Catégorie : 1000 women Peace Nobel 2005

Savitri MacCuish – Netherlands

Linked with The Bhagavad Gita – Part Three.

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

Savitri MacCuish, born in Scotland in 1959, lives in the Netherlands as the founder and director of the World Peace Flame Foundation and Life Foundation International. She has pioneered unique detraumatization programs in crisis areas and teaches practical peacemaking techniques in workshops all over the world. In 1999, she was the driving force behind the creation of the eternal World Peace Flame (WPF), lit by peacemakers from five continents. The WPF burns in monuments in cities around the world. In 2004, it brought together ambassadors from every country to sign a statement for peace. There is one key event that moved Savitri MacCuish to become the sensitive peacemaker she is today, without fear to face the suffering of people wherever she is confronted with it: One day in 1994 she was driving in war-torn Bosnia, working for the British non-governmental organization (NGO) Life Foundation. She was stopped by a group of old women in black who stood in the middle of the road and stared at her, not saying a word. One woman came to the open window of the van, which was loaded with aid material … (1000peacewomen 1/2).

Savitri MacCuish is  Global Ambassador of Peace, international speaker, retreat leader and author, Savitri trains people in business and organisations around the world in authentic leadership and management skills. As one of the pioneers of the Dru’s war-zone detraumatisation work, Savitri has seen much suffering in the world. Her search for an authentic symbol of hope and peace has led her to become the prime instigator of the World Peace Flame and she is now Director of the World Peace Flame Foundation and Dru Netherlands. (on her Homepage).

She says: « Peace cannot be delegated! It begins with you and me, and the choices we make today. (1000peacewomen).

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Savitri MacCuish – Netherlands

She works for the World Peace Flame Foundation WPF (site under reconstruction), and for the Life Foundation International (named on UNESCO).

Her book: Guide to Personal Freedom: Nine key principles for inner transformation, by Savitri MacCuish and Anita Goswami, Paperback 100p  ISBN 90-805999-7-2 – This book is a treasure trove of practical advice, techniques and wisdom; a guide to your personal freedom. Savitri and Anita share nine important principles and techniques to re-create and nurture you, to redirect your life, to make it an expression of an inner revolution that is necessary to meet the new challenges in life … (full text).

Find her on Google Book-search; on Google Group-search.

(on 1000peacewomen 2/2): … Savitri offered her food and seeds for planting, but there was no reaction, no thanks. Savitri could hardly stand her glance any more and felt like panicking. Suddenly it came like a flash to her mind: “What if this were my mother?” In that moment something changed, “Then I looked straight into her eyes, straight at her pain,” Savitri says. “It was a healing moment. I realized that you can heal people simply by not being afraid to be with their pain.” Still silent, the old women started patting Savitri’s hand.

Savitri MacCuish calls this moment a “turning point” in her life, although she had been working with traumatized people for years. Before that she travelled the world, training horses to Olympic standard and later studying management training and working as a successful businesswoman in the USA and Middle East. In 1986, at the age of 27, she returned to her home country, Scotland. “All the money could not buy what I was looking for. At the end of the day there was a big empty space. Something was missing.”

What she was missing Savitri found first in her work with women survivors of incest and rape and later with the North Wales based Life Foundation. This non-governmental peace-making organization works in the daily life of war zones to promote the use of self-help approaches for physical, mental, emotional and spiritual well-being. The Life Foundation is guided by the motto, “Transform the world by giving people the tools to transform themselves,” and is inspired by the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi.

Savitri started to develop techniques that most peacemaking efforts do not provide, including self-help tools that enable people to transform painful emotions into personal empowerment and creativity, and to build their sense of self-worth and confidence: “All human beings disagree, but it is when the emotions get in the way that disagreements – from family arguments to national wars- become so difficult to solve.”

Savitri began working in the war and crisis areas of the 1990s, and the program has included the Balkan states, North Caucasus, Sudan, South Africa, Northern Ireland and more recently Nepal. A main focus is to train and support aid workers, local peace workers and community leaders suffering from burn-out.

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Landon Pearson – Canada

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

Landon Carter (Lucy) Pearson, OC BA, MEd, LLD, DU (born November 16, 1930) is a former Canadian senator and a children’s rights advocate. She was appointed to the Senate in 1994 by Jean Chrétien and sat with the Liberal caucus. She retired from the Senate on November 16, 2005 upon reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75 … // … In 1974 she cofounded Children Learning for Living, a prevention program in children’s mental health. It operated for 23 years through the Ottawa Board of Education until 1998. She was a school trustee in both Canada and India; and has been involved in community-based programs such as Mobile Creches for Working Mothers’ Children, a child care service for the children of nomadic construction workers in New Delhi and Bombay. In 1979, she was Vice-Chairperson of the Canadian Commission for the International Year of the Child and edited the Commission’s report, For Canada’s Children: National Agenda for Action … (full text).

She is named as Better World Heroe. Her Bio there.

Her website about her life and work.

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Landon Pearson – Canada

She works for the Canadian Council on Children and Youth, for the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, and for the Landon Pearson Resource Centre for the Study of Childhood and Children’s Rights LPRC (read: its official opening on on June 1 2006).

She says: « There can be no global security without respect for children. We have to be more than just observers of children’s suffering, we have to be partners with them in their struggles » … and: « We must pay attention to the millions of children of this generation who are caught up in armed conflicts. How can we protect them from the worst consequences of war? And when hostilities cease, how can we take the war out of them? By eliminating landmines, controlling the sale of small arms, raising the age of recruitment … are all essential measures. By reuniting children with their families and providing programs of physical and psychological rehabilitation » … and: « I’ve never ceased to be amazed at the survival skills of poor children. I’ve learned how much children can actually do for themselves if only we provide the necessary means. That part is up to us ». (Quotes on Better World Heroes).

… Now, at the start of a new century, Senator Landon Mackenzie Pearson sees a glimmer of hope-a dawning recognition that children too have human rights, including the right to be heard. Senator Pearson can trace the growth of this awareness in her own life. Born in Toronto in 1930, she grew up in a small Ontario town. There the sufferings of children registered in her awareness only in her grandmother’s exhortations to « remember the starving Armenians » when she wouldn’t finish her dinner … (full text).

She says also: … « I’ve never ceased to be amazed at the survival skills of poor children » … (full text).

… She has also made a substantial contribution to our understanding of child development through her writing, in particular her book, Children of Glasnost (1990), which gives an in-depth understanding of what it is like to grow up in the Soviet Union, and how that is changing as Russian society becomes more open. A second book, Letters from Moscow, was published in 2003 … (full text).

Find her and her publications; on inauthor Google-search; on Google Book-search; on Google Scholar-search; on Google Group-search; on Google Blog-search … and her bio on Foreign Affairs.

… although it is not the University’s mandate to develop social policy, it is the organization’s role to learn what is needed to inform policy.
The Landon Pearson Resource Centre will provide just this opportunity.Located in A735 Loeb, the resource centre will make Pearson’s documents available to students and faculty, and will promote and host activities that address issues relating to children, childhood and communities.  As Carleton’s newest adjunct professor, Pearson will also be available to meet with students and share her knowledge with members of the University community. She said the centre would provide an opportunity to engage the whole community and create the synergy needed to bring respect for children … (full text).
And: Campus news, Online exclusive: Senator Landon Pearson leaves legacy at Carleton, Creates resource centre for the study of children’s rights, Dec. 05, 2005. (full text).

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Naseeb Mohammad Shaikh – India

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

Naseeb Mohammad Shaikh lost 11 members of the family she had married into, and 14 members of her parents’ families during the 2002 Gujarat riots. Since then, she has been a prime initiator of peace and communal harmony, leading the fight for rights for the minority communities in and around Gujarat’s Kalol region. At last count, she was fighting 37 cases of atrocities, including ones by the police. She comes from a well-off Muslim family of landowners.

Born in Delol village in Panchmahal, Gujarat, she married Mohammad-bhai of the same village in 1989. At the time of the Gujarat communal riots of 2002, she had a daughter of 13 and a son aged 11.

During the riots, 11 members of the family she married into, and 14 members of her parents’ families, were butchered, including her parents, her husband and her daughter, who was raped in front of her relatives before being killed. Naseeb escaped death only because she was in hospital undergoing a minor surgery. She was left with her son and ostracism from her village. She had to seek refuge in a rehabilitation colony in Kalol, which is where she has been since.

But unlike most refugees in the colony, Naseeb refused to let the magnitude of her loss overwhelm her into paralysis. Finding many widowed women and helpless children, she took it upon herself to help them. She started small, listening to their stories, taking them to hospital, filing papers for compensation, liaising with the relief agencies – she became pretty much a one-woman army as far as the refugees’ requirements were concerned … (1000peacewomen 1/2).

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Sorry, no downloadable photo found of Naseeb Mohammad Shaikh – India.

Naseeb Mohammad Shaikh did not allow her incalculable personal loss and grief to overwhelm her social conscience-if she lost her family to the 2002 Gujarat riots, so did thousands of others.

She works for Aman Samuday *.

(1000peacewomen 2/2): … After moving out of the rehabilitation colony with the help of local social workers, Naseeb shifted into a small house in Kalol with her son. There, she accepted a more substantial role as a social worker, becoming very active in highlighting legal cases and rehabilitation issues to various agencies and the media.

Soon after, Naseeb started work with SEWA. Naseeb was with the social organization for six months, during which time she traveled around the villages in the vicinity to work with riot-affected women and children. No constructive change in the lives of the people was possible for obvious reasons, and although Naseeb managed to make life easier for the people she met and interacted with, a limit soon imposed itself. In April 2003, she quit SEWA to join Aman Samuday, an organization trying to propel people towards peace and communal harmony through awareness. Naseeb fit neatly into the scheme of things.

She moved from village to village, spreading the message of peace, justice, communal harmony, and a common humanity. Her own experiences were the greatest example she placed in front of the affected: she plunged headlong into issues concerning the marginalized.

One of her first campaigns was against a local maulana, a Muslim cleric who ran a relief camp. The frisson began when the maulana was distributing handcarts to the affected, hoping that they would use the carts to start small businesses and become self-sufficient. When Naseeb approached the maulana for a cart, he abused her, charging her with conduct unbecoming of a Muslim widow. His position in the community ensured that he received more support than Naseeb did. She retaliated by mobilizing a small army of women to demand their rights.

When in Eral village, she was confronted with the age-old caste divide – Dalits were refused drinking water from the public handpumps. Negotiating with the local panchayat, Naseeb managed to get a handpump sanctioned only for the Dalit community. In Eral, she built a home for Pushpaben, an elderly Dalit woman who lacked shelter. Aman Samuday provided only the cost of materials; Naseeb herded together enough people from the community to build the house.

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