World People's Blog

Linked with The California Women’s Agenda CAWA.

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

It is said about her: « Roma Guy lives her life in a profound and peaceful way. Her strategic vision, strength, and wisdom help to build a world that fully embraces everyone. » Diane Sabin ».

Roma Pauline Guy – USA

She works for the San Francisco State University, for the Women’s and Girls Network, and for the California Women’s Agenda CAWA.

Roma Pauline Guy, a social justice activist and policy leader in public health, women’s rights, poverty, and homelessness, has worked all her adult life to improve conditions for women. She helped found the San Francisco Women’s Building, and developed community-based institutions including a battered women’s shelter and a family resource center.

She helped also to create the La Casa de las Madres (a battered women’s shelter), The Women’s Foundation (Northern California), and the Stay-in-School Family Resource Center (San Francisco State University).

Coauthor of « Historical Perspectives on Homelessness, The Police and the Homeless », she has helped to redefine housing as a public health issue and has developed an innovative curriculum at San Francisco State University.

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Linked with Fundatia ProHomini.

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

She says: « Peace is not merely a word. It is a time for kids to grow up in harmony with society; the joy young mothers feel when they see their children growing up in peace ».

She says also: « Peace is sleeping without worry and looking forward to the joys of a new day. It is the rainbow that guards the Earth, without damage from bullets, fire or death. Peace is the desire for people to live in harmony with their compatriots and with nature. But, it seems to me that the more we wish for peace, the more it eludes us. We live in an uncertain world. Because we are confronted with an uncertain existence, people want to live in the moment. People want to live like kids at any cost. We want to ‘have our cake’, and eat it, too ».

Negoita Cornelia – Romania

She works for Pro Homini.

Negoita Cornelia works in Braila, a town located in southeast Romania. She has dedicated her life to children in orphanages and psychiatric hospitals. In 1997, she founded Pro Homini, a

charitable foundation helping orphans, large families, and senior citizens. Why did she choose this challenging path, rather than developing a profitable business after 1989 and the fall of the Ceausescu regime and the transition to a market economy.

The answer is that, for her, people are more important than money. She derives enormous satisfaction knowing her contributions have changed people’s lives.

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Linked with an EU Constitution for the 21st century.

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

She says: « We need development that is driven forward with consideration for the various traditions and cultures and for human beings and nature » … and: « We want to remember former times with the store in Stocken and continue the traditions, so that life blossoms even when there are storms in autumn and winter. And we want to promote solidarity and support people all over the world ».

And she says (together with her husband): « We want an EU Constitution
for the 21st century, not for the 20th! ». (full text).

Erni and Ola Friholt – Sweden

She works for Svenska Kvinnors Vänsterförbund SKV, (the Federation of Leftist Swedish Women), also descrived on the swedish wikipedia; for Women’s International Democratic Federation; and for the Swedish Women’s Council for Development.

Swedish articles:

• Kwinor för Fred.
• Vi tänker aldrig sluta jobba för fred och rättvisa.
• BARN TÅL VÄLDIGT MYCKET, MEN …
• Kvinnomarsch ger manifest till nordiska regeringar.
• Gandhian and Indian Influence in the Nordic Countries.
• Göteborgs Sociala Forum 2005.
• Svenska trupper har inte i Afghanistan att göra.
• Kvinnor för Fred, Verksamhetsberättelse 2005.
• Stoppa avrättningarna av tre Irakiska kvinnor!

For 37 years, Erni Friholt has been an activist in peace building and peace education, women’s rights and solidarity, both locally and internationally in the Balkans, Bangladesh, India, and Ethiopia. She has been a journalist, speaker, volunteer and project manager, a demonstrator and organizer of an alternative solidarity fair trade café. For many years, she was editor-in-chief of the women’s magazine « Vi Mänskor » of the Federation of Leftist Swedish Women and chair of the organization. She has participated in many international women’s conferences, peace marches, and peace organizations.

Somewhere in every land there is an idyllic spot, a place of stillness, peace, and joy where war and violence are momentarily forgotten, suffering and pain overcome, and new energy created. And so it is in Sweden. On the footbridge of the Brygg Café in Stocken on the island of Orust north of Gothenberg, midsummer’s night has been joyously celebrated for more than twenty years with poetry, song, and dance, accompanied by feasting on herring and wine.

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Linked with the Sunflower Association SMS.

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

She says: « I do not waste time, ever. I did not waste even an hour in my whole student life for any boyfriend. I did not even get married. I believe in hard work and sacrifice ».

And she says: « Hello. I am Asha Lata. I am thrilled that you are reading this. While we are quietly working in the poor villages, we are hidden away from the people in the big cities of Bangladesh and the world. Sometimes as we battle to overcome oppression and poverty we feel that nobody cares. Your visit to our website gives us all encouragement. We realise that we are not alone in our desire to live in a better world with equality for all …  » (full text).

Asha Lata Baidya, or Ashalata Boidda – Bangladesh

She works for ‘Surjamukhi Sangstha SMS’, short for ‘Sunflower Association SMS‘.

Asha Lata Baidya, or Ashalata Boidda, is one of Bangladesh’s best-known freedom-fighters. She joined the freedom struggle of 1971 against Pakistan when she was only 15 years old and went on to lead the women’s guerrilla corps. After she completed her studies – suspended until her country won independence – she set up the Surjamukhi Sangstha SMS. SMS has been working on issues ranging from setting up cooperatives and helping with loans to women’s empowerment, education, and environmental issues. More than 200,000 families have benefited from Asha Lata’s 34 years of tireless activism.

She is the eldest of three sisters, was born in Latenga village, Kotalipara thana in Bangladesh on February 12, 1956. Her father, Haripada Boidda, was a schoolteacher, her mother, Sharalamoyee, a homemaker.

It was in school that Ashalata became involved in the political struggle in the then East Pakistan. The Pakistani genocide against Bangladesh was launched on March 25, 1971. A month later, a group of freedom-fighters visited the Boidda house and asked whether one member from the family would join the freedom struggle. « My father told them that he had no son », she recalls. « His daughter, meaning me, would join them. I was very excited and left home with the group to take part in the liberation war ». Thus, all of 15-years-old, Ashalata joined Bangladesh’s fight for independence.

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Linked with Afghan Links, and with Pictures from Afghanistan.

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

She says: «  »Over every mountain there is a path ».

See: the Newsletter of the World Federation of Public Health Associations WFPHA, report winter 2007.

Karla Schefter – Germany

She works for Chak-e-Wardak-Hospital, the Committee for the Promotion of Medical and Humanitarian Aid to Afghanistan.

« Over every mountain there is a path ». Is there a better way to describe Karla Schefter’s humanitarian work in Afghanistan than to quote this Afghan proverb. She faced countless mountains, and still managed to find a path over every one. With her unusual courage, enormous stamina, and seemingly inexhaustible perseverance as well as great personal sacrifice, she created her lifework, the Chak-e-Wardak-Hospital in Afghanistan. For the past 15 years, she has managed this hospital, which has provided thousands of people, especially women and children, with desperately needed medical care.

The story begins when Karla Schefter worked in Afghanistan as a surgical nurse in a team from Germany some 20 years ago. The misery she saw left her no peace. After returning to Germany, she devised a plan to open a hospital in the country’s rural area. With untiring persistence, she collected donations for the project, personally took the money to Afghanistan and began to build a medical unit in the western Wardak province.

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Linked with GlobalGiving, with Miseror, and with Anti-Slavery International.

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

She says: « I have always been interested in human rights and the dignity of every person. I felt that my actions should empower the most vulnerable and discriminated. For this reason I opted for domestic workers, be it women or children, because they have no voice, no rights. This corresponds to my understanding of slavery. What got me working was the inhuman situation of those women and children. It touched and hurt me as a woman. The urgency started after meeting the 13-year-old girl Sangeeta who was raped, pregnant and had aborted, without understanding what had happened to her » … and: « For children the time is now ».

She says also: « I have not grown tired of fighting for a full life for every domestic worker. It is my vision of a peaceful future to get domestic workers out of slavery into human dignity and justice ».

Download: A handbook on good practice in programme interventions, from Anti-Slavery International 2005.

See her website in netherlandse.

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Jeanne Devos – Belgium

Read: « Ik ben kritischer dan Moeder Theresa« .

She works for the Welfare Trust for Women and Child Domestic Workers, (named on antislavery.org, and on GlobalGiving), for the National Domestic Worker’s Movement NDWM, and for Misereor.

Jeanne Devos on the netherlandse wikipedia.

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Linked with Central Asia, Kazakhstan., and also with Rozlana Taukina – Kazakhstan.

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

She says: « You cannot go ahead while sitting on your chair » … and « I am grateful to destiny that I am a mother. My unfortunate personal life and the loss of a first child depressed me. Doctors warned me of the risks if I tried to have another child. However, the thirst for the happiness of motherhood filled me so much that I took the risk. It was a difficult delivery but now I cannot imagine life without my son. Children are flowers whose aroma and beauty we enjoy and make us forget all the difficulties of the world. We try to teach and educate them but sometimes we are the ones who learn from them ».

Lazzat Ishmukhamedova – Kazakhstan

She works for the Ishenim Regional Partnership Network (named on DCCA) and for the Moldir Women’s Association MWA.

She says also: « It could be due to my active temperament that I have achieved what I have now. I am filled with joy, satisfaction and pride by what the association has achieved, a support center for children from poor families, the Moldir Micro-Credit Organization and the establishment of other self-help federations with the assistance of MWA. Presently MWA is helping to develop more NGOs to share its 11-year experience in poverty reduction in rural areas. I think the success of any enterprise depends on the ability to think positively in any situation, to set a goal and strive to achieve it regardless of all obstacles. Only then one can achieve the peak which seemed unattainable. It is not for nothing that a Kazakh proverb says, ‘Eyes are afraid but hands work ».

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