Women Peacemakers 6

Women Peacemakers Need To Take The Stage

It’s past time for women to get on the world stage. Women are the peacemakers our world needs now. As the crisis in Ukraine unfolds, with a massive invasion by Russia, women are taking up arms to defend their homes and communities. Yet, we wonder, if women of Ukraine and Russia met with each other, wouldn’t they turn to each other and say, “we don’t want our sons to die. Let’s not do this.” In 500 BC, Aristophanes produced the Lysistrata, a smash hit comedy in the height of the ancient Hellenistic era. The idea was simple, yet absurd: Athens and Sparta are continually at war. It’s dragged on for ages. No clear victory is in sight. Treasuries are depleted. The women are fed up. So Lysistrata, an Athenian woman, organized a secret meeting with women from both cities, and proposed a way to stop the endless wars: a sex strike. No woman was to have sexual relations with her husband until they agreed to stop the fighting. The women struggled with this concept, but eventually agreed. Then the comedy unfolds to show how men were eventually crippled by the sex strike and agreed to stop fighting. While this is an ancient comedic example of how women can wage peace, you can easily see how women think differently, and could offer a great deal in peacemaking. The Dali Lama said, ”our world will be saved by a woman leader.” We agree! During the Pandemic, we saw that the female-led countries of New Zealand, Germany, Finland, and Slovakia weathered the crisis better than their male counterparts. Why? Because women don’t leave anyone behind. Barbara, who traveled the world with her late husband Robert Muller, former UN Assistant Secretary-General, meeting with world leaders, heads of state, authors and scientists, states, “I’ll never forget our meeting with evolutionarily biologist Elizabet Sahtouris on her return trip from a two-year sabbatical in Peru. She was studying the human reality of how we are all connected. “As she was getting ready to leave, she had her last visit with a woman elder in the village, who was often sought out for her wisdom, ideas and solutions to community problems. Elizabeth decided to ask her one last question …”

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by Sharon Byrne and Barbara Gaughen-Muller United Nations Association - Southern California

‘How would you run the world? How would that look?’

She replied: “I’d run the world like a family with love and security, nurturing their individual gifts and letting our children know that they also have a duty to the community and a goal to keep our world at peace which is essential for our human survival. I would give them a sense of courage and compassion.”

Women Peacemakers In Action

UN Resolution 1325 reaffirms the important role of women in the prevention and resolution of conflicts, peace negotiations, peace-building, peacekeeping, humanitarian response and in post-conflict reconstruction and called for increased participation of women. Right now, our hearts are with women in Ukraine, Cameroon, Sudan and all areas of the world facing armed conflict, where women are in the most danger. Women all over the world are rising as peacemakers. Let’s meet one:

Enjoy peace podcasts on PeacePodcast.org

Adan, a lawyer and peace activist, uses football (because she loves it) to include people, and she has this amazing tagline:

Shoot to score, not to kill.

Fatuma says this initiative was born out of frustration because women’s voices were not being heard, after the 2005 massacre in Masaba where 100 children were killed in school. “A ball can silence the guns. We can’t stop the manufacture of guns. But the minute they see a ball, they want to put down the guns and play. Even among fighting clans. The passion is so high for football. So a simple idea, like playing football, can bring people who want to fight, together.” In 200+ villages in Kenya, women congregate under the tree (a site of decision-making) to help make decisions on conflict, security, and gender mutilation. This is huge, to have women participate in the decision-making process. UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierres has repeatedly called for this. Now, one Kenyan village is literally ruled by women, something inconceivable until recently. Fatuma thought she’d never see girls in shorts and hijabs, carrying footballs out to play.

In 2012, she lost the entire team because they were kidnapped for marriage.

However, in the World Cup of 2018, the team went to the Euro Championship, for the first time ever. Boy soldiers will happily put their guns down to play football. When girls join the game, they become leaders from the first time they kick the ball. Her challenge: up your game, whatever

you’re doing. Achieve and conquer – it’s possible.

Resolution 1325 CAN Happen. Are you on the sidelines, cheering, or are you in the game? You only have one life to live, and there’s no rehearsal. Go out and do what you feel you must, and forget fear. In January 2011, Adan received the Stuttgart Peace Prize for "combining soccer and emancipation."

… people creating a more peaceful world

peace … please

"and then war came ..." spoken by a child, simply like sunrise like rain

and then war came ..." from the heavens from the earth from the very air

"and then war came ..." buildings fell down people died

I was hungry "and then war came ..." songs stopped books burned rivers ran red

"and then war came ..." and the child was gone.

– joyce wycoff

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Podcasts with Women Peacebuilders

Sylvia Whitlock, First Rotarian Woman President, Humanitarian

After she became the first woman club president in Duarte, CA, she served on many humanitarian projects including sinking water wells in Nigeria, setting up an AIDS Center in Jamaica, and supporting an orphanage in Mexico. She also received the Global Citizen Award from United Nations Association.

Watch or listen #56

Helen Peacock, World Peace: Pipe dream or possibility? Can Rotarians be the tipping point?

Rtn Helen Peacock BSc MSc is a committed Peace Activist. She is the Founder of Pivot2Peace, a member of the Canada-wide Peace and Justice Network, a Chapter Coordinator for World Beyond War, and Peace Chair for the Rotary Club of Collingwood, SGB.

Watch or listen #65

Joanne Dufour, Educator, Anti-Nuclear Weapons Speaker, Educator and Volunteer for the Unitarian Universalist Office at the United Nations

When volunteering for the United Nations office of the Unitarian Universalist Association, Joanne was introduced to a range of disarmament experts as she created a blog on Disarming Our Planet. She has long worked for a banning of nuclear weapons.

Watch or listen #57

Eva Haller, Hungarian-Born, anti-Hitler activist, Advocate for Social Justice

Eva Haller has been a fierce advocate for social justice since the age of thirteen, when she would sneak out with her brother John, distributing anti-Hitler pamphlets throughout Budapest. Listen to hear how John’s death propelled Eva to be an activist, encouraging and supporting many world causes and artists. from joining the Selma march with Dr. King, to traveling the world as a UNICEF volunteer.

Watch or listen #46

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Enjoy peace podcasts on PeacePodcast.org

… people creating a more peaceful world

Kroc School Peace Scholars Sophia Ventura Cruess & Tabitha Nakholi, #83

Wherever you are, “bring peace with you”

This is the message of Sophia Ventura Cruess & Tabitha Nakholi, masters students at the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies in San Diego, California. As Tabitha says “ We are the Change Makers” and Sophia shares her father’s words, “we who are blessed must be a blessing”. Tabitha, born and raised in Kenya says her passion for peace helped her create a non-profit to empower and help girls stay in school, during their monthly cycle. Her peace work has helped her see the benefits of her personal philosophy of “progress not perfection” for getting things done.

Sophia, born and raised in Orange County, CA, has discovered that peace is the action to bring people together and provide greater avenues for hearing the “calling of your destiny”. Her fieldwork includes working with K-5th grade students teaching them how to value themselves and how to prevent violence in their future.

Tabitha Nakoli

Sophia Ventura-Cruess

Kehkashan Basu, Global Youth Leader, Environmentalist #30

I am generation equality.

Kehkashan Basu is the Founder-President of Green Hope Foundation, a global social innovation enterprise that works at a grass roots level in 25 countries, empowering young people, especially those from vulnerable communities, in sustainable development. Basu is a member of the World Humanitarian Forum Youth Council and Co-Lead of the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Feminist Action for Climate Justice. She is committed to amplifying the voices of young people, women and girls, in decisionmaking processes. Her journey into activism began at age 7 when she found a dead bird with its belly full of plastic. “Around the same time,” she states, “I attended a lecture by environmentalist Robert Swan, whose words, ‘the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it,’ deeply resonated with me. At that point, I decided that I would start my 'sustainability journey' by planting my first tree on my eighth birthday.” At 16, she won the 2016 International Children’s Peace Prize. She also won the First-Ever Voices Youth Gorbachev-Shultz Legacy Award for Nuclear Disarmament. Kehkashan is the author of “The Tree of Hope” which was launched at the United Nations in New York, during the 2015 UN Children’s Summit. In 2022, she was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal of Canada (Civil Division) in 2022. Gratitude

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