Nobel Women's Initiative

A full-page ad of the Nobel Peace Laureates’ September 7 open letter to President Obama opposing the Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline appears in today’s Washington Post. The open letter will also run as an ad later this week in the New York Times.  It is signed by nine Laureates including: Mairead Maguire, Betty Williams, Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Jody Williams, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.

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A staggering number of women around the world will experience rape or other violence in their lifetimes. The UN Secretary General says 1 out of every 3. That is one billion women.  Imagine One Billion Women Rising to end the violence! And a billion men rising with us.  

   

Organizations and individuals around the world have been working long and hard to stop rape and gender violence in conflict.  The International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict, spearheaded by the Nobel Women’s Initiative, is bringing them together to develop and carry out coordinated plans of action to help end this wanton scourge.

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Nine Nobel Peace Laureates - including Mairead Maguire, Jody Williams, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama – have written to President Obama, urging him to reject the proposed Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline, saying his decision offers a “critical moment” to make good on his pledge to create a clean green economy.

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An unprecedented number of women ran in the latest elections in Guatemala, which wrapped up on Sunday. The list of nine candidates for president included Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Mayan activist Rigoberta Menchú Tum.

"We are the voice of the thousands of silenced people, who have no room (in the system) and who only take orders," said Menchú Tum. She emphasized the fact that she is a woman, specifically an indigenous candidate, in a country that is “‘machista,’ racist and excludes people."

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An all-women team of cluster bomb searchers has been breaking new ground and gender barriers in Lebanon’s still dangerous south. 

The country’s only all female team - once local teachers, nurses and housewives - was set up by de-mining NGO Norwegian People's Aid (NPA) to clear areas littered with unexploded cluster bombs dropped by the Israeli military in the 2006 July War. 

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