Mois : décembre 2007

Linked with Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan – KMVS.

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

For 15 years, Lataben Sachde (born 1963) has been working with elected women, and studying their perspective on good governance. The change her leadership has brought about is evident in the way that women leaders execute their positional power in their respective villages. i.e., responsibly. An estimated 500 « leaders » have stepped out of their restrictive social mores, challenging the patriarchal setup. Lataben and her team are the quiet force that has initiated a powerful grassroots movement of women claiming their public spaces.

She says: « I am hopeful that in the next ten to fifteen years, women will be more actively involved in the ‘governance movement’ and that it will translate from paper to reality. My role will be to provide as much information to as many women as I can ».

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Lataben Sachde – India

She works for the Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan KMVS.

Lataben’s specialty lies in interacting with women who have been elected, and understanding their perspective on what comprises good governance.

Lataben Sachde was born in 1963 into a lower-middleclass family from a village close to Bhuj in Gujarat’s Kutch district. After completing her higher secondary school, she had to give up studying, as she was married into a traditional family.

She began working with the Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan (KMVS) a little over 14 years ago. Her husband’s friend came to know about KMVS, and that it was looking for a local woman who could work with the community. Lataben was initially not too keen on taking on the responsibility, but her husband encouraged her to at least give it a shot. He supported her quietly through the difficult days that followed her decision to join.

Over the years, she has had to struggle with her in-laws’ opposition to her work in an unconventional environment. She also had to overcome her own lack of exposure and specific educational skills within the organization. Today, Lataben is one of the leaders of the KVMS.

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Linked with Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan KMVS.

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

Alkaben Jani’s work in the Kutch area of Gujarat is informed by her intimate knowledge of the oppressive social fabric of the region. For the past 15 years, she has been extensively organizing, mobilizing, and training rural women, focusing on capacity-building and leadership training. The result of these efforts is the emergence of a strong and motivated team of 12,712 leaders at the community level, who are leading other women in the area to surface and take the reins both in their homes and outside.

She says: « The human sea is full of pearls that need to be identified and polished so as to give them the shine. I was identified and groomed and now I feel it is my moral responsibility to groom the rest ».

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Alkaben Jani – India

She works for Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan KMVS.

Alkaben Jani (born 1964) is a single woman who has had to struggle against family expectations and pressures to pursue her convictions and work with women less privileged than her. She hails from a middleclass Kutchi Brahmin family. Her father, a manager in a cotton company, had passed high school, and her mother had studied up to grade VII. The couple had three daughters and three sons, five of whom are, at the least, graduates. Alkaben is a postgraduate, having completed her Masters in Commerce.

She was in Kutch until the age of seven, and then her father was transferred to Karnataka, where she completed her education. Alkaben’s background, therefore, is a mixed-urban culture. She returned to Kutch as soon as she completed her university education, and joined a school as a teacher. She realized soon, though, that she was compromising heavily on her values and principles.

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

She says: « Do not dismay. For the life of the women, not even one step backwards will be taken ».

A woman of contrasts. Brave in confronting struggles. Sympathetic. Wise. Serene, as she meditates on what to do. Of solid principles and strong roots. An Ambassador of Conscience. Gentle like the breeze. Persistent. Disapproving of exaggeration. A life full of obstacles in the search for justice. 61 years of hard work against the current tide. Hilda Marina Morales Trujillo, Guatemalan, dreams of a world with equal opportunities for women and men.

She says also: « I saw that women did not have much support to gain access to justice. There were no women’s shelters, which are indispensable, otherwise they have to go back home, where they might suffer even more violence. People used to say that the legislation was advanced, but, in fact, it discriminated women ».

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Hilda Marina Morales Trujillo – Guatemala

She is a University professor in Family Law and Human Rights. She drew up the academic basis for the Diploma in Gender Studies and the Post graduate Certificate in Women’s Rights for the University of San Carlos de Guatemala, where she holds the post of head professor of that subject. She also teaches at the University of Rafael Landívar.

Hilda Marina Morales Trujillo was born in a poor home in the Petén province of Guatemala, on the border with Mexico. Her mother, housewife, dressmaker, owner of a bazar; her father: agriculturist. Hilda has become independent thanks to her mother’s example and her father’s approval.

She was initially a primary school teacher. During her time at university studying law, she became aware of the problem of mistreated women. “Nowadays, you hear about it, but in those days you did not hear so much. Then, women who were victims of violence and slanders had no alternatives”.

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Linked with Center for Social Development CSD.

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

Chea Vannath (born 1948) is President of the Center for Social Development CSD, which promotes school curricula on transparency, monitors the courts and parliament and organizes public debates on the Khmer Rouge tribunal, corruption and other issues. After the Khmer Rouge seized power in 1975, Chea was forced to work in labor camps before escaping to Thailand and on to the US. After living as a refugee in America for more than ten years, she returned to Cambodia in 1992 to participate in rebuilding her country.

She says: « Not anymore will I allow only one party to lead my country ».

She says also: « “He (my father) was committed, had tremendous energy and effort, and possessed a progressive vision. He did not blame others. When he talked, he made me think. Once he was asked by other villagers while we were forced to work in the field by the Khmer Rouge, how it feels to not be rich anymore, and he replied that he still felt very fortunate. He did not pay attention to money but to human beings”.

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Chea Vannath – Cambodia

She works for the Center for Social Development CSD.

A daughter of a jeweler, Vannath grew up in a secure and elegant environment. As a girl, she went to school in a chauffer-driven car. Vannath speaks three languages fluently: Khmer, English and French. After getting her diploma in public financial management, she worked as a fiscal officer in the treasury department. She married a physician, a major in the Cambodian army. They have one son.

Then came the Khmer Rouge in April 1975. Vannath’s life would never be the same again.

From « year zero », as the Khmer Rouge regime called their reign of terror, Vannath along with her parents and her husband and son were forced to leave home and made to work the fields in several provinces along with millions other Cambodians. In three years and eight months, together with many other people, she moved to different places, wherever the Khmer Rouge needed forced labor. She got up at four in the morning to pick tobacco, and saw men being taken away never to be seen again.

Vannath witnessed, for the first time, death, torture, and misery. In short, human suffering. From these experiences, she learned to understand life and suffering, life as ever changing and not permanent.

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Linked with Articles for Indigenous Peoples on our blogs.

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

Guadalupe Hernández Dimas, o Nana Lu, como la conocen en su comunidad, nace a la orilla del Lago de Pátzcuaro, en el estado de Michoacán. Es poeta e integrante de la Academia de la Lengua P’urhépecha. Elaboró junto con el Instituto de Antropología de la Universidad Autónoma de México la primera gramática en lengua p’urhépecha, Lanhaskapani, y fundó la organización Uarhi (mujer), donde se impulsan unidades productivas en manos de las mujeres indígenas y se realizan talleres de reflexión, encuentros, movilizaciones, publicaciones y denuncias. (inmujer).

She says: « Poverty has the face of a woman ».

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Guadalupe Hernández Dimas ‘Nana Lu’ – Mexico

She works for Uarhi (Woman).

She says also: “When I was a little girl, my grandmother told me: ‘You will be a woman soon and you must be careful in this life. You have to walk in safety and you have to know where to go and that you never have to do anything alone’. Her name was Susana. My father died when I was 22 days old, and my mother went to live with my grandparents. My mother’s name is Angela Dimas Villa. She is a very brave woman who sings indigenous songs, ‘pirekuas’. I also sing, because I was taught to. I was taught to dance and to participate in the ceremonies of our community”.

A lake and an indigenous community are her historical references. She is the only daughter of two women: her mother and grandmother. She is unique in a man’s world. Guadalupe Hernández Dimas is known as “Nana Lu”–an honorary name given to her in recognition of her work for the P’urhepecha people (indigenous people located in the State of Michoacán, in the West of Mexico, its cities are built in the brooks of the big lake Pátzcuaro, Guadalupe’s birth place).

Poem:

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

She says: « To contribute to issues that are to the benefit of the community and society at large, I think this is worthwhile even if it is at the expense of personal interests ».

After she was transferred to the Women’s Federation of Qianxi County, Yu Guixin was able to build up a much deeper understanding on women’s issues. She and her fellow workers in the Women’s Federation attend courses on related legislation, and organize legal and gender training for women in the villages. She also set up a domestic violence complaints center, and provides forensic medical services, with the overall goal of promoting the protection of women’s rights.

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Guixin Yu – China

She works for the Women’s Federation of Qianxi County, Hebei Province.

Yu Guixin is the chairperson of the Qianxi (county) Women’s Federation in Hebei Province. She was born to a peasant family in 1962. In 1982 she was admitted to the Yutian Normal School and became a teacher after graduation. In 1988 she was transferred to the Qianxi Women’s Federation. Since then, she became more concerned with and has worked relentlessly in promoting women’s rights protection. In the rural areas, people, officials in women’s federation included, often lack legal knowledge and have a low level of awareness on gender equity. Guixin took the lead and made use of her spare time to study law to become a qualified legal practitioner in 1997. Many of her fellow workers were inspired and followed suit. To make women’s rights protection more professional, organized and efficient, Guixin set up work objectives and regular appraisal systems. Guixin also worked with the public security bureau and court, and carried out the popularization of legal education at the county level.

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

Amma Sakina is an Afghan human rights activist. For more than a decade, she has been working hard to raise people’s awareness of and campaigning against violations of human rights and the eradication of all forms of discrimination against women.

She says: « With peace we can perceive the real concept of life ».

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Amma Sakinah – Afghanistan

She works at grassroots as well as on organizational level to concert social work and efforts of community-based groups and NGOs. She has also worked with people with disabilities and special needs. She advocates education for all children and has run her own house as a school.

Amma’s work was triggered by her observation of the extreme injustices and discrimination against women that has prevailed in Afghanistan for decades. As an active participant in the peaceful resistance movement, she witnessed the incarceration of her own son for five years. In spite of these circumstances, she did not waiver in her commitment to achieve her goal of helping women in Afghanistan.

At present, Amma works closely with vulnerable people, such as women, children and disabled groups. She is optimistic about the future of women in Afghanistan, especially after the incorporation of an article that codifies equal rights for men and women in the Afghan constitution. In order to draw an example for women to gain self-confidence Amma has nominated herself to the presidential elections.

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