Mois : novembre 2007

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‘.