1. What is the innovation you have pioneered? What are you doing that nobody else is doing and why?
The innovation behind ICTJ was recognizing that there are lessons available globally about how societies confront a violent past, and that there is a need for an institution that facilitates access to this information and helps societies adopt best practices and strategies. Once those strategies are adopted, it is critical to get the same actors (victim groups, civil society groups, actors responsible for the transitional justice policies, etc) to help implement and execute those policies in their societies. Prior to the creation of the ICTJ, there wasn't a clearinghouse or mechanism for this.
2. What has been the biggest obstacle that you have overcome so far, and how did you go about doing so? What did you learn in the process?
However effective your organization is, you want to seek to multiply your effort to empower others to do what you have done. Building the field is absolutely essential for long-term success. At the ICTJ, we did this through fellowship courses and short courses on the essentials of transitional justice, which trained key people so that they themselves could become better and more effective at doing this work. We measured our impact through the number of people who attended the courses who went back and developed transitional justice programs in their home countries and communities. This is how we went about building the transitional justice field.
3. At what point in your life did you realize that you simply had to do this? What was your personal turning point?
I’m not really sure I had a choice. My parents raised me to believe that we were living in an unjust society and it was my responsibility to seek to remedy this. As soon as I began to think about the world in a serious way, I just knew that I had to become involved. After getting involved in the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa and serving as the executive secretary of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, I received requests for assistance from actors around the world who were trying to put transitional justice institutions and processes in place. There were a lot of people out there with valuable information on how to do these things, but no central place to access and share information. We became more and more convinced that it was critically important to fill that learning gap, which is where the ICTJ was born.
Submitted by Romina Laouri on March 18, 2010 - 8:49am.
Romina joined Ashoka in 2005 and works for Ashoka’s Youth Venture, primarily supporting and creating a strong global movement of young changemakers around the world. Read all of her posts here.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) recently published their World Report 2010 on how well governments are doing (or not doing) in protecting their citizens’ rights. “Every government is at times tempted to violate human rights,” says Kenneth Roth, the Executive Director of HRW and from his Report it seems like many governments have in 2009.
Human Rights Today
While over the last few years, human rights activists have been able to expose abuses almost anywhere in the world the attacks on human rights defenders, organizations, and institutions have not diminished. On the contrary, what’s interesting is that many governments have been able to adapt themselves into new “silencing” techniques that have instead “grown in subtlety and sophistication”. The Report specifically states “murders are committed deniably. Politically motivated prosecutions are disguised by common criminal charges. Censorship is accomplished through seemingly neutral regulatory regimes. Funding streams are blocked.”
Not surprisingly, the government of Russia is at the top of this year’s Report with countless of retaliations against human rights activists, journalists and anti-corruption activists. Among them are Zarema Sadylayeva and her husband Alik Dzhabrailov, who lost their lives working for a charity that helps children affected by the conflict in Chechnya. But Russia isn’t the only country in the world that has retaliated against human rights supporters and their organizations. Similarly in Kenya, Oscar Kamau Kinara and John Paul Oulu of the Oscar Foundation were murdered just right after providing a briefing on police executions. In Malaysia, Finardo Cabilao lost his life for his work in combating human trafficking and in Sri Lanka Stephen Sunatharaj, a human rights worker, is still missing after being abducted. These types of stories seem to be endless and happening all around the world in 2009, no matter what region.
Governments such as North Korea, Eritrea, and Somalia are so oppressive that a human rights movement can’t even exist. Local organizations have an extremely challenging time raising the funds they need and international organizations are banned from entering countries (such as Burma and Iran). In Indonesia the International Committee of the Red Cross is still not allowed to visit Papua and Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Vietnam continue to refuse access to UN special procedures. Other governments choose to use harassment and fear to silence human rights workers. In Cambodia more than 60 community activists were imprisoned in 2009, while peace activists in Colombia, Nicaragua, and Saudi Arabia have faced multiple threats, harassments, and criminal investigations.
European countries have also faced challenges and criticism this year. Italy and Greece still remain among the worse offenders in the treatment of asylum seekers and immigrants, the Netherlands, the UK and Spain have faced multiple allegations against their problematic counterterrorism measures, while France and Germany continue to face problems of racism, xenophobia and discrimination against their migrant populations.
The United States is also not in the clear this year especially when it comes to its criminal justice, immigration and counterterrorism law and policy. The US still has the world’s largest incarcerated population with a disproportionate share of the population being black men and other racial/ethnic minorities. It is also the only country in the world to have prisoners serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole for crimes committed as children (in May 2009 that number was 2,574). Moreover, the US is still facing harsh criticism for its violations of the rights of non-citizens, the country’s rendition policy as well as delays in deciding the fate of hundreds of detainees that are being held indefinitely without trial.
Changing Patterns in the Way Rights are violated
The fact is that most countries around the world either violate or fail to protect human rights. However, what is most interesting about the Report is to see how governments now resort to less obvious techniques such as the adoption of intrusive laws and regulations that restrict activities, laws that “bar” foreign organizations from entering their countries (Ethiopia), prohibiting foreign investment, requiring political bodies to approve NGOs (Libya), and/or requiring a government agency to supervise NGO’s (Peru). There are also multiple examples of disbarring lawyers who defend human rights and multiple cases of governments raising criminal charges against human rights workers. Attacks on human rights institutions have also increased the past few years. In mid-summer last year the African Union urged African leaders not to cooperate with the International Criminal Court (ICC) after it had issued a warrant for the arrest of Sudanese President al-Bashir. UN as well as European Institutions such as the European Court of Human Rights has also faced various attacks this year.
So why then after all of the progress the human rights movement has made, are abuses like these are still happening? And why do people who work towards peace continue to become the objects of such attacks? The Report itself offers no clear answer other than to state that we need a more vigorous government defense system and to stand up more firmly against those governments that are violating human rights. The Report ends by saying “Governments try to silence the messenger because they do not want the message heard. The surest way to reverse that censorship is to redouble efforts to redress the very abuses that these governments are seeking to hide from scrutiny”.
What Does this Mean for Us?
The Report does not necessarily fail its cause. What the Report does well is provide us with the information and data needed to make informed decisions and to pressure our governments to prioritize human rights issues. HRW successfully reports on the human rights conditions in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. Now it’s our turn for action!
What are you doing to support, promote, and defend human rights efforts? I for one will take the next 5 minutes in silence to honor all the people that lost their lives, faced threats, harassment, and prosecution this past year due to their commitment to peace, justice, human rights and tolerance. Then, I will return even more committed to my daily work in supporting young people around the world to better their communities.
Submitted by Priya Parker on March 16, 2010 - 10:16am.
Priya Parker has worked in India, Africa and the US on peace-building and social-innovation.
David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary spoke at MIT this week on “The War in Afghanistan: How to End it.” In his speech, he outlined what he saw as the necessary political and economic steps to end the war and rebuild Afghanistan. The Washington Post covers Miliband’s speech here. But as these things go, some of the more interesting comments came out during the Q&A portion of the talk.
I was tweeting from the talk and the tweet that elicited the most response was regarding Afghanistan and agriculture.
One MIT undergrad asked, “What can engineers like us do in Afghanistan?” David Miliband’s response? Focus on agriculture.
Later in the session, Miliband again re-iterated his point, “the alternative to drugs is agriculture.” He emphasized both the importance of security and prices in creating a strong agricultural sector.
@naannkerrie asked, “Did he mention specifics on what kind of ag? large scale crops for export or small scale farming to feed afghans?” (He didn’t, but part of his recommendations was to make “economics a lubricant” for the region.)
@bamyanmedia pointed me to a reality TV show that’s “stirring business spirit” in Afghanistan and says that most of the contestants on the show were in the agricultural sector.
As the military, the political establishment and civil society move forward in the next year, it will be important to think about how to generate employment through agriculture. Not only would developing a thriving non-drug agricultural sector potentially increase security, but it also decreases the opportunity cost of either joining the Taliban or the drug trade.
Afterthoughts • Should the government and international aid organizations focus on developing large-scale crops for export or small-scale farming? Or both? • What kind of agro-business currently exists in Afghanistan? • What experiences can we draw from other conflict-areas that have developed robust agricultural sectors? • Would it be possible to create a Green Revolution in Afghanistan?
Thankfully it seems as if every generation takes up the mantle of peace. This is particularly necessary since peace can be a time-consuming goal to obtain, and even once attained it needs to be constantly maintained. We need more than just the current generation thinking about, innovating and testing peace strategies.
Late last month, I met some of the people that will lead the next generation of peacebuilders at the Student Peace Alliance Conference in Austin, Texas. Dozens of student volunteers at Southwestern University spent months organizing the conference with the Student Peace Alliance staff; together they demonstrated that the next generation of peacebuilders has practical passion.
As a speaker at the conference, I hosted a break out session “Stopping Tomorrow’s War Today,” during which I outlined the strategic importance of prevention. We save countless lives and 92 cents on the dollar in prevention, not to mention the 14 years it usually takes to recover from a war. I was impressed with questions on our process of determining which countries to engage in and which activities to pursue once we are on the ground.
It was obvious participants were diligently preparing and training for lives dedicated to peace. With what I saw last month, I’m confident that innovation will continue to flourish in the peacebuilding field - and that should make us all individually feel at peace.
Submitted by Sarah Jefferson on March 12, 2010 - 3:35pm.
Ashoka Peace contributor Rebecca Sargent recently wrote a post on rebuilding efforts in disaster zones. In her post she makes the important connection between reconstruction efforts and building peace throughout the affected communities: "Without proper rebuilding, the potential for violence in the region grows, as people are forced into alternative choices to feed, shelter and support themselves and their families. Peace can only truly begin to be built when people have access to their basic needs.
Both the aftermath of the Haiti and Chile earthquakes revealed the instable and volatile environment that arises immediately after a natural disaster; in these cases, with people looting and turning to violence on the streets. Without the necessary immediate (and continuous) resources and support, natural disaster have the potential to wreak long-term conflict in the affected region. Luckily, in the case of Chile, Ashoka Fellows are well-positioned as social entrepreneurs to bring forward effective solutions.
Ashoka Fellows in Chile, now accounted for and safe, have geared up to respond to the region's immediate needs. We encourage you to read more about how Ashoka Fellows are mobilizing efforts and resources in the aftermath of the Chilean earthquakes in this press release and to think about how their efforts contribute to maintaining peaceful coexistence throughout the region.
Although Ashoka does not presently support social entrepreneurs in Haiti, various Ashoka Fellows, including Elizabeth Hausler, Edgar Cahn and Bernard Amadei are beginning discussions with Ashoka around longer-term recovery efforts in Haiti.
Submitted by Rebecca Sargent on March 12, 2010 - 1:09pm.
Rebecca Sargent has been a student of peace and conflict for most of the past decade across several disciplines and programs with a goal of life-long education. Read all of her posts here.
One of the biggest tasks after a natural disaster strikes involves the rebuilding of homes and lives for those who have been left with nothing. Problem is; most of the rebuilding efforts of this sort happen in places where natural disaster is ripe to strike again someday. If rebuilding is done in traditional ways, disaster is surely to strike again, and more lives will be destroyed. Without proper rebuilding, the potential for violence in the region grows, as people are forced into alternative choices to feed, shelter and support themselves and their families. Peace can only truly begin to be built when people have access to their basic needs.
Recognizing that earthquakes don’t kill people, but rather poorly constructed buildings do when they collapse, Ashoka Fellow Elizabeth Hausler set up Build Change. Build Change uses five steps to make safer homes in disaster regions:
1) Learn which homes collapsed, and which ones didn’t and why 2) Design more earthquake-resistant homes 3) Educate locals to build their skill sets using disaster-resistant technologies 4) Stimulate local demand for new types of housing 5) Measure the change over time
Elizabeth believes that earthquake-resistant construction will become common only if the right technology is locally available, widely known, cost effective and culturally accepted, and she is working very hard to see that happen. Check out some of Build Change's success stories after the May 12, 2008 China earthquake.
Earthship biotecture has very similar goals for rebuilding in disaster zones; using locally obtained materials, educating locals to help rebuild for themselves in the long term, and building more earthquake resistant homes. Imagine being able to help those devastated by the earthquakes in Haiti or Chile to build a home with more fully sustainable utilities and food supplies for only $4-6,000. This is the mission the earthship team is now taking on.
Earthships capture and store energy from the sun and wind, collect rain and snow for water usage, treat sewage with botanical planters, heat and cool the interior of the building naturally and even grow most of their own food. They are often made by stacking rammed-earth tires or using insulated rebar caging that result in high thermal mass and greater disaster resistance. The earthship team has helped build new homes in India after the 2004 tsunami, and is now making plans to head to Haiti to do the same.
You can help initiatives like Build Change or Earthship by donating to their efforts. Support Earthship's Haiti mission by donating camping food, gear, money, and vaccines. Every little bit helps! Please check Earthship's Haiti Disaster Relief initiative for further details.
Submitted by Roshan Paul on March 11, 2010 - 3:12pm.
Ibrahim Ag Idbaltanant is a recently-elected Ashoka Fellow who is working to stamp out slavery, one of the oldest scourges of humankind. Slavery still exists in many overlooked, often remote, corners of the world, embedded deep within the fabric of societies. Social entrepreneurs like Ibrahim are an essential force in the slow, daily grind of progress that will eventually eradicate this dark side of our natures. But when you are facing problems that are so deeply embedded in our cultures, success can be fleeting and often incremental. That is precisely why it must be celebrated.
Please find below the moving story of a woman named Timizwaq who, until very recently, was a slave in Northern Mali. Thanks to the work of Ibrahim’s organization, TEMEDT, and his network of allies, she escaped from a lifetime of slavery and asked that we translate this story and share it with as many people as possible. She is so grateful to everyone who has helped her. As she declares here, for the first time in her life, she feels loved. At Ashoka Peace, we are delighted to join in her celebration by sharing her story.
I am Timizwaq, and I was born around 1976 in Tassiriste. I have not known my father. My mother’s name is Timamat. My owners are from the faction of Idoguiritane (the town of Menaka). Since my birth, I was, with my mother, slave of Mr. Adim Ag Kilitane. When I was about 5 years old, my mother escaped from her owner, and her owner’s daughter, Talhanta Walet Adim, received me. When she died, I was given to her brother, Hama-Hama Ag Adim Mon in whose service I had been for 15 years. I have not heard from my mother since her flight, and I do not know where she came from and how she became slave of Adim Ag Kilitane. I was only told that she was his slave. No one has ever told me that they knew my mothers’ parents, and I have never known my father as well.
I was assigned to the care of animals in the bush and to their watering at the wells, a total life of a shepherdess. I never returned to the camp before 7:00 pm. I never wore new clothes, just rags discarded by my owner’s wife or her relatives. I never owned shoes except in rare cases. Neither pregnancy nor breastfeeding, the first month after childbirth, or even illness could dispense me guarding animals in the bush. During my life as a slave, I have had three children (the eldest is a girl and then there are two boys) as a result of successive rapes by two different men.
My children’s names are as follows:
Tidounane Wt Aklinine: She is my eldest daughter, and she was born in 2000 in Inbougaretane. She has been taken from me in 2004 at the age of 4 to be given as a slave to one of El Haj Ag Adim’s brothers.
Ezagagh Ag Assimaqate: He was born in 2005 in Inbougaretane. He is barely 5 years old and is serving my owner Hama-Hama Ag Adim doing housework.
Bilal Ag Assimaqate: He was born in 2009 in Tintoussane. In my flight for freedom from January 20 to 22, 2010, I carried him on my back to Menaka in order to be with TEMDT. Note that the little Bilal was always tied to a pillar of the tent all day until I returned at 9:00 pm with the animals. His older sister and brother had been treated in the same way when they were his age.
My owner did not allow me to visit camps of blacks in the area where we lived because he was afraid that I would rebel against the way I was treated. However, I acknowledge having been approached several times by people of different ethnicities (Ichidenharen and Daoussahacs who belong to my owner’s ethnicity, and Kel Talmen of Menaka) asking me to escape from the situation in which I was living.
I thought deeply about my suffering (physical and emotional violence, lack of affection, lack of care for my health and for my children’s, difficulties in getting food despite all the work that I was doing) and then, on January 20, 2010, when my owner traveled to Tinfadimata’s market, I decided to escape from that humiliating situation.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t leave with my son Ezagagh because I was running away without any means of transportation. Mr. Assolah Ag Kouney helped me in my flight, and I spent the night in his house. As my owner, he belongs to the fraction of Daoussahac. He showed me where to find Adima Ag Soudha. When I found him in Inagar his wife gave me her clothes and I took off the rags that I wore. These people welcomed me very well; they gave me food, and I was full. For the first time of my life and despite the fear of being overtaken by Hamahama, I felt surrounded by love. I had a thought for my son Ezagagh that I had left in my owner’s house. Mr. Adima brought a car from Maneka in which I went to Mr. Ibrahim Ag Idbaltanat’s home. He had a brief conversation with me, and then he told me that I would go to Mr. Ingatane Ag Bada’s house.
When I attended TEMDT’s meeting, I realized that all people that helped me in my flight were members of TEMDT. I am thankful to all of them. I am also thankful to Mr. Assolah Ag Kouney who eased my pain by showing me the right direction in Inagar (Zambouroutene’s village) where I think I have experienced affection for the first time.
Submitted by Sarah Jefferson on March 11, 2010 - 11:23am.
Yesterday Roshan Paul and I had the wonderful opportunity of attending an event with the singer Juanes (full name Juan Esteban Aristizábal). Not only did I learn that he is a winner of 17 Latin Grammy awards, but he is deeply engaged in humanitarian work for victims of landmines in Colombia, his home country. The story of how he became an advocate for this issue is pretty amazing. Personally affected by the conflict in Colombia (his best friend and cousin were both killed), and after a phone conversation with his mother about how landmines continue to kill and maim citizens, Juanes wrote a song about landmines, "Fijate Bien" (Take a Good Look), in 1999. He had no idea it would transform his life. But, almost overnight, it became a hit single, and landmine victims, soldiers and foundations began to reach out to Juanes with their stories, experiences and ideas for collaboration. This is when he began to understand that music is an influential tool for peace and social change. As Representative Jim McGovern, who introduced Juanes, put it “Juanes has shown how music can alter the logic of violence”.
Propelled by the energy and action he witnessed after "Fijate Bien" was produced, in 2005 Juanes established the Mi Sangre Foundation (which is now run by Ashoka Fellow Catalina Cock Duque) to help rehabilitate victims of anti-personnel mines. Anti-personnel mines are landmines specifically used against humans (as opposed to anti-tank mines, which are designed for use against vehicles.) Beyond psychological rehabiliation to victims, a major part of Mi Sangre's work is providing education to landmine victims, of which 65% are soldiers, and 35% are civilians, half of them children. For the youngest, Mi Sangre provides access to free preschool education, which does not presently exist in Colombia.
Hearing Juanes speak at last night's event was powerful. He has added fire to the campaign to end landmines (which Ashoka Fellows are also an integral part of fueling). He has also given a voice to the landmine epidemic in Colombia, where there are still thousands of landmines, and where over 800 children become injured or worse by landmines every single year.
Submitted by Roshan Paul on March 10, 2010 - 11:26am.
Continuing our interview series, Ashoka Peace interviews Daniel Lubetzky, serial peace entrepreneur who is creating new models for bridging the for-profit and non-profit worlds, and showing our peacebuilding can be financially sustainable.
1. What is the innovation you are pioneering? What are you doing that nobody else is doing and why?
What we like to do is to build models where business and social interests are totally aligned and reinforce one another. It is not easy to do. A lot of the area of “corporate social responsibility” is structured around perceived sacrifices to the bottom line in order to address other important societal objectives. The fun stuff comes when you are able to innovate through ventures whose financial and social objectives reinforce one another.
At PeaceWorks Foods, a “not-ONLY-for-profit” company, for 15 years now we have been fostering peace through business. The more our venture partners sell and make money, the more they cement and deepen relations. At KIND Healthy Snacks, we aim to inspire “not so random” acts of kindness, building a brand while doing kind acts for others. Instead of spending money on ads, we invest in doing nice things for others, including giving them KIND bars, and asking them to pass it on. At OneVoice, we use business practices and mechanisms to deepen our impact and better develop the human infrastructure of this civic movement designed to empower Palestinians and Israelis who want to end the conflict.
2. What has been the biggest obstacle that you have overcome so far, and how did you go about doing so?
Getting started is always the hardest part in every venture; first you need to convince yourself that you can make things work; you need to be skeptical and do thorough research; then if you are sure you can do it, then you need to switch to an evangelist mode and be doggedly determined to turn your ideas in to a reality, no matter the challenges or the naysayers. With each venture I have started, looking back it all makes sense, but when it didn’t exist a lot of people wondered if it made sense or if people would ever be a part of it.
3. At what point in your life did you realize that you simply had to do this? What was your personal turning point?
When I was a kid and I learned about how my father went through the Holocaust, I felt the weight and responsibility of fighting to ensure that nothing like that happens to other human beings again.
Submitted by Sarah Jefferson on March 9, 2010 - 10:54am.
Landmines continue to take human lives far after a war has ended. For example, when war in Monzambique ended there were thought to be 3 million unexploded landmines. After wars end, innocent citizens are the most affected by strategically placed landmines.
Ashoka Fellow Bart Weetjens (who is also a Buddhist monk) has a unique solution to the problem of unexploded landmines. It involves local resources...rats! Bart's landmine detection business, APOPO, trains African Giant Pounched rats, who are highly resourceable, adaptable and intelligent creatures with a great sense of smell. These qualities make rats, who have been conditioned to associate the smell of the chemical explosive with a food reward, the best positioned to sniff out the TNT in landmines. In 2009 alone, APOPO made safe 700,000 square meters of land (about 127 football fields). Bart's work not only gets rid of landmines, but also reduces fear towards landmines among local populations. Check out how APOPO's landmine detection model works in the video below.
Bart Weetjens is not the only Ashoka Fellow dealing with the issue of landmines and war victims. After stepping on a landmine on a camping trip in Israel and losing his leg, Ashoka Fellow Jerry White has devoted his life to creating a victim-free world by transforming passive victims into active survivors and leaders.
Since 80% of war victims are civilians, it is essential that civilians stand up in the effort to end war. With the belief that those who survive war are most invested in building peace, Jerry created the Survivor Corps network, which shows survivors how they can rebuild their lives and communities in order to break free of the cycle of victimization. According to the philosophy of Survivor Corps, landmines and legs are ‘things’; Survivor Corps rejects the importance of them in relation to people and survival in an effort to systemically break down the concept of the “victim”. Jerry’s work has been instrumental in organizing the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), for which Jerry was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997.
Ashoka Peace is an initiative of Ashoka that highlights the role that social entrepreneurship plays in preventing violence, building peace and strengthening tolerance and empathy around the world.
1. What is the innovation you have pioneered? What are you doing that nobody else is doing and why?
1. What is the innovation you are pioneering? What are you doing that nobody else is doing and why?
