Catégorie : 1000 women Peace Nobel 2005

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

She says: « I have tried to use my own example to educate and inspire children and their parents. The force of knowledge is great and I hope to change the extent of poverty in my home village through knowledge ».

Read: Education in China: Reforms and Innovations, page 111.

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Xinlan Ma – China

She works for the Weizhou Hui Women’s Primary School.

In 1952, Ma Xinlan was born in a Muslim family in Weizhou, Tongxin County, Ningxia Autonomous region.

Most of the residents in Weizhou are of Hui nationality, and believe in Islam. Apart from the geographical remoteness of the area and its lack of educational resources, the native popular custom was that girls older than nine could not show their faces in public, or make contact with strangers, or go to school with boys. Thus few girls went to school there. When Ma Xinlan was six years old, a young woman teacher came to the township. Ma’s father, who was a traditional doctor, happily agreed to send her to the school where the woman was teaching. This teacher became a model for the young Ma. “When I grow up, I will become a teacher too,” she made up her mind.

In 1965, Ma graduated from the primary school. At that time, only four girls in the township, including her, finished primary school. Ma was accepted by Tongxin county middle school with high scores. Though there was a long distance of 80 km between her home and the township, she never found it tiring or hard. With the Cultural Revolution reaching even her village, this dream was broken. She had to leave the school for the poor yellow soil of home. Probably being blessed by her strong wish of being a teacher, in 1971, she was lucky to find employment as a village teacher, with a monthly income of five yuan, when positions were available in the county. She was 19 that year.

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

She says: « Peace is the environment of trust and confidence that people need in life ».

Together with the European Women’s Lobby, Equality Now, the Center for Strategic Initiatives of Women, and the Feminist Majority, V-Day served as one of the Co-conveners of the Afghan Women’s Summit held in Brussels in December 2001. The Summit provided a forum for Afghan women in the Diaspora from all areas of the world, including Pakistan, Iran, the Central Asian Republics, the United States, Canada and Europe and from different ethnic and linguistic backgrounds and also Afghan women from within Afghanistan. Afghan women leaders from around the world gathered to create a working dialogue on the role of women in post-Taliban Afghanistan. Hosted in Brussels, December 4-5 at the European Commission, the prime focus of the Summit was to introduce the voices of Afghan women into the current international political discourse with officials from the European Union, United Nations, and women’s rights activists from around the world, including the three women delegates to the concurrent Bonn meeting: Seddighe Balkhi, leader of the Afghan Women’s Political and Cultural Activities Center in Iran, Northern Alliance representative Amina Afzali, an Iran-based activist, and Sima Wali, president and CEO of Refugee Women in Development and coordinator for the Afghan Women’s Summit. (full text).

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Amina Afzali Safi – Afghanistan

Amina Safi Afzali was born in Herat where she completed her early education. She subsequently attended the Kabul University where she obtained a BSc from the Faculty of Sciences.

For 23 years, she has been advocating women and human rights. She has also taught at the Faculty of Science, Kabul University. After the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, Afzali fled to Iran. Her husband, who was part of the resistance movement, was killed by the Russians.

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

She says: « Let us take action for and strive towards gender equality in our country and for a better life ».

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Mingxia Chen – China

She works for the Gender and Law Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

Chen Mingxia, 64 years old (in 2005), is director of Gender and Law Research Center in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and Board Chair of the Network Against Domestic Violence under the Chinese Law Society. She conducted research on civil law and, in 1996, started to focus on human rights of women in 1990. Human rights and domestic violence were sensitive issues in China with some people even denying the existence of such problems when Chen started to research these two areas. Since then she has helped many victims of violence and evolved democratic management of NGOs that take up these issues.

Chen found that the law on women’s rights had many deficiencies and did not provide adequate protection to women. In 1993, under her initiation and planning, a pilot scheme on the implementation of women’s law was conducted in Qianxi County, Hebei Province. Under this new scheme judges, lawyers and staff of women’s federations were given comprehensive training, and women’s centers were established in villages; the scheme gave a new impetus to the work for women’s human rights in the whole county. The experience gained from Qianxi County was shared throughout the Hebei Province in 1996 and the pilot scheme was awarded a ‘Government Innovative Prize’.

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Linked with Center for the Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed CRP.

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

She says: « The first day, when I was going to office, people from the whole locality came around to watch me go to office in my wheelchair, it was very awkward and I felt terrible ».

She says also: « If an unmarried woman or girl is disabled, the family looks after her by providing shelter, food and a little bit of care. But if a married woman becomes disabled then she just does not have any place to go, » she says. « After a while, the woman will be kept away from her children, the husband will also leave her and the woman will be left all alone without any support or care. So, [the] CRP should develop a program that will provide care and support for women who have no place to go to ».

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Mohua Paul – Bangladesh

She works for the Center for the Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed CRP.

Mohua Paul was born into a financially comfortable family on 18 July 1961 in Chittagong, Bangladesh. Her father was a banker and her mother a homemaker. Her four brothers are also doing well professionally.

When Mohua was 12 years old, she was afflicted by transverse myelitis, a rare neurological disorder that left her with lower limb paralysis. Mohua loved dancing and was learning to dance before her illness. At hospital, her relatives would console her that she would be well again, but Mohua knew otherwise: she had overheard one of her brothers, a doctor, saying that she would never again be « normal ». Hospitalization provided an epiphany: she saw the nurses and doctors remain caring and affectionate despite working long hours and realized that she too wanted to do something that would help people.

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Linked with The Women’s Development Bank, or Banmujer, and with Women at the heart of change.

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

Nora Castañeda should be tired from her gruelling speaking tour around Europe. Instead she is like a power station, pumping out energy and radiating sparkle; inspiring packed audiences wherever she speaks. She is President of Banmujer (the Women’s Development Bank of Venezuela) – a unique initiative by the Chavez Government. For, as she explains, the bank is about something much more than money:

She says: « It was set up in consultation with people in the shantytowns and the countryside as one of the mechanisms to tackle endemic poverty in Venezuela. Since 70 per cent of Venezuelans living in poverty are women, we decided to target them. Banmujer tries to create a level playing field by empowering these women not just economically, but also politically and socially. It’s a social development bank that assesses the viability of projects, and provides training in citizenship, organization, leadership, education, health and self-esteem as well as personal development. We are not building a bank – we are building a different way of life. » (full interview text).

Her book: ‘Creating a Caring Economy, Nora Castaneda and the Women’s Development Bank of Venezuela‘, by Nora Castaneda, £4.50 paperback, Crossroads Books, 2006.

Same book in spanish: adult book, Creando una Economia Solidaria: Nora Castaneda y el Banco de Desarrollo de la Mujer de Venezuela.

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Nora Castañeda – Venezuela

She works for the Bank of the Woman / Banmujer named on the Guardian, on wikipedia, .

A video.
She says also: « What we are trying to achieve is for women to not only get credit, but also to improve the quality of their lives. This can be developed through an economic model with gender equality ».

Nora Castañeda was born into a humble family in Caracas in 1942. Her mother, who was of peasant’s origin, was “father and mother at the same time”. From her mother she has inherited her love of studying and honourable work.

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Linked with International Peace Research Institute Oslo PRIO.

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

She says: « Failure is an orphan, success has many fathers ».

Ingrid Eide is a member of the Board of the United Nations Association, Norway. She co-founded the Peace Research Institute in Oslo in 1959, one of the first centers of peace research in the world. She has served a member of parliament and Deputy Minister of Education.

She was an active member of the Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) and an early supporter of its Culture of Peace program. Ingrid is the former head of the Division of Women in Development of the United Nations Development Program UNDP. (1000peacewomen).

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Ingrid Eide – Norway

She works for ‘Against Nuclear Weapons’, and ‘No to Nuclear Weapons’.

Recommended Reading.

She says also: « The gaps between ideals and realities on the ground are reflected in reports and statistics. Intra- and international transparency is increasing. The project has rightly decided to focus on this aspect of UN activity. UNDP’s Human Development Report (HDR) is
a particularly interesting case as intellectual history, and as an intellectually, rather than politically generated paradigm shift. Conceptual tools are important: the human development index was
dramatically different from per capita gross national product (BNP)
figures in content and development message. With the HDRs, first
launched in l990, women were seen both as statistical categories,
as vicitims of maldevelopment and as actors and agents of development. ‘Human development reporting’ was itself engendered.
Inter- and particularly intranational inequalities would no longer be
concealed. Gender issues were highlighted and legitimised. Let me
offer an anecdote: I came to the UNDP in the late 1980s to work
for ‘women in development’. I was told by an enthusiastic colleague
that women should now be harnessed for development because, so
far, women had been bypassed. My mandate, however, fortunately
referred to women as participants and beneficiaries of all UNDP
activities ». (full text).

Read: Male roles, masculinities and violence, A culture of peace perspective.

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

She says: « The only way to solve the problem of women’s subordination is to change people’s mindset and to plant the new idea of gender equality into every mind ».

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Qingrong Ma – China

She works for the Xingfu Village Women’s Association.

Ma Qingrong was born in 1943 in Gaocao township, Xichang City, Sichuan Province. She belongs to the Muslim faith and believes in Islam. She was married to a resident of Xingfu Village, Yulong township when she was 18 and since then, has never left the place.

Ma led a difficult life and suffered a lot when she grew up; she is deeply sympathetic and concerned for the poor. In the past 20 years, she has helped countless poor people. Every time, whatever the problem, she would try her best to help. The women in Xingfu village had a very low status. In some families, women were maltreated. It was common for them to be beaten or abused by their husbands. Ma would stand up for the women because she believed in the equality of women; she could not tolerate husband’s being violent.

In the beginning, she tried to settle disputes and comfort and help the women being abused. She tried to persuade the bad-tempered husbands to calm down and to be understanding. But when the husbands abused their family members with physical violence, she would severely criticize them and try to educate them with explicit arguments on women’s rights. The women began to feel that there was somebody who cared.

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Linked with ICRC, UNHCR and UNICEF, with 5 African voices out of many … , and with about Sudan’s Economy.

Out of Sudan we have 16 women mentionned having done good work for peace, and having been with the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005:

No one is worth to receive more than some 4 to 6 lines about her biography and work, meanwhile naughty warlords receive all hand-kisses from our elite-system.

The shame is deeper than anywhat, and for me one of the reasons why this country let dye the Darfur people, rather than find solutions.

Click on the pictures for greater size.

Bakhita Mohmed Osman (Sudan) ;

Bruna Siricio Iro (Sudan) ;

Ester Kuku Rahal (Sudan) ;

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Fatima Abdelrahim Osman (Sudan) ;

Fatima Ahmed Mohamed Ibrahim (Sudan) ;

Nafisa Mustafa Shargawi (Sudan) ;

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Rachael Nyadak Paul (Sudan) ;

Aida Ahmed Abdalla (Sudan) ;

Amna Abd El Rahman Abd El Rasoul (Sudan) ;

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Anita Batris Amiro (Sudan) ;

Saeeda Mohd Bedri Mohd Abu Hadia (Sudan) ;

Samia Mohemed Ibrahim (Sudan) ;

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Siham Daoud Anglo (Sudan) ;

Zeinab Mohamed Nour (Sudan) .

Zeinab Nour had passed away in September 2006;

Sudanese Women Empowerment for Peace Program (Sudan) ;

Safaa Elagib Adam (Sudan) .

Who helps them to help their people?

Here the link for the search-tool for women of any country, then choose.

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The only women out of Sudan I had on my blogs till today is NOT one proposed for the Nobel Peace Price 2005: her name is Abdullahi Ahmed an-Na’im – Sudan, on this blog on May 6th, 2006.

See also the only Peacewomen out of Chad: Achta Djibrine Sy – Chad, on this blog on June 22, 2006.

Added Nov. 4, 2007: see also ‘Because I Am A Girl‘.

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

She says: « I hoped we would not repeat history, that there would be no more wars or concentration camps. But like an evil spirit from Pandora’s box – hatred, war, internment camps, and prosecutions returned ».

Read: Critical Successes and surprising challenges in the faith-based experience responding to the HIV and AIDS pandemy, Ecumenical Humanitarian Organization EHO.

Read: EHO – with people, by people, for people.

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Anna Bu – Serbia

She works for the Ecumenical Humanitarian Organization EHO.

Anna Bu was born on Human Rights Day in 1946, in a concentration camp in the town of Pancevo in northern Serbia. This was a place where members of the ethnic German minority were interned, after they were deprived of all civil rights in the aftermath of the World War II. Some 80,000 of those interned, ethnic Germans living along the Danube River, died in the camps of the former Yugoslavia after World War II, many of them elderly and children. Until recently it was still forbidden to talk about these victims and the camps.

Thanks to the brave and persistent efforts of her father Janos, Anna and her ill mother were released from the camp in Gakovo in August 1947. The family stayed in Pancevo until 1951, after which they moved to the town of Zrenjanin, where they lived with her father’s family in a part of town mainly occupied by ethnic Hungarians. As the neighborhood children called Anna a “stinking German,” she did her best to learn Hungarian as soon as possible. She attended primary school and grammar school in Zrenjanin, where she engaged intensively in various student associations, and was always among the best of students.

For two years Anna studied civic engineering in Belgrade, after which she married Istvan Bu, a technology engineer. She moved to the city of Novi Sad, and in 1971, as the best student of her generation, she graduated from the German Department at the university. During the second year of her studies she gave birth to her first son Lorant, and in 1973 to her second son Robert. At that time she was already employed at an architectural bureau, where she worked until 1993, when a colleague from the office, Karoly Beres, invited her to join him at the Ecumenical Humanitarian Organization.

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Linked with Center for Peace, Nonviolence and Human Rights, and with Global Partnership for the Prevention of armed conflict GPPAC.

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

She says: « My engagement in peace activities is based on an effort and a wish to bring about real changes in the manner of thinking by opening a dialogue between the parties in conflict ».

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Spasenija Moro – Croatia

She works for the Center for Peace, Nonviolence, and Human Rights (named on sourcewatch.org).

When the booming announcement of war in the last decade disrupted the peaceful and stable rhythm of her life, Spasenija Moro did not abandon her optimism. She believed that war could not really happen in the former Yugoslavia. She believed in peaceful solutions for all problems.

Though she knew little about the techniques of nonviolent communication, by nature she was inclined to peaceful solutions. She missed social engagements and places for interaction that could be an alternative to war as a means to changing local society.

The war began for her personally in the most painful way. Since she had never been actively involved in politics, she could not understand politicians’ behavior. She believed that all of them were humanists and that they were socially engaged and sensitive people who would put the general-well being before anything else. Which for her meant solving the accumulating problems of the humiliated, oppressed, and degraded.

She started to talk openly about the injustice and repression that had taken place after World War II. All the problems that earlier had been swept under the carpet now flared up as a threatening fire that could consume the entire region.

Advancing signs of war affected her deeply. She did not want to accept war as a solution to the conflict, but her voice in the wilderness, could not stop the floods of anger and hate rolling in, together with sounds of tanks and explosions. That painful confrontation with the destruction of physical and mental systems made her feel empty inside.

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