We have included a
(growing) list of persons we think are heroes--through their good deeds, acts and
attitudes. Please read more about them below. We have included a
(growing) list of persons we think are heroes--through their good deeds, acts and
attitudes. Please read more about them below.
Exemplary people in the peace movement! Good for a reference guide. http://www.betterworldlinks.org/book35.htm
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation's Peace Heroes site has been updated at http://www.wagingpeace.org/new/programs/awardscontests/yeararoundcontest/index.htm
Olympics of Ethical Conduct - THE OTHER OLYMPICS by Ariel Dorfman (Professor at Duke University, USA)
Canadians and the United Nations http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/ciw-cdm/canadians-en.asp
Anatol Rapoport - Anatol Rapoport is a pioneer
and lead-figure of the systems sciences, studies in conflict & cooperation,
and peace research. He is professor emeritus of Psychology and Mathematics at
the University of Toronto, Canada.
Nobel Peace Prize Nomination: Canada World Youth's founding President, the Honourable Jacques Hébert, has been nominated for the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for a life time dedication to youth development as a means to achieving lasting peace. The nomination acknowledges his vision and determination in creating the Canada World Youth program model that turns the youth exchange notion into a global peace-building apparatus.
The “Muslim Gandhi”, Badshah
Khan, who lived with Gandhi at his ashram in the thirties, persuaded
100,000 Pathan tribesman to take on the Raj with only patience and non-violence
as their weapons, and lived on to the age of 95 despite having spent thirty
years in British prisons. http://www.monitor.upeace.org/innerpg.cfm?id_article=93
DR.
HELEN CALDICOTT - The single most articulate and passionate
advocate of citizen action to remedy the nuclear and environmental and
nuclear crises, Dr Helen Caldicott has devoted the last 25 years to an
international campaign to educate the public about the medical hazards of the
nuclear age, and the necessary changes in human behavior to stop environmental
destruction. In 1971, Dr Caldicott played a major role in Australia's
opposition to French atmospheric nuclear testing in the Pacific, and in
1975, worked with the Australian trade unions to educate their members
about the medical dangers of the nuclear fuel cycle, with particular
reference to uranium mining. While living in the United States
from 1977 to 1986, she founded the Physicians for Social Responsibility, an
organization of 23,000 doctors committed to educating their colleagues
about the dangers of nuclear power, nuclear weapons and nuclear war. On
trips abroad she helped start similar medical organizations in many other
countries. The international umbrella group (International Physicians for
the Prevention of Nuclear War) won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. She also
founded the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND) in the U.S. in
1980. Returning to Australia in 1987, Dr Caldicott ran for Federal
Parliament as an independent. Defeating Charles Blunt, leader of the
National Party, through preferential voting she ultimately lost the
election by 600 votes out of 70,000 cast. She has received many
prizes and awards for her work, including 19 honorary doctoral degrees, and
was personally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Linus Pauling--himself
a Nobel Laureate. Ladies Home Journal, named Dr. Caldicott as one of the
"100 Most Important Women of the 20th Century" (May 1999). She
has written for numerous publications and has authored five books, Nuclear
Madness (1979, revised edition by W.W. Norton in 1994), Missile Envy
(1984, Bantam), If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth (1992,
W.W. Norton) and A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (1996, W.W. Norton;
published as A Passionate Life in Australia by Random House). Her
most recent book is The New Nuclear Danger: George Bush's Military Industrial
Complex, published in April 2002 by The New Press in the US and Scribe
Publishing in Australia and New Zealand. She also has been the
subject of several films, including Eight Minutes to Midnight, nominated
for an Academy Award in 1982, and If You Love This Planet, which won the
Academy Award for best documentary in 1983. Dr Caldicott was an
instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, specializing in cystic
fibrosis, and on the staff of the Children's Hospital Medical Center,
Boston, Mass., until 1980 when she resigned to work full time on the prevention
of nuclear war. She founded the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at the Adelaide
Children's Hospital in 1975. She moved back to the United States in
1995. She lectured at the New School for Social Research on the Media,
Global Politics and the Environment, and she hosted a weekly radio talk
show on WBAI (Pacifica). Returning to Australia in 1998 she
resumed the practice of medicine at the Sydney Childrens Hospital but in
1999 Dr. Caldicott she resigned to return to her responsibilities of
global preventive medicine. She currently divides her time between
the US and Australia where she lectures widely. She is also the Founder and
President of the recently established Nuclear Policy Research Institute
soon to headquartered in Washington D.C.Dr. Rosalie Bertell, G.N.S.H. - biography and speech to the International Peace Bureau announcing the awarding of the Sean MacBride Peace Prize to her, entitled "Terrorist Attack on the Global Civic Community"
Coleman McCarthy, founder of Centers for Teaching Peace
Soka University, Japan, presents the 2002 "Award of Highest Honour" to Prof. Helmut Burkhardt, Council on Global Issues. Professor Helmut Burkhardt, President, Council on Global Issues (CGI), an eminent System Scientist of Toronto, will be honoured with the "Award of Highest Honour" by the President Dr. Masami Wakae of Soka University, in Tokyo, Japan, March 12, 2002. Prof. Burkhardt will receive the award for his significant and outstanding work on the three Interdisciplinary Conferences on the Evolution of World Order and a lifetime commitment to the wide angled systemic view of the world. His work has covering the full spectrum of ecological, social, and individual issues for world peace and sustainability. The conferences have been held at Ryerson Polytechnic University, in Toronto, every two years, since 1990.
In 1999, UNESCO's Prize for Peace Education Committee gave an Honourable Mention to the Canadian teacher Irène Drolet for "her very important work, both educational and ethical: to restore to schools their role as places where democracy is taught." Ms Drolet declared: "The present world situation expresses a deep crisis of democracy, of the economy, social organisation and moral values. This international situation poses a challenge to modern schools [to fulfil] their mission of socialisation and it calls upon them to support the development of values that are democratic, environmental, intercultural and open to the world."
William Epstein - During 2001, the global community lost one of its long-time champions with the death of William Epstein, a Canadian. He was 88 when he died. Epstein was one of the first UN staff members. He worked with the preparatory commission planning the organization in London in 1945, joined the secretariat in 1946 and worked with Ralph Bunche on the Special Committee on Palestine in the months leading up to the proclamation of the state of Israel. He then moved to disarmament - and that remained his passion for the rest of his life. As Director of the UN Disarmement Division he was involved with such negotiaitons as the Partial Test-Ban Treaty (1963), the Seabed Arms Control Treaty (1971) the Nonproliferation Treaty, the Biological Weapons Convention and the Treaty of Tlateloco, to name only some of his areas of contribution. He officially retired in 1972 but continued as a senior fellow with UNITAR and as a disarmement and arms control consultant to the secretary general. He was Canadian, recognized for his accomplishments with membership in the Order of Canada. Following is the statement of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, delivered on his behalf by Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs Jayantha Dhanapala, at a memorial service for William Epstein in New York on 14 February, 2001: "I learned with great regret of the passing of Bill Epstein, a former staff member and a man who was well known to all seven Secretaries-General of the United Nations. He was indisputably one of the world's leading advocates of global nuclear disarmament, having devoted both his entire professional career and his long retirement to this noble cause. He will perhaps best be remembered for his important contributions to the negotiation of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean and for his long advocacy of a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, the subject of his celebrated book, The Last Chance. Though his long-standing goal remains to be achieved, his efforts will surely inspire others to carry on his work." Read an excellent article on William Epstein at http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/ciw-cdm/Epstein-en.asp
AN INTRODUCTION TO DR. JOHAN GALTUNG
Dr. Noor Jaffer, Calgary: biography and acceptance speech for YMCA 2001 Peace Award
Craig Keilberger - Free the Children was founded by Craig Kielburger, a young Canadian. http://www.freethechildren.org/ftcinfo_hist.html
Schools and Students - I have now had a chance to visit the web site developed by the Banded Peak School, Bragg Creek, Alberta, www.bullying.org and it is fantastic. This school, students and teachers, and others like them (there are many examples), are to be congratulated for making such very worthwhile contributions to building peace in our communities and world. Such school's, students' and teachers' efforts provide a powerful example of what all the schools and students in Canada and the world can do to bring peace to the world.
Gene Sharp - Senior Scholar of the Albert Einstein Institute ( http://www.aeinstein.org/ ) in Cambridge, MA, USA. He is a leading world scholar of nonviolent action. See http://www.peacemagazine.org/9709/sharp.htm . (Submitted by Leo R. Sandy)
Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize - http://www.almaz.com/nobel/peace/peace.html
A visitor to our site, Lori, nominated two heroes to our page. It is two sisters named Kouthar (11) and Marwa (10) Al-Rawi. They work for children's rights. They are currently working for the rights of Iraqi children under sanctions. Please visit their web site: Remember the Iraqi Children at http://members.aol.com/hamzaha/iraqichildren
Jason Crowe - one of America's top 10 Youth Volunteers for 1998; the youngest of six inducted into the 1997 Kids Hall of Fame, sponsored by National Geographic World magazine and Pizza Hut, for humanitarian effort http://members.sigecom.net/jdc/
The Peacemaker of the Pashtun Past
People making a difference from around the globe:
NINA SIMONE’S CONNECTIONS WITH AFRICA LIVE ON - http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/diaspora/artikel.php?ID=55461 Legendary singer and civil rights activist Nina Simone, who died last year (2003), lived and sang all over the world. But her connection to New Jersey and Ghana may help preserve her legacy of educating children of African and African-American descent. A royal delegation from Ghana has visited Essex County to promote the Nina Simone Foundation, a nonprofit organisation created by her daughter, Lisa Simone Kelly. The foundation has been given 50 acres in Jukwa near Cape Coast to create the Nina Simone Cultural Village, said Kelly. The village will have a hospital and a school and also will be a showcase for "artisans and craftsmen," Kelly said. "We want to have African-Americans from all over the world to visit."
CONGOLESE REFUGEE REACHES OUT TO SOUTH AFRICA'S UNDERPRIVILEGED http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/news Mufumbe Mateso Felix, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, has set up a non – governmental organisation to help women and children in Johannesburg's Tshepisong Township. Projects range from computer, catering and sewing classes, to a centre for AIDS orphans. When Felix and Portia Manthatha, chairperson of The Power of Women and Children (PoWC), aren't writing proposals and raising funds, they are out and about in Tshepisong doing what they do best – providing support and assistance.
EGYPT'S LEADING FEMINIST UNVEILS HER THOUGHTS http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/1726/context/ ourdailylives The subject of this interview by Women's Enews, Dr. Nawal El Saadawi, one of the most well-known feminists and political dissidents in the Arab world, was born in 1931 in Kafr Tahla, a small village north of Cairo. A psychiatrist by training, she first rose to international prominence with her 1972 book, "Women and Sex," which dealt with the taboo topic of women's sexuality and led to her dismissal as Egypt's director of public health. She also lost her positions as the chief editor of the medical journal, Health, and as the assistant general secretary of the Egyptian Medical Association. Since then, her many books and novels, most focusing on issues of Arab and Muslim women and sexuality within the context of repressive religious authority and tradition, have made her the target of both Egypt's secular regimes and the Muslim religious establishment.
If you want to nominate a hero, please let us know!
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Last Update: 24 May 2005