Kroc IPJ Research and Resources

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They Danced in Windowless Rooms: The Life of Najla Ayubi of Afghanistan

Gabrielle Clifford

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Judge Najla Ayubi of Afghanistan is a firm believer that there can be no peace without justice. She first took the bench in the late 80s in her native Parwan Province, before being forced out of her profession and public life during the rule of the Taliban. Unwilling to accept her fate, Ayubi was soon organizing clandestine schools and sewing classes in bunkers, hidden from the Taliban’s religious police that forbade work for women or education for girls older than 8 years old. Raised in a family that prized education for both boys and girls, Ayubi herself has two MA degrees: one in law and politics from the State University of Tajikistan and another on post-war recovery and development studies from the University of York in the United Kingdom.

With the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Ayubi returned to work as senior state attorney, but saw that more was needed in the tumultuous period of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the country’s transition. Not one to sit idly by, Ayubi took increasing leadership roles promoting civic education, women’s empowerment, human rights and transparency as the country sought to write a new constitution and hold its first elections after decades of conflict. She served as a legal advisor for the State Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs of Afghanistan, commissioner at the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan and commissioner of the Joint Electoral Management Body.

An outspoken proponent of women’s rights frequently tasked with advising on gender mainstreaming, Judge Ayubi has not hesitated to critique post-conflict transition processes that have excluded women. This has not made her popular with the Taliban or certain tribal leaders who continue to hold positions of power. Undeterred, she continues to advocate for women’s rights in Islamic contexts and a society that values education and justice for women and men, as her family did in Parwan.

Ayubi served as a board member of Open Society Afghanistan and as country director of Open Society Afghanistan. She sits on a number of boards including as a global advisory board member of Women’s Regional Network, and a steering committee member of Tawanmandi. She recently served as deputy country representative of The Asia Foundation’s Afghanistan office.
There is Another Way: The Life of Galia Golan of Israel

Claire Doran

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Galia Golan of Israel knows well the subjects of Israeli-Palestinian politics. She is a professor emerita who lectures internationally and is a recognized expert in international affairs and foreign policy. That Golan is also a grassroots activist with several decades of experience focused on advancing women’s roles in peacebuilding and a key strategist in parliamentary activism, speaks volumes about her considerable and multilayered contributions to peace and justice in Israel.

Golan has been an instrumental figure in leading the Israeli peace movement, beginning with her role as a founder and leader of Peace Now, Israel’s prominent mass peace movement. She was an organizer of the unprecedented demonstration of 400,000 Israelis during the war with Lebanon, and the movement's representative on stage at the fateful peace rally at which former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated in 1995.

Golan co-founded and led two joint Israeli-Palestinian women’s peace organizations: the Jerusalem Link (Bat Shalom) and the International Women’s Commission for a Just and Sustainable Palestinian-Israeli Peace. She was also a founding member and deputy chair of the Israel Women’s Network, a feminist lobby group that played a critical role in advancing women’s rights in Israel over the last quarter of a century. She has been in the leadership of the Meretz (social democratic) Party since its inception. As a colleague of hers observed, “She has been a role model for many of the young people, especially women, in the peace movement.”

Golan has become deeply convinced that joint Israeli-Palestinian activity is the key to resolution of the long-standing conflict. She is active in the leadership of the joint Israeli and Palestinian Forum of Peace NGOs, and the more recent Palestinian/Israeli peace movement Combatants for Peace, which consists of former combatants working together in grassroots groups and public activities.

As the first woman political scientist in Israel, Golan has bridged the worlds of academia and activism. Currently a sought-after advisor, she is a member of the board of the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Studies, and she founded both Israel’s first women’s studies program and the first master’s program in conflict resolution (in English) in Israel. Now retired, she is the academic advisor for a new international master’s program in conflict resolution to be held at the Arab-Jewish village of Neve Shalom/Wahat al Salam (Oasis of Peace) in Israel (under the auspices of the University of Massachusetts) with Arab, Jewish and international faculty and students.
A Bridge to Truth: The Life of Glenda Wildschut of South Africa

Maggie Thach Morshed

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Glenda Wildschut is a South African human rights activist and peacebuilder whose work dates back to the early 1980s, when she began working with political prisoners, their families, exiles and orphaned returnee children in South Africa and Namibia. Since then she has dedicated herself to human rights activism, torture rehabilitation and healing and reconciliation.

Wildschut was born into the violence and human rights abuses of South Africa. At an early age she felt the injustice of growing up in a system designed to disadvantage and oppress people of color. On this part of her life, she reflects, “It was determined where I should attend school, which university I should study at and which professions I will not be able to even consider pursuing.” Wildschut was also arrested and harassed by police. Determined to transcend these experiences of oppression, she obtained academic qualifications both in South Africa and the U.S., and made it her life focus to advocate for reconciliation and healing of the country’s fractured past.

A registered nurse, midwife and psychiatric nurse (specializing in child and adolescent psychiatry), Wildschut is recognized as someone who combines her professional training as a psychiatric nurse and her activism to produce meaningful effects. Early in her activism career, she collaborated with a group of health workers to establish a trauma center for survivors of violence and torture - the first center of its kind in South Africa. She is the first South African to be awarded the Health and Human Rights Award by the International Institute for Nursing Ethics.

In 1995, Wildschut was appointed by former president Nelson Mandela to serve as a commissioner on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. She has since shared her expertise in peacebuilding and reconciliation in many countries, including Sierra Leone and Rwanda.

For over a decade, Wildschut has been a board member for the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation, helping it develop a Community Healing program which encourages community-level reconciliation. She continues to use her considerable skills, experience, passion and commitment in the journey of reconciliation and peace in South Africa.
BUSYBODY FOR PEACE: The Life and Work of Nimalka Fernando of Sri Lanka

Sue Diaz

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, and a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Nimalka Fernando of Sri Lanka is a prominent human rights defender, lawyer and activist with over 30 years of peacemaking experience. She is a co-chair of South Asians for Human Rights and the president of the International Movement against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism (IMADR) — an organization dedicated to eliminating discrimination and racism, forging international solidarity among discriminated minorities, and advancing the international human rights system.

A Sinhala Christian woman in Sri Lanka, Fernando is of the majority ethnic community but a religious minority — giving her a unique perspective on the bloody conflict that has polarized communities across the island for decades. As a colleague of hers has written, “Through Ms. Fernando’s biography it is possible to register key social movements in Sri Lanka, in South Asia, and globally.”

Fernando first became involved in human rights work with the Student Christian Movement of Sri Lanka, and then the Movement for Inter-Racial Justice and Equality, which sparked in her an interest in law for social justice. The Voice of Women, the first feminist circle in Sri Lanka composed of professional and progressive women, further influenced Fernando as violence and political tensions continued to rise in the 1980s between the Sinhala government and Tamil separatists.

In frustration with the Sri Lankan legal system that failed to provide redress for egregious human rights abuses, Fernando moved into community development work and full-time activism — exposing her to severe repression by the state which viewed her as pro-Tamil. She was forced out of the country for a time.

While in exile, Fernando worked for the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development and became engaged in international advocacy at U.N. conferences and through networks working on minority rights. During the peace process mediated by Norway in the early 2000s, Fernando was involved in track-two negotiations and participated in the Tokyo Conference on Reconstruction and Development in Sri Lanka, while continuing her grassroots peacebuilding activities.

Fernando has been a founding member of several organizations, including a network of women’s organizations and activists committed to peacebuilding, known as Mothers and Daughters of Lanka. In 2011 she received the Citizen’s Peace Award from the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka. She continues to face repression and threats for her fervent calls for accountability for alleged war crimes committed during the war.
A SLOW BLOOM: The Life and Work of Ashima Kaul of India (Kashmir)

Alison Morse

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, and a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Ashima Kaul is a grassroots worker, journalist, policy analyst and social entrepreneur from India’s Kashmir Valley. Born and raised in Kashmir as part of the ethnic minority community of Kashmiri Hindu Pandits, she and her family moved out of the valley when she was 15. A decade later, her extended family that remained behind was forcibly displaced to Hindu- majority areas of the region as violence broke out between Kashmiri Muslims and Hindus.

After later trips to Kashmir on journalistic assignments, Kaul was struck and saddened by what had transpired there since she left and decided to act: “I had to recover the dying, bullet-ridden soul of Kashmir, rebuild broken relationships, break the silence of women, give them a voice and establish new spaces for creation of a spirit of trust, solace and healing.” Her first step was to facilitate a group dialogue with Muslim and Pandit women, leading to the creation of a formal dialogue group, Athwaas, or “handshake.”

In addition to the Kashmir dialogue groups, Athwaas brought together 50 women to advocate for peace from women’s perspectives, in a parallel platform from the official peace process initiated in 2005 that excluded women’s voices.

Kaul later founded the Yakjah Reconciliation and Development Network. Yakjah, which means “being together,” focuses on countering the violence in Kashmir by building relationships between different religious and ethnic groups through dialogue and development projects. The organization has a program on Youth Expression and Leadership, which holds cross-cultural workshops and exchanges across the region to involve young people in peacebuilding and developing their leadership skills. The program has reached over 400 youth so far, and includes a core group of 50 young men and women. As Kaul writes, “The youth form the critical mass. While they do carry the conflict legacy and can be indoctrinated in the name of religion, they also have the potential to lead for change.”

Kaul is part of the Women Waging Peace Network of the Institute for Inclusive Security, and is a local correspondent for Insight on Conflict, a website published by the international NGO Peace Direct.
IF YOU SUFFER FOR DOING GOOD: The Life and Work of Margaret Arach Orech of Uganda

Tara Ruttenberg

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, and a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Margaret Arach Orech is the founder and director of the Uganda Landmine Survivors Association (ULSA). A survivor of a landmine explosion and a subsequent attack by rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Orech is an ambassador for the Nobel Peace Prize- winning organization the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. In the late 1990s, while working for the Association of Volunteers in International Service, in Kitgum in northern Uganda, the bus she was riding in hit a landmine and was ambushed by the LRA. Her right leg was shattered from the blast; as the rebels scoured the bodies for survivors, she played dead until the army came nearly an hour later. Orech has worked since that time for the health and rights of fellow survivors of landmines and victims of the war in northern Uganda.

Orech’s work with communities affected by the conflict in northern Uganda includes encouraging dialogue and interaction with other survivors of violence, including former rebels. In one case, she came face to face with a young man who was part of the group responsible for the attack that nearly killed her. Showing him compassion upon his expression of remorse, she helped organize a traditional cleansing ceremony to help him begin his slow journey to recovery.

With ULSA, Orech mobilizes survivors in a peer support structure in which they share and develop ideas that address survivors’ needs and foster social and economic reintegration into their communities — many of which were displaced for years because of the violence in northern Uganda.

On the international level, Orech is a commissioner for the Interfaith Action for Peace in Africa, and continues to lobby nations to sign and ratify international agreements such as the Mine Ban Treaty, the Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She has met with heads of state and those in the midst of conflict to advocate on behalf of victims and survivors.

Of her experiences she writes, “My healing was a drawn [out] process, but I was able to overcome and now use the bitter experiences to encourage those who have faced similar situations that there is actually hope after all. ... Here I am, today, after that long and difficult road to recovery and the transformation from victim-survivor to peace advocate.”
WHAT COLOR ARE THEIR TEARS? The Life and Work of Robi Damelin of Israel

Sigrid Tornquist

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, and a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Robi Damelin is a spokesperson and director of the Women’s Group for the Parents Circle-Families Forum (PCFF), a grassroots organization of more than 600 bereaved Palestinians and Israelis who promote reconciliation as an alternative to hatred and revenge.

Damelin moved to Israel from South Africa, where she had been involved in the anti-apartheid movement, in 1967 following the Six-Day War (also known as the Third Arab-Israeli War).

In 2002 her life changed dramatically when her son David was killed by a Palestinian sniper near a settlement during his army reserve service. Her first words to the army officers who appeared at her door to tell her about David were, “You may not kill anyone in the name of my son.”

She joined the PCFF after David’s death. As a spokesperson, she travels with a Palestinian partner throughout Israel, the West Bank and internationally to share their stories and message of reconciliation. Damelin also returned to South Africa to learn more about reconciliation processes that have been in motion since the end of apartheid, a journey chronicled in the film “One Day After Peace.” The sniper who killed David was arrested in 2004, motivating Damelin to begin her own difficult path of reconciliation with him and his family.

As director of the Women’s Group of the PCFF, she works with other bereaved women to, as she says, “solidify our choice to use our pain to prevent further bereavement” and “strengthen women’s voices as facilitators of reconciliation in their communities.” The group’s exhibits — photography, culinary arts, embroidery and others — have traveled the world spreading messages of hope and co- existence.

Damelin is also a board member of the Charter for Compassion and initiated the Israeli Palestinian Narratives Project, “History through the Human Eye,” through the PCFF. She writes, “I continue on this path inspired by my deep sense of loss, my commitment to building a more peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians, and my endless love for David.”
STANDING WITH OUR SISTERS: The Life and Work of Rehana Hashmi of Pakistan

Sue Diaz

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, and a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Rehana Hashmi, a development professional and human rights defender, knows well the stark differences between the remote expanses of Pakistan and its bustling cities. Born in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly the North- West Frontier Province) and raised in the sparsely populated province of Balochistan, she now alternates her work between Pakistan’s capital of Islamabad and the remote regions of her childhood.

At a young age Hashmi saw her father jailed for political activism and soon followed in his footsteps, leading student protests as Pakistan went through political upheaval. When the police came to her door threatening her arrest, the teenage Hashmi was given two choices: stop the protests or leave town. But she would not be silenced.

In the 25 years since, Hashmi’s activism has centered on the defense of human rights, especially for women. She became a development specialist in the district of Chitral; the work involved organizing women of diverse sects to come together to improve their livelihoods. It was a challenging task, as women in this region had never before been allowed to form organizations or make decisions side by side with men.

Hashmi has also created two national networks to support women taking control of their rights. As the national manager of the Women Political School Project under the Ministry of Women Development, she trained over 25,000 elected women leaders to support their political engagement. Hashmi also formed the largest health worker’s network in the private sector to provide services in reproductive health, linking over 3,000 paramedics to reach 2 million women.

Through her leadership of Sisters Trust Pakistan, Hashmi has worked tirelessly to help victims of domestic violence and women and girls breaking free of religious fundamentalism and forced marriages. However, her defense of human rights has come at a price: A regular target of threats, Hashmi must frequently move locations, occasionally going into hiding. But this does not deter her. Despite many opportunities to settle abroad, Hashmi prefers to stay with the women and those marginalized in Pakistan society, helping them fight for their rights and create a country that will defend them.
THE LAND OF MY MEMORIES: The Life and Work of Philister Baya Lawiri of South Sudan

Sally Kantar

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, and a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Currently the chairperson of South Sudan’s Civil Service Commission, Philister Baya Lawiri was first a war child. At the age of 10, she and her family walked for 35 days through the forests of southern Sudan to what is now the Democratic Republic of the Congo to escape the violence of the first civil war in Sudan. She traces her desire to build peace to her years in Uganda as a refugee and then in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, where she was living as an internally displaced person (IDP) when the second civil war broke out in 1983.

In the suburbs of the capital, gross human rights violations were committed by state security personnel against IDP women and children, including physical beatings, harassment, forced labor and imprisonment for breaching Sharia law. Appalled by the situation, Lawiri became a human rights monitor and trained women in the camps how to identify their perpetrators and document the violations so they could file for redress in court.

Lawiri and 10 other IDP women established Southern Women Solidarity for Peace and Development, a network of women’s groups established to assist women displaced by war. The group went on to write the book The Tragedy of Reality: Southern Sudanese Women Appeal for Peace, which was distributed at the Hague Appeal for Peace Conference in 1999.

Prior to the secession of South Sudan in 2011, Lawiri led the push for a 25 percent quota of women in Sudan’s election law, and was then appointed as one of only two women on Sudan’s National Electoral Commission, the nine-member national body appointed to oversee the 2010 general elections.

As someone who is well-known for “always believing not only in peace, but also in diversity as a source of power,” Lawiri serves has the South Sudan focal point for the bi-national Coalition of Women Leaders, supported by the Institute for Inclusive Security. The group of more than 200 women from Sudan and South Sudan works to advance women’s engagement in the peace process.
THE RIVER OF HUMANITY: The Life and Work of Sabiha Husic of Bosnia-Herzegovina

Maryam Rokhideh

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, and a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Sabiha Husic, a psychotherapist, Islamic theologian and interreligious peacebuilder, is the director of the nongovernmental organization Medica Zenica in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Medica provides psychosocial and medical support to women and children victims of war and post-war violence, including rape and sexual violence, domestic violence, torture and human trafficking.

Husic first learned of the organization while displaced from her hometown of Vitez to the city of Zenica, where she and her family had walked over 13 nights in 1993 during the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Medica was working in the refugee camps, and Husic recalls that “the approach toward women which I saw there gave me the reason to live, and my willingness to help other people was even bigger.” She became a volunteer, working directly with women survivors in areas where rape was used as a deliberate tactic in the war — oftentimes at great personal risk. Husic eventually became a staff member and then director of Medica in 2007. In 2010 she established the first institutionalized network of psychological support for victims and witnesses testifying in war crimes cases.

Before the conflict, Bosnians, Serbs and Croats were “very good neighbors, friends, and celebrated religious holidays together. The war divided them overnight.” In this post-war climate, Husic urges reconciliation, bringing together women from all communities for workshops on stress and trauma, dialogue and conflict resolution. Along with two women from Switzerland, she leads the European Project for Interreligious Learning, which gathers Christian and Muslim women from five countries to promote understanding and tolerance. In Bosnia, this includes Serbian Orthodox Christians, Catholic Croats and Muslim Bosnians.

In 2009 Husic was recognized by Volonteurope with the Active Citizen of Europe Award for voluntary activism and professional work with Medica Zenica, and was a featured speaker at the 2013 World Justice Forum — recognition that affirms her life’s motto: “I believe that small steps bring significant changes, no matter how small they seem to others.”
THOUSANDS OF DAUGHTERS: The Life and Work of Rutuparna Mohanty of India

Tara Ruttenberg

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, and a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

Human rights lawyer and social activist Rutuparna Mohanty is the fourth daughter of freedom fighter followers of Mahatma Gandhi. From her childhood she learned that she lived in a society “where women are treated as secondary citizens, where in every five minutes a woman is either assaulted or abused and exploited, where women are grossly deprived of their participation in the socioeconomic and political floors, and where women have ... no voice against the violation of their human rights.”

To support women standing up to injustice, Mohanty began working with nonprofits and became the secretary of Sanjeevani, a large organization in her state of Orissa. There, she was especially affected by the plight of unwed mothers who faced discrimination, poverty and alienation, and were already victims of or became subjected to trafficking and prostitution.

Mohanty created Maa Ghara (Mothers Home), which provides a shelter for rehabilitating trafficked and sexually exploited women and girls. Through rescue, care and legal protection, the home has served 5,000 women since 2004.

As the legal dimensions of many of the girls’ situations became evident, Mohanty returned to school to become a lawyer to defend their cases. As she earned a reputation for fearlessly defending women’s rights, Mohanty took on high-profile human rights cases from which other lawyers had shied away: defending the rights of slum dwellers from government eviction, sexual harassment cases against powerful politicians and prosecuting perpetrators of gang rape.

But Mohanty has not stopped there. Maa Ghara has become a “people’s movement” to protect women’s rights, and includes community “vigilance groups” that prevent human trafficking. She publishes a weekly newspaper, Janani (“The Voice of Women”), which is “of the women, by the women and for the women,” and is working with police and politicians on policy reform and training that will better protect women and girls. Mohanty is fighting for nothing less than a state where there is “zero tolerance to violations against women.”
A LEOPARD’S TAIL: The Life and Work of Alice Nderitu of Kenya

Stephanie Chiu

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

A commissioner in Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), Alice Nderitu stands at what she sees as a crossroads in her country between peacebuilding and human rights. “I am a child of these two worlds and the need to bring the two together is urgent,” she says. With rich and varied experience in both worlds, Nderitu is an essential leader in preventing and transforming conflict in her native Kenya.

In the aftermath of Kenya’s notorious 2007-8 post-election violence, Nderitu joined the newly created NCIC to mediate ethnic and race-related conflict and promote peaceful coexistence. As a mediator and a human rights and ethnic relations specialist for NCIC, Nderitu leads and builds mediation teams in Kenya’s conflict hotspots. Often working within traditional structures, she brings elders from conflicting ethnic groups together to dialogue and defuse communal tensions. But she also challenges traditions, pushing for women to be included in the rigidly male-dominated elder institution. Similar to her work in Kenya’s highest official levels, Nderitu is often the only woman at the peace table with the elders.

With NCIC, Nderitu has developed peace education curricula, pushed for the implementation of laws on hate speech and hate crime, and directed a nationwide television show discussing ethnic differences and conflict. She has also taken her conflict prevention lessons outside of Kenya to South Sudan in preparation for their referendum on independence.

Prior to her role as an NCIC commissioner, Nderitu worked as a prison officer, a teacher and a reporter before joining the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights in 2003 as its first staff member. There she created and headed the commission’s human rights education department and pioneered the first human rights curriculum for public officers.

For several years, Nderitu has been training law enforcement and military officers on civil-military cooperation and the rule of law at the International Military Peace Support Training College and at the Rwanda Military Academy. She also directed the Education for Social Justice Program for Fahamu, a UK-based charity, facilitating human rights and conflict prevention training for civil society in Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Uganda.
THE RIGHT TO SPEAK: The Life and Work of Nancy Sánchez of Colombia

Sara Koenders

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.

A journalist by training, Nancy Sánchez has been documenting human rights abuses and the survival strategies of everyday women and men for over two decades in the more than 40-year- long conflict in Colombia.

Her work has taken her to remote and dangerous regions of the country: first to Magdalena Medio in the north and later Putumayo in the south. In the early 1990s, it was in one organization that Sánchez found her vocation. She states, “Everything I am and everything I have done in human rights I owe to what I learned in CREDHOS” — the Regional Committee for the Defense of Human Rights.

In the countryside of Magdalena Medio, she and her colleagues witnessed the scorched earth campaign being carried out by the military, while in the main city of Barrancabermeja, paramilitaries were committing massacres against civilians. Among other documentation, Sánchez and her five colleagues in the committee recorded unidentified bodies, many of whom had been tortured, in the morgue. The archive became the only way people could find their disappeared loved ones. Their courage to speak out came at a tragic price: Three of Sánchez’s five fellow committee members were assassinated.

With the threat of death so near, Sánchez moved first to the capital of Bogotá and then to the Putumayo region, an epicenter of political violence and the illicit drug trade. She and a Catholic priest, Father Alcides Jiménez, worked closely with local leaders to highlight the effects of the war on the communities, until, again, Sánchez lost a colleague to the war. Father Alcides was killed by the rebel group the FARC, in front of his parishioners during Mass. But she continued her human rights work as the U.S.-funded Plan Colombia was implemented in the region, when indiscriminate aerial fumigations of coca crops caused massive public health problems and devastation as people lost their livelihoods. Her vigilant monitoring of human rights abuses resulted in death threats and she was forced to flee the country.

Upon her return in 2003, she began work with Asociación MINGA, a human rights organization, again in Putumayo — but this time primarily with women. She and her colleagues traveled “on horseback, on motorcycles, in canoes and in jeeps, on unpaved roads, over mountains and through jungles” to meet with women in remote areas to hear their stories of the conflict and offer workshops on human rights.

Sánchez’s work has been recognized internationally with several human rights awards, and for U.S. citizens her reports and investigations offer a window to a poorly understood conflict where so much U.S. funding has been spent.

“My 20 years of experience as a human rights defender in various regions has given me the experience to assert that there is a great potential for women to transform their reality. ... The struggle for life is in the hands of women.”
A CIRCLE OF SUPPORT: The Life and Work of Ludmila Popovici of Moldova

Alison Morse

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

Ludmila Popovici is the founder of the Rehabilitation Center of Torture Victims Memoria, or RCTV Memoria, the only such organization in Moldova working with survivors of torture and one of the first nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations in the country. Over the last decade, RCTV Memoria has treated more than 1,300 survivors of torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

In the late 1990s, Popovici was training to become a medical doctor and working at the Nicolae Testemitanu State Medical and Pharmaceutical University in Moldova when she first became involved with the treatment of torture victims. She learned of centers in neighboring Romania that rehabilitated people who had been tortured under the regime of Nicolae Ceausescu. In Moldova there were a large number of people who suffered torture under the Soviets before the end of the Cold War. Popovici made parallels between her field of medicine and the epidemic of torture: “I understood that my destiny was to teach others the epidemiology of torture. My vocation became helping people and finding efficient vaccines to prevent this dangerous phenomenon for my society.”

She founded RCTV Memoria in 1999 to provide mental health rehabilitation services through medical, psychological and legal assistance to victims of torture. When the communist party came back to power in Moldova in 2001, the beneficiaries of RCTV Memoria expanded beyond former political prisoners under the Soviets to include victims of police violence and torture. The organization’s services were also offered to refugees and asylum seekers from around the world.

Popovici’s vocal advocacy for survivors of torture and her lobbying to criminalize torture in national legislation was incredibly dangerous at a time of heightened repression under the communist regime. On one occasion she was interrogated, accused of defaming the state. But instead of being punished and perhaps tortured herself, she convinced the police of the positive role that her and RCTV Memoria’s activities had on society. “I explained that by helping victims, we contribute to reducing revenge, and in this way we can diminish confrontation in society” between the police and communities. She was released on the condition that she would organize a seminar for the police on the prevention of torture.

Popovici is called upon as an expert on torture and treatment of its victims at national and international levels. RCTV Memoria also goes beyond direct services. In 2005, it released a book and documentary called Shattered Destinies, chronicling the stories of 14 women victims of political repression during the Stalinist period. Popovici plans to expand this type of work by the organization, so that it will become not just a rehabilitation center, but also a major resource and reference center on trauma.
MITERI GAUN (Let Us Live Together): The Life and Work of Radha Paudel of Nepal

Sigrid Tornquist

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

Radha Paudel, the founder and president of Action Works Nepal (AWON), has been described as “one of those people who just makes things happen.” She founded AWON on the principle of action over lip service, and assists primarily rural, poor and marginalized women to live dignified lives in a country still recovering from a 10-year civil war.

Paudel began her career as a nurse as the civil war between the Maoist insurgency and the government army broke out. Working in Karnali Zone, an isolated, mountainous and conflict-ridden area in the Mid-Western Region of Nepal, she witnessed women and girls arrive day after day at the hospital suffering from gender-based violence or preventable diseases. But getting them help was risky. She was targeted by both the Maoists and the government, as each side suspected her of assisting the other. At times, Paudel had to move from house to house to escape being abducted or killed.

The armed groups eventually started to trust her as she was courageous and defiant in her dedication to helping women, but also because she was one of the only medically trained people in the area. She began treating injured soldiers and rebels in their field hospitals, and eventually negotiating with the two sides to access communities in need became easier. Paudel later raised enough money to establish a blood bank and a hospital for maternal surgery — the first in the region.

Paudel’s experiences during the 10 years of violence prompted her commitment to change the culture and overcome the barriers to resources that kept rural women poor and marginalized. With AWON, she has started several campaigns to promote human rights and give women a voice in local and national affairs. The Miteri Gau, or Let’s Live Together Campaign, engages all levels of rural communities in a dialogue on the rights of women and the various roles of family and community members in a peaceful society. The SHARP Campaign — Sexual Harassment Response and Prevention — addresses harassment on public transportation and in educational institutions.

After the civil war ended and the constituent assembly was created to draft a new constitution, Paudel began working to incorporate a gender perspective in the process and brought the voices of rural and conflict-affected communities to the capital. She is also working closely with political leaders, security personnel and media to build accountability on women’s rights, protection and participation according to U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325 and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Her simple motto to the complex dynamics of gendered democracy and post-conflict reconstruction is “no women, no peace.”
BROKEN CAN HEAL: The Life and Work of Manjula Pradeep of India

Amy S. Choi

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

A brazen human rights activist and lawyer, Manjula Pradeep has spent her life defending the rights of India’s women and Dalits, the “untouchables” of the Hindu caste system. Pradeep, a Dalit herself, knows intimately the intersectionality of grief and abuse that Dalit women experience at the bottom of all of India’s social hierarchies – caste, class and gender. But she has defied India’s patriarchal and caste-structured society. As the executive director of Navsarjan Trust, a grassroots Dalit rights organization based in India’s Gujarat state, Pradeep is a respected and prominent woman leader of the Dalit movement.

After completing her master’s degree in social work, Pradeep became Navsarjan’s first female employee. As she joined the organization’s mission to eliminate caste and gender-based discrimination, Pradeep observed more of the realities of life for Dalit women and researched atrocities committed against Dalits. Witnessing an old Dalit woman struggling for justice for her son who had been brutally beaten and killed by police, Pradeep realized the need for human rights issues to be fought not just in the streets, but also in the courts.

In her 20 years with Navsarjan, Pradeep has pushed for the inclusion of women in Navsarjan’s staff and leadership, as well as the entire Dalit rights movement. She has also trained hundreds of Dalit activists, provided legal aid and intervention for sexual violence and caste-based atrocities, and advocated for land reform and the eradication of manual scavenging (the illegal occupation of handling human excrement).

In 2008, Pradeep defended the case of a young Dalit girl who had endured long-term gang rape by six professors in her college. Navsarjan then took on more than 35 cases of sexual violence against minors and young women. Pradeep is also involved in the national and state level programs of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights. She is an executive committee member of the International Dalit Solidarity Network and works to raise the visibility of untouchability as an international human rights issue.

Pradeep has taken two of the most significant social injustices in India, devoting her life to championing the dignity and rights of her own community. Her voice is an amplifier for those whom society silences, or simply ignores.
BUILDING BRIDGES, BUILDING PEACE: The Life and Work of Claudette Werleigh of Haiti

Bijoyeta Das

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

From literacy education in rural Haiti to her post as Haiti’s first female prime minister and on to secretary general of the Catholic peace movement Pax Christi International, Claudette Werleigh of Haiti has witnessed conflict and worked for peace in all corners of the world, with people from every strata of society. She is a peacemaker at every level.

The daughter of a prosperous business family, Werleigh was brought up on one side of Haiti’s social fabric, but she soon saw the realities of the other side. The structural violence embedded in Haitian society had a profound effect on Werleigh, now known in her life’s work as a staunch advocate for keeping policies and practices firmly rooted in the needs and voices of the grassroots.

As a young adult focused on justice for those caught in Haiti’s disparate social structure, Werleigh was drawn to the field of education — specifically adult literacy — and started a school for adults and rural Haitian farmers. Community-owned and run throughout Haiti’s tumult of political violence, earthquakes and epidemics, the school has been open and running for 33 years. Under the dictatorship of Jean-Claude Duvalier, Werleigh served as secretary general of Caritas Haiti for 10 years, coordinating relief assistance, civic education and respect for human rights.

Werleigh’s entrée into a career in public administration and politics began in 1990 as part of a broad democratic consensus government. The 1991 coup d’état that overthrew the first democratically elected government convinced her of the need to work not only for justice, but also for peace. She served as executive director of the Washington Office on Haiti from 1992 to 1993 and minister of foreign and religious affairs in Haiti from 1993 to 1995, and then made history as Haiti’s first female prime minister in 1995, during the Aristide administration. While always connected to her home country, Werleigh’s path has also taken her outside of Haiti’s borders into issues of international peace and conflict — as the director of conflict transformation programs at the Life and Peace Institute in Sweden until 2007, and then with Pax Christi where she was secretary general until the end of 2010 and now serves as a peace envoy.

Werleigh has worked with diverse communities in conflict and those transitioning out of war and violence around the world, deepening her understanding of the factors that trigger violent conflict. And the disparities she saw as a young girl in Haiti continue to transcend borders and inform her work. “The widening gap is not only between rich and poor nations but also between classes within a same single country,” she says of the chasm she’s spent her life working to bridge. Whether at home or in a new community, Werleigh is known for her commitment to keeping her ear tuned to the voices at the grassroots.
THE STRENGTH OF MOTHERS: The Life and Work of Wahu Kaara of Kenya

Alison Morse

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

An ardent advocate and long-standing peace and political activist, Wahu Kaara has lived through many chapters of Kenya’s history. She has also helped write some of those chapters, making significant contributions to the progress of human rights, women’s rights and democratization in Kenya.

In a country of immense ethnic diversity, Wahu is an adept cross-cultural Kenyan. As part of her desire to keep Kenya unified she has learned to greet people in all of its 42 languages.

As a student at Kenyatta University during the wave of political activism in the 1970s, Wahu’s professors detected her readiness to think about and act on Kenya’s most critical issues. The influence of her professors led her to become an educator. As a teacher and then headmistress of a girls’ school, she tried to create unity and understanding between the diverse ethnic groups represented among the students. The vision she had then of empowering girls to be leaders in families, their communities and eventually the nation continues today.

Her pro-democracy activism turned toward the release of political prisoners in the early ‘90s, when Wahu and a group of mothers, wives and daughters approached Kenya’s attorney general to demand the release of 52 prisoners arrested during the democracy struggles of the 1980s. The women would wait, on hunger strike, in the public park at one of Nairobi’s busiest intersections – “Freedom Corner,” as it came to be known – until he answered them. Though police brutality forced them to relocate to a nearby church, they continued their 2-year-long protest, and the government began releasing the prisoners one by one.

In 1999 Wahu helped establish Kenya Debt Relief Network (KENDREN), where she is now coordinating director, to coordinate Kenya’s activities for the global Jubilee 2000 debt cancellation campaign. Now a well-respected research and policy analysis group, KENDREN frequently advises government ministries on matters of public finance, foreign aid and debt. This led to Wahu’s appointment, from 2004 to 2006, as the coordinator of the U.N. Millennium Development Goals campaign at the All Africa Council of Churches.

Wahu’s wisdom and expertise spans to other international organizations such as Action Aid and Oxfam, the coordinating committee of the World Social Forum, the African Social Forum Council and the Coalition for Peace in Africa, a network for peace and security in Africa.

She has been recognized for her contributions to Kenya’s peace and development as one of the 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 and as the 2009 Project Concern Global Humanitarian. Over the decades, she has seen Kenya’s cycles of violence and peace, and as elections draw near again in 2012, Wahu hopes to mobilize organizations to prevent the recurrence of the 2007 election violence.
UM AL-IRAQ (THE DATE PALM TREE): The Life and Work of Dr. Rashad Zaydan of Iraq

Nikki Lyn Pugh

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

Dr. Rashad Zaydan of Iraq became a pharmacist to heal people. When her country was torn apart by war, her healing work expanded to include the physical, emotional, social and psychological needs of Iraq’s women and children. As the founder and head of the development organization Knowledge for Iraqi Women Society (K4IWS), Dr. Zaydan seeks to bring hope and empowerment back to the lives of Iraqi women and children, especially widows and orphans, through the humanitarian, educational, economic, social and medical programs that K4IWS provides.

A native of Baghdad, Dr. Zaydan is a survivor of multiple wars. The year she graduated from college and became a pharmacist, Iraq entered a long, destructive conflict with Iran; then came the Kuwait invasion followed by the First and Second Gulf Wars and 13 years of sanctions. During this time, Dr. Zaydan helped create charity medical clinics, taught Qur’an to young girls, ran her own private pharmacy and raised four children.

In 2003, convinced that war would soon return to her country, Dr. Zaydan organized basic first aid emergency training for girls and women in her community. As neighbors fled Baghdad before the invasion, she moved medical supplies and medicines from her private pharmacy to her home. After the bombs began to fall and as the city collapsed outside, neighbors started knocking on her door for medical help. Dr. Zaydan converted her family’s home into an emergency clinic, giving away medicines and treating minor medical emergencies out of her garage.

In the aftermath of invasion, but still in the chaos of violence, Dr. Zaydan gathered her women friends to rehabilitate their community. Dr. Zaydan’s first priority was the destroyed schools, which had become impromptu bases for the Iraqi government and U.S. forces. As occupation continued, she responded to the disempowerment and loss of faith that many women felt in her community due to the lack of security and ability to move freely in the city. She had a vision of a center that would be a refuge for women, a place where they could take classes, receive medical services and, most importantly, connect with other women and share their experiences.

That was the beginning of K4IWS and their first office in Baghdad. Seeing the immediate and wide- scale humanitarian relief needed to decrease the violence, she and other Society members responded where they could and sought to build peace.
CARING FOR THE DIASPORA: The Life and Work of Nora Chengeto Tapiwa of Zimbabwe

Sofia Javed

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

A dedicated activist, Nora Chengeto Tapiwa works to protect and procure the peace and human rights of her fellow Zimbabweans – in both Zimbabwe and South Africa. Currently in exile herself, Tapiwa is a widely known leader of Zimbabwean activists in South Africa. As founder and current secretary of the Zimbabwe Diaspora Development Chamber, she strives to create cohesion and unity among the Zimbabwean diaspora and within South Africa’s migrant communities at large.

Growing up in rural Zimbabwe during the liberation war, Tapiwa’s activism began before she was forced to flee her home country. A trade unionist and banker by profession, Tapiwa was a community leader, educating people on their civil rights and the constitution. Because of her activism and position as organizing secretary for the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, she was a target of President Robert Mugabe’s clampdown on political opposition. When personal threats and surveillance mounted in 2003, Tapiwa left Zimbabwe to seek refuge in neighboring South Africa. Two years later, her house was destroyed as part of Operation Murambatsvina, a demolition program that resulted in an estimated 700,000 homeless Zimbabweans.

Still in South Africa, Tapiwa began working in the refugee community and organized a group of more than 2,000 refugees and activists to form the Global Zimbabwe Forum, which is now composed of 40 Zimbabwean organizations in exile. Zimbabweans were suffering in South Africa as well, and Tapiwa participated in a delegation to push the South African government to acknowledge the plight of Zimbabwean migrants and recognize them as refugees. Their negotiations succeeded in a waiver of visa requirements for Zimbabweans seeking asylum in South Africa.

During the xenophobically charged riots against foreign migrants in 2008, Tapiwa worked at the Johannesburg Mayor’s Migrant Desk providing shelter and food to victims of the attacks and coordinating the South African Red Cross Society’s humanitarian aid distribution to migrants living in shelters. Tapiwa continues to pressure the South African Development Community to protect Zimbabwean civilians and is actively involved in efforts to help repatriate those who want to return home.

Tapiwa is writing a book on women in leadership and is also the founding CEO of Tapiwa Institute of Leadership. “I want to encourage women to have confidence in themselves and believe they are no different from their male counterparts,” Tapiwa says of her hope for women. “Women, as mothers, are more passionate in making peace. They can keep nations together the way they keep their families together.”
THE BULLET CANNOT PICK AND CHOOSE: The Life and Peacebuilding Work of Vaiba Kebeh Flomo of Liberia

Sara Koenders

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

Peace activist and social worker Vaiba Kebeh Flomo has worked since 1998 to heal both her nation and its women from the 14- year civil war between rebel groups and the Liberian army. As the women’s desk officer for the Lutheran Church in Liberia – Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Program (LCL-THRP), Flomo supervises psychosocial services to war-affected women and girls and empowers them to build peace and promote nonviolence in their communities.

By 2002 Flomo and a colleague from LCL-THRP were desperate to do more than respond to the war’s victims. Each day villages were being destroyed, children recruited by the rebels, women and girls raped. They knew the war must be stopped at its root. Together the two women formed the Christian Women Peace Initiative (CWPI), mobilizing women from all denominations in and around Monrovia to protest the war. CWPI inspired the creation of Muslim Women for Peace, and the two groups quickly merged to become Liberian Women Mass Action for Peace.

Flomo was instrumental in presenting a written statement from the women to the warring factions in Liberia, asking them to negotiate a cease-fire and attend peace talks in Accra, Ghana, in 2003. She joined the delegation of women who traveled to Accra to pressure rebel groups and President Charles Taylor to continue talking until a peace agreement emerged. She then helped mobilize women to register and vote in the 2005 elections that resulted in Africa’s first elected female president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Flomo’s role in the Liberian women’s peace movement was documented in the 2008 film “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.”

Flomo’s peace work is not confined to Liberia’s borders. She traveled to Sierra Leone in 2007 as part of a “peace train” advocating for violence-free elections, and in 2009 she shared her peacebuilding experiences with the women of southern Sudan, emboldening them to create recommendations for their own political leaders on the inclusion of women in peace processes.

Adamant that the health of Liberian society depends on the participation of women and youth, Flomo continues to focus on healing and rehabilitating women and girls, mending broken relationships between survivors and offenders of the civil war, and increasing the number of women involved in post-war peacebuilding and reconstruction. When asked who it was that stirred her desire to work so tirelessly for peace and the children of war, she says, “my mother.”
THE POWER OF POWERLESSNESS: The Life and Work of Merlie “Milet” B. Mendoza of the Philippines

Mary Liepold

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

Peace practitioner and humanitarian Merlie “Milet” B. Mendoza of the Philippines has over two decades of peacebuilding experience ranging from the Office of the President in Manila to the conflicted frontlines of Mindanao. Currently Mendoza teaches social work and disaster management and provides technical support on disaster response and risk reduction to church-based social action organizations within the Catholic Caritas network in the Philippines.

Beginning in 1989 with the Corazon Aquino administration, Mendoza served for a decade in various presidential departments, including the Peace Commission and the National Unification Commission. She then assisted the Government Peace Negotiating Panel for Talks with the Communist Party of the Philippines/New People’s Army/National Democratic Front, organizing peace consultations to understand the issues facing those in conflict areas. She transitioned from the government to the grassroots in 1999, becoming executive coordinator of Tabang Mindanaw (“Help Mindanao”), a national coalition for peace policy advocacy, humanitarian assistance and human security in Mindanao. While also coordinating the Assisi Development Foundation’s Free the Indigenous Peoples Program, a legal assistance organization affiliated with the Ateneo Human Rights Center, Mendoza facilitated the release of 12 indigenous people unjustly imprisoned for life.

Mendoza coordinated emergency humanitarian assistance through Tabang Mindanaw in the aftermath of widespread drought caused by the 1998 El Niño and from 2000 to 2003 for the 1 million civilians displaced by the war between government forces and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Her commitment to those affected and displaced by any disaster has been a common thread in her work. She is a founding member of the Asian Disaster Response and Reduction Network – an alliance of more than 30 national and local humanitarian and social development NGOs in 16 countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region, where more than half of the world’s disasters have occurred over the past 50 years.

In September 2008, soon after Mendoza began serving marginalized Muslim communities in the Sulu archipelago as an independent volunteer, she was abducted by the militant separatist group Abu Sayyaf and held hostage for two months. Since her release, Mendoza continues to help communities recognize their rights, access justice and create peace in the Philippines. “Peacemaking and conflict management go beyond the rational. They touch on the sacred and the divine,” Mendoza believes. “It is a combination of art and a science. It is about goodness.”
EMPOWERED TO HOPE: The Life and Peacebuilding Work of Sarah Akoru Lochodo

Sigrid Tornquist

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

Sarah Akoru Lochodo is the only woman – but a powerful one – negotiating among the semi-nomadic and pastoralist communities in her native Turkana District of northwestern Kenya, a region with a long history of violent confrontations. Lochodo was appointed assistant chief of Kainuk Sublocation by the Kenyan government in 2002, at a time when gun violence had become inherent to the banditry and cattle rustling common between the community’s Turkana and Pokot tribes. At times Lochodo has had to carry a gun herself, even as she was stepping forward as the first woman bringing about non-violent resolutions to the region.

Working in a pastoralist, patriarchal culture unaccustomed to women being prominent in public life, Lochodo quickly proved herself. Within one month of becoming assistant chief, she averted a massive revenge killing after a Pokot herdsboy was killed by a Turkana warrior from her own community. By 2009 she succeeded in holding a historic Pokot-Turkana meeting, the first attended completely without arms.

While disarmament has become a large part of Lochodo’s work in her district, she is well known as a community mediator, convening elders from conflicting communities to discuss the root of the region’s violence. With the trust she has earned over her years as assistant chief, the dialogues often end in the surrender of illegal firearms, pre-emption of cattle rustling and solutions to boundary disputes.

Lochodo is a founding member of Rural Women Peace Link, which played a major role in stabilizing communities after Kenya’s violent 2008 election riots. Of the 1,500 chiefs and assistant chiefs in the 2007 Administration College’s paramilitary skills training, Lochodo was one of only three women. She was also one of 25 women in Africa selected for leadership training by the Coalition for Peace in Africa in 2009. In addition to her official governmental duties, Lochodo is now working to combat female genital mutilation and discourage early marriages in rural communities. She also personally supports local girls whose parents’ livelihoods have been decimated by cattle rustling, financing their education and at times providing them a home.

“The peace-driven seething fire inside me isn’t affected a bit,” she says of the patriarchal obstacles that still confront her. “Deep inside I feel that peace has the face of a woman.”
HARMONY IN THE GARDEN: The Life and Work of Rubina Feroze Bhatti of Pakistan

Kaitlin Barker

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

Rubina Feroze Bhatti, born into a Christian family in the majority Muslim country of Pakistan, protects the rights of women who are targets of honor killings, acid attacks and other forms of violence. She is a founding member and general secretary of Taangh Wasaib Organization (TWO), a rights-based development group working for communal harmony and equality through its many programs addressing issues of violence against women, religious intolerance and sectarianism and discriminatory laws and policies against women and minorities. Bhatti trains women’s groups to report on violence against women, supports victims with counseling and legal aid and works with media to bring attention to these issues.

Bhatti’s peacemaking story began when she wrote an article condemning the imprisonment and torture of a Christian Pakistani man unjustly accused of blasphemy. Her words inspired human rights activists all over the country to raise their voices against the sentence, and Bhatti joined them in creating a campaign that ultimately saved the man’s life. She has since devoted her energy to human rights activism in various forms.

With TWO, Bhatti works to abolish separate electorates which prevent non-Muslims from voting. In 2000 and 2001, the organization launched a massive campaign for religious minorities to boycott local elections. The campaign was successful and the government restored the joint electorate system. Bhatti also has established educational and health care facilities for children working in Pakistan’s carpet- weaving industry, written scripts for theater productions on human rights and peace issues that were performed throughout the Punjab and North West Frontier Provinces, and been selected as one of the 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005. As a woman in the religious minority who lives in the rural and underdeveloped city of Sargodha, Bhatti and her work challenge the traditions and rituals shaped by a patriarchal society.
BEING PEACE: The Life and Work of Marta Benavides of El Salvador

Leigh Fenly

In the following pages, you will find narrative stories about a Woman PeaceMaker, along with additional information to provide a deep understanding of a contemporary conflict and one person’s journey within it. These complementary components include a brief biography of the peacemaker, a historical summary of the conflict, a timeline integrating political developments in the country with personal history of the peacemaker, a question-and-answer transcript of select interviews, and a table of best practices in peacebuilding as demonstrated and reflected on by the peacemaker during her time at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.

Marta Benavides of El Salvador is one of the surviving activists from the original group of human rights and peace advocates who began their work during the 1970s and the rising climate of repression. A leader of an ecumenical revolution focused on bringing peace to her country, the ordained pastor who chose “to live and not die for the revolution” has been bringing people at all levels – politics, the arts, law enforcement, religious, cultural, gender, agriculture and labor – together to defend human rights and develop a culture of peace.

During the early 1980s, Benavides was head of the Ecumenical Committee for Humanitarian Aid (CEAH), a group sponsored by her close friend Archbishop Óscar Romero to support victims of violence. With the committee, she established the first refugee centers for people displaced by the violence. Almost two years after Romero’s assassination, Benavides went into exile and worked for the next decade from Mexico and the United States to bring an end to the war in her home country. With Ecumenical Ministries for Development and Peace, she developed programs to promote understanding and reconciliation among peoples and groups and end intra- and inter-family violence. She also built networks of international solidarity for a negotiated peaceful political solution to the conflict in El Salvador.

In 1992 after the peace accords were signed, Benavides returned home and founded the International Institute for Cooperation Amongst Peoples, also known as the Institute for the 23rd Century, which promotes the values of a culture of peace through a variety of programs. She established community training centers and continues to travel throughout the country conducting workshops on, among other topics, sustainable agriculture, human rights and the prevention of community and family violence, particularly violence against women and children. Her efforts have led to extensive collaboration with the United Nations, the World Council of Churches and numerous other partners, and in 2005 she was one of the 1,000 women nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Benavides has dedicated her life to rebuilding communities devastated by war and has brought renewal, both figurative and literal, to formerly scorched earth.