2005 Annual report
SOME OF OUR COLLEAGUES WITH WHOM WE WEAVE A TAPESTRY OF COMMON CAUSE...
Zipporah Sein
Activist, Karen Women's Organization
What you notice immediately about Zipporah Sein is the warmth of her smile. Zipporah is a teacher, a leader, and an organizer. She is also a refugee.
Zipporah arrived in Thailand from Burma in 1995, having lived most of her life in constant movement. The Burmese army's counter-insurgency campaign in Karen State, Zipporah's homeland, has been brutal. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced; some have fled into remote mountain areas to evade the army while others, like Zipporah, have crossed the border into Thailand where they live insecure lives as refugees.
Zipporah is the Executive Secretary of the Karen Women's Organization (KWO), a 30,000-member organization. KWO seeks to maintain the dignity of Karen women and rebuild the bonds of community solidarity that the army has sought to destroy.
In the context of war this is a daunting task, but Zipporah and her colleagues have risen to the challenge. KWO assists women through vocational training, nursery schools, leadership training, resources for new mothers in refugee camps, and care and support for women who have suffered torture and physical and sexual abuse.
In 2004, KWO issued Shattering Silences, a report documenting the Burmese army's use of rape as a strategy of war in Karen state. The report was launched at the United Nations Human Rights Commission to focus international attention on the situation of women in Karen State.
Zipporah has been an important part of all of these efforts, as a leader and a role model. It is Inter Pares' privilege to work with her.
Don McKay
Poet, Inter Pares Supporter
Inter Pares supporter Don McKay is one of Canada's leading poets. Don has published nine books of poetry and has received two Governor General's Literary Awards and the Canadian Authors Association Literary Award for Poetry. Short-listed twice for the Griffin Poetry Prize, and a respected editor, he has also taught creative writing for over thirty years at universities across Canada.
Don weaves imagination, vision, passion, and meaning into words that reflect our world back to us. His enduring relationship with the environment is evident in his two books of essays: Vis-à-Vis: Fieldnotes on Poetry and Wilderness, and Deactivated West 100. Don's interest in nature extends to his membership in the faculty of "In the Field", a program in contemplative philosophy, environmental thought, and writing at St. Peter's College, Saskatchewan.
We met Don in 2004 in Campbell River, B.C., where he was writer-in-residence at the Haig-Brown House. We found him to be warm, gracious, and down-to-earth. We spoke about his mother, the late Margaret Fleming McKay, who was a social worker and a long-time Inter Pares supporter. In 1995, in her desire to support the next generation of social justice activists, Margaret enabled Inter Pares to establish a Fund in her name, where gifts we receive are invested for a minimum of ten years.
The commitment of Don McKay, and the legacy of his mother, Margaret Fleming McKay, continues to enrich a wide network of people who care about justice, peace, and the beauty of our planet.
For more information on the Margaret Fleming McKay Fund please visit our Web site at www.interpares.ca/en/giving/endow.php.
Abdulai Darimani
Community Organizer, Third World Network-Africa
"Do not let the company make the first offer. It will divide you," Dram advises a gathering of citizens in Prestea, a town located in southeastern Ghana that has been torn apart by a large open-pit gold mine operated by a Canada-based mining company. Navigating through tense exchanges, he succeeds in bringing the fractured community together to discuss how to collectively present its demands to the company.
Abdulai Darimani, or "Dram" as his friends call him, works with Third World Network-Africa (TWN-Africa), a research and advocacy organization dedicated to promoting economic and social justice in Africa. According to Dram, mining in Africa is a "race to the bottom," in which deregulation is limiting the capacity of governments to regulate the exploitation of the continent's mineral resources. This has led to serious environmental degradation and human rights abuses.
Dram is working to reverse this trend. Along with supporting communities in mining areas to organize, Dram collaborates with public interest law organizations to support litigation efforts against mining companies. Through TWN-Africa, he also coordinates the Africa Initiative on Mining, Environment and Society (AIMES), a pan-African network that facilitates consensus building and common action among activists, academics, and communities affected by mining. TWN-Africa also works with organizations in countries where these mining companies are headquartered to advocate for legislation to regulate their operations overseas.
Be it around a farmer's kitchen table in rural Ghana or at an international mining policy conference in downtown Ottawa, Dram is a connector, linking individuals and groups in common action for greater environmental and social justice.
Iliana Estabridis
Educator, Project Counselling Service
As an educator, organizer, and human rights activist, Iliana Estabridis has spent a lifetime working with others for social justice in her native Peru. At Project Counselling Service, Inter Pares' long-time counterpart, Iliana works with indigenous women and men in the Andean high-lands to help address the consequences of twenty years of internal war, and the ongoing racism and exclusion at its roots.
As a young woman in the educational system, struggling to keep indigenous children in school, Iliana discovered the power of people working together. She promoted networks of parents, teachers and community leaders to develop bilingual curricula, and to identify and give special attention to children at risk. "Creativity blooms when people come together to share their ideas," Iliana says.
Today, Iliana sees this same creative energy among indigenous women and men as they organize to hold their governments accountable to all the people of Peru, regardless of ethnicity. She helped develop a program with local citizens' groups, the highland university, and the regional government to provide training for mayors in the administration of local government and participatory budgets. She linked national human rights organizations with local citizens' organizations and highland regional governments to develop reparations programs for people whose lives were destroyed by the war. Now, Iliana is working with a network of women who suffered torture and sexual abuse during the war to obtain access to health care and legal assistance.
Iliana knows that her dream of a diverse society of mutual respect will be the product of many people working together - weaving their actions into the tapestry of a new world.
Colleen Ross
Organic Farmer, National Farmers Union
Colleen Ross is a visionary. As an organic farmer and as Women's President of the National Farmers Union (NFU), Colleen spends her days, and many nights, working with others to build a more positive future for global agriculture. Colleen began her farming life in Australia where she first became aware of the impacts of industrial agriculture on farmers. Upon moving back to Canada in 1995, Colleen and her family bought a 200-acre farm and converted it to certified organic, growing grains, oilseeds, horticulture crops and raising livestock. Colleen began to devote more energy to organizing and activism on farm and food issues, and joined the NFU. Meeting like-minded farmers felt like "being a part of a larger farm family, working in solidarity with other farmers, with a realistic and wholesome vision for appropriate food production," she says now.
Through her work with the NFU, Colleen collaborates with farmers in Canada and internationally, acting together to promote global food sovereignty. In 2005, supported by Inter Pares, Colleen traveled to India to join Asian farmers and activists in advocacy concerning the impacts of genetically-engineered (GE) crops on farm livelihoods. Drawing on NFU research, Colleen showed that rather than Canadian farmers becoming wealthy through the adoption of industrial agriculture, net farm incomes have actually dropped below zero, and questioned whether this was a model we should be exporting to other countries. At the same time, through her own organic farming and direct-to-consumer marketing systems, Colleen is practicing local solutions that empower farmers, and demonstrating that by working together, we can build a brighter agricultural future for all.
TO SHARE IN THE STORIES AND ACTION OF OTHERS...
... with whom Inter Pares is working as part of this global tapestry, Inter Pares' Web site includes a treasure of narratives, photos essays, articles, and other documentation that describes the inspiring action of the people with whom we are engaged around the world.
| Reviewed February 6, 2007 |  |
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