in 2002 he was named by the Klaus Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship as one of the world’s top 40 Social Entrepreneurs. He has authored several publications including « Sustainable Coffee at the Crossroads. » Paul Rice talks about how fair trade can help align the interests of corporations and small farmers without sacrificing profitability. As companies look to reduce costs in an increasingly competitive world, the welfare of small producers can be marginalized. Rice describes how fair trade can empower poor farmers by giving them the opportunity to trade directly with buyers and earn a better price for their produce. Find the link to his video/audio on the same swebpage.

He says: ”That’s simple: we’re the only certifier of Fair Trade products in the US. In the coffee area, we have signed agreements with almost 300 coffee companies, including Starbucks, Sara Lee and Green Mountain ». (full text).

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Paul Rice – USA

He works for Fair Traide Certified (TransFairUSA).

See Paul Rice, on heroes.net, on Schwab Foundation, on ashhoka.org.

Click on this web page for his 7 minutes audio.

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Byllye Avery – USA

Linked with the Avery Institute for Social Change, with An Open Letter to my Sisters, with The Health Care Crisis … , and with the National Black Women’s Health Imperative.

Byllye Yvonne Avery (born 1937) is a health care activist in the United States of America. She has worked to improve the welfare of African-American women by creating the National Black Women’s Health Imperative in 1981. She has received the MacArthur Foundation’s Fellowship for Social Contribution and the Gustav O. Lienhard Award for the Advancement of Health Care from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science, among other awards. Avery was born in DeLand, Florida. She studied psychology at Talledega College, and earned an MA degree from the University of Florida in 1969. In 1995 Avery received a L.H.D. from Bates College. Avery produced the documentary film ‘On Becoming a Woman, Mothers and Daughters Talking to Each Other’ (1987). It features African-American women and their daughters talking about menstruation and related topics, such as sex and love. She has said that, when her own daughter menstruated for the first time, Avery threw a party for her. (full text).

Listen here to her many videos.

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Byllye Avery – USA

She works for the National Black Women’s Health Imperative, and also for the Avery Institute for Social Change.
In 1974, she co-founded the Gainesville Women’s Health Center, a first-trimester abortion center. Four years later, she co-founded Birthplace, an alternative birthing center where families could deliver their babies with the aid of a certified midwife.

She says: « Black women all participated in a conspiracy of silence » … and: « white women were defining health in their own perspective, which was usually focused on reproductive issues. We needed to come together as black women to define the issues most affecting black women. »

While Avery was knee-deep in women’s health issues, however, she realized a significant group of people were underrepresented: black women.

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Jane Roberts and Lois Abraham – USA

Linked with UNFPA, with 34 Million Friends of UNFPA, and with Americans for UNFPA.

They are two of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005.

Thoraya Obaid says about them: « Lois and Jane demonstrated that citizens in the US understand that family planning, safe motherhood, and HIV/AIDS prevention are essential ».

Lois Abraham says: The fund, « doesn’t impose cultural values, by working with the culture, you set the groundwork for change to be long lasting ». And: « It is amazing what a little generosity can do ».

Jane Roberts said: “No other country has ever de-funded UNFPA for other than fiscal reasons. The country of Mali, which is one of the 10 poorest countries in the world, gives $3,000 a year. It’s just … something that you do. It’s part of a social contract, and we have reneged on this contract. Lois and I find this absolutely appalling”.

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Jane Roberts and Lois Abraham – USA

They work for 34 Million Friends of UNFPA, and for Americans for UNFPA.

Money put to use, The first $1 million raised was used very practically:

  • In Timor Leste, for example, the money went to fill modest but utilitarian needs;
  • Purchasing two-way radios to connect the only two hospitals providing emergency obstetric care;
  • Training three Timorese doctors outside the two hospitals to perform Caesarean sections, an urgently needed service;
  • Providing 80 motorcycles for midwives to reach women living in areas with poor roads or without public transportation.

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Ha-Joon Chang – South Korea & England

Linked with Is Equality Passé? with Kicking Away the Ladder, and with … Institutions and Economic Development … .

Ha-Joon Chang, born 1963 in South Korea, is one of the world’s foremost heterodox economists specialising in development economics. Trained at the University of Cambridge, where he currently works as a Reader in the Political Economy of Development, Chang is the author of several influential policy books, including 2002’s « Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective, » He has served as a consultant to the World Bank and the European Investment Bank as well as to Oxfam and various United Nations agencies. He is also a fellow at the D.C.-based Center for Economic and Policy Research. Chang is among the most widely cited economists in the development literature, especially in articles and books that are critical of neo-liberalism. In « Kicking Away the Ladder » (which won the 2003 Gunnar Myrdal Prize), Chang argued that all major developed countries used interventionist economic policies in order to get rich and then tried to forbid other countries from doing similarly. (full text).

Read: why developing countries need tariffs.

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Ha-Joon Chang – Korea & England

He says: ”In the orthodox literature, it is uncritically assumed that a stronger protection of property rights is always better. However, this cannot be true as a general proposition. The fact that some protection of property rights is good does not mean that more of it is always better.

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Samuel Bowles – USA

Linked with Social Preferences and Public Economics, and with Is Equality Passé?

Samuel Bowles is an American economist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught courses on microeconomics and the theory of institutions. Bowles graduated with a B.A. from Yale in 1960 and afterwards, continued on to get his Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University in 1965. Currently, Bowles is a Professor of Economics at the University of Siena, Italy, and the Arthur Spiegel Research Professor and Director of the Behavioral Sciences Program at the Santa Fe Institute in Santa Fe, New Mexico. (full text).

Wikipedia’s disambiguation page about two Samuel Bowles.

Sam Bowles’ didactic webpage.

Bowles’ recent papers and other information can be found on his webpage; also on Sam Bowles’.

Read: The Inheritance of Inequality, by Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, July 14, 2002.

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Samuel Bowles – USA

Samuel Bowles in the Santa Fe Institute, and his Abbreviated CV in University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

On his website at the Sante Fe Institute, he describes his two main academic interests as first, « the co-evolution of preferences, institutions and behavior, with emphasis on the modeling and empirical study of cultural evolution, the importance and evolution of non-self-regarding motives in explaining behavior, and applications of these studies to policy areas such as intellectual property rights, the economics of education and the politics of government redistributive programs. »

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Peter Hardstaff – England

Linked with The World Development Movement WDM.

Linked also with Mohau Pheko – South Africa, with The WDM Death Counter, with The International Gender and Trade Network IGTN, and with New social justice movements in a changing reality.

Peter Hardstaff is the Head of Policy, World Development Movement (WDM). As Head of Policy, Peter Hardstaff is responsible for facilitating development of policy, research and advocacy work to support WDM’s campaigns. Prior to joining WDM in April 2002, Peter spent three years leading research and advocacy work on international trade policy issues at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Before joining the RSPB he was a consultant, researching, writing and designing a web site on international trade issues for Friends of the Earth, where he had previously worked for 5 years on forests and wildlife issues. Peter has a degree in Environmental Sciences from the University of East Anglia and a first class Masters degree in Natural Resource Management from Edinburgh University. (Radical Statistics Issue 89).

He says (about G8 2005): ” »The final communique is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of campaigners who listened in good faith to the world leaders’ claim that they were willing to seriously address poverty in Africa. More importantly it is a disaster for the world’s poor. The agreements on trade, debt, aid and climate change are nowhere near sufficient to tackle the global poverty and environmental crisis we face » … and: « The G8’s approach on trade seems to be ‘Ask not what we can do for the poor, but what the poor can do for us,' ». (full text).

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Peter Hardstaff – England

Read: Peter Hardstaff (2000), The Biosafety Protocol, An Analysis.

And he says: « We are tired of world leaders heaping praise on Make Poverty History while simultaneously stabbing us in the back by breaking their promises. » (full text).

Read: Press release: our world is not for sale!

He said also, responding to the outcome of the G8 summit, World Development Movement (WDM) Head of Policy: « The final communique is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of campaigners who listened in good faith to the world leaders’ claim that they were willing to seriously address poverty in Africa. More importantly it is a disaster for the world’s poor.

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Lalita Ramdas – India

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

They tell about her: « Lalita Ramdas stepped out of a conventional and hierarchical environment to become a fearless voice in support of secularism, peace, and nuclear disarmament, often in very troubled times ».

Read: The Politics of Cricket ó Some Reflections, by Lalita Ramdas.

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Lalita Ramdas – India

She works for the Pak-India Forum for Peace and Democracy PIFPD (mentionned only once, on ‘Proceedings, Recommendations and Declaration of The Third Joint Convention Calcutta‘, December 28-31, 1996).

Lalita Ramdas (born 1940) stepped out of a conventional, hierarchical environment to become a voice in support of alternative education, gender sensitivity, secularism, peace, and nuclear disarmament. In the early 1980s, she put in place pathbreaking initiatives for development education in a number of elite schools. Living in a small village in India’s west coast, she is involved in the life of the local community while pursuing citizens’ peace initiatives with Pakistan and contributing to the global adult education movement.One day she is sitting with a group of teachers in a village school talking about the violence that often characterizes local election processes, and how teachers can try to counter this by instilling values such as mutual respect, non-violence, and harmony in the minds of the young.

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Annapurna Moharana – India

Linked with Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka.

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

They says about her: « As there was a curfew in town, the oath-taking ceremony was held inside Annapurna’s house:

13-year-old Annapurna also took it-a vow to serve the country, which she keeps to this day ».

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Annapurna Moharana – India

She works for the Kasturba Gandhi Memorial National Trust KGMNT, for Sarvodaya,
and for the Utkal Naagari Lipi Parishad UNLP (no website).

Annapurna Moharana has been working since she was 13 to carry forward the Gandhian tradition of peaceful protest and refusing to compromise with corruption or oppression. In the past 75-odd years, Annapurna has worked on issues ranging from setting up a tribal residential school for girls, sensitizing dacoits (members of robber bands) to pacifism, and resisting the 1975 emergency, to setting up a nursing training center that recruits and trains young women in maternity services.

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