Nobel Women's Initiative

"The Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded for what one has done, but hopefully what one will do." These are the words of Betty Williams, who in 1976 along with Mairead Maguire, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her work to end the sectarian violence in her native Northern Ireland.

Williams was drawn into activism after witnessing a car crash in August 1976. A runaway car driven by Irish Republican Army member Danny Lennon, who had been fatally shot while fleeing from British soldiers, crashed into a family of four who were out for a walk. All three children; Joanne, John, and Andrew, were killed. Their mother, Anne Maguire, was critically injured. She committed suicide four years later, saying that she could not go on.

Mairead Maguire was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her extraordinary actions to end the sectarian violence in her native Northern Ireland. She shares the award with Betty Williams.

Mairead was the aunt of the three children who died as a result of being hit by an Irish Republican Army getaway car after its driver was shot by a British soldier. Mairead responded to the violence facing her family and community by organizing, with Betty Williams, massive peace demonstrations appealing for an end to the bloodshed.

Rigoberta Menchú Tum was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1992 in recognition of her work for social justice and ethno-cultural reconciliation work based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples in her native Guatemala. She is the first indigenous person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Rigoberta was born in 1959 to a poor Indian family in the highlands of Guatemala. Like many other countries in the Americas, Guatemala has experienced great tension between the descendants of European immigrants and the native Indian population. The Menchú family experienced extreme hardship as a result of their Mayan background.

Jody Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which shared the Peace Prize with her that year. At that time, she became the 10th woman – and third American woman—in its almost 100-year history to receive the Prize.  Since her protests of the Vietnam War, she has been a life-long advocate of freedom, self-determination and human and civil rights.

Like others who’ve seen the ravages of war, she’s an outspoken peace activist who struggles to reclaim the real meaning of peace—a concept which goes far beyond the absence of armed conflict and is defined by human security, not national security.  Williams believes that working for peace is not for the faint of heart.  It requires dogged persistence and a commitment to sustainable peace, built on sustainable development, environmental justice and security, and meeting the basic needs of the majority of people on our planet.

Shirin Ebadi, J.D., was awarded the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to promote human rights, in particular, the rights of women, children, and political prisoners in Iran. She is the first Muslim woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and only the fifth Muslim to receive a Nobel Prize in any field.

Dr. Ebadi was one of the first female judges in Iran. She served as president of the city court of Tehran from 1975 to 1979 and was the first Iranian woman to achieve Chief Justice status. She, along with other women judges, was dismissed from that position after the Islamic Revolution in February 1979. She was made a clerk in the court she had once presided over, until she petitioned for early retirement. After obtaining her lawyer's license in 1992, Dr. Ebadi set up private practice. As a lawyer, Dr. Ebadi has taken on many controversial cases defending political dissidents and as a result has been arrested numerous times.

Dr. Wangari Muta Maathai was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her actions to promote sustainable development, democracy and peace.  She is the first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

The first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree, Prof. Maathai was an active member of the National Council of Women of Kenya from 1976 to 1987 and served as its chairman from 1981 to 1987. In 1976 she introduced the idea of community-based tree planting. She continued to develop this idea into a broad-based grassroots organization whose main focus is poverty reduction and environmental conservation through tree planting. The organization eventually became known as the Green Belt Movement (GBM), and to-date has assisted women in planting more than 40 million trees on community lands including farms, schools and church compounds.

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi is the only imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Since she remains under house arrest and increasingly tighter security, the Nobel Women's Initiative cannot invite her to join our efforts at this time. The Nobel Women's Initiative appeals to you to take action for Aung San Suu Kyi by writing the UN Secretary General and members of the Security Council to call for her unconditional and immediate release and to demand a binding resolution to help bring about national reconciliation and democracy in Burma.