Jody Williams and the Nobel Women's Initiative

This Friday, March 19, Nobel Peace Laureate Jody Williams will be holding an intimate discussion in Vancouver hosted by the Dalai Lama Center for Peace in Education.  While Jody will be covering a variety of topics, including her collaborative efforts to ban landmines worldwide, one of the focuses of the talk will be her ongoing work with the Nobel Women’s Initiative.

The initiative, which began in 2006, consists of six Nobel Peace Laureates – Jody, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Betty Williams, Mairead Maguire and Rigoberta Menchu Tum – and their mission is to strengthen women’s rights around the world. 

This group, with members from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and both North and South America, say their vision is “a world transformed, a non-violent world of security, equality and well-being for all.”
Along with representing almost every corner of the continent, these six leaders of social change also represent one-half of the small group of women ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Just 12 women have been bestowed with the incredible honour since its inception in 1901.

The Dalai Lama Center was lucky to have three of these world-changing women at the 2009 Vancouver Peace Summit. Along with Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire, who were given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for their efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland, the Summit also hosted Jody Williams.

“Compassion is action!” she said at the Summit, as she shared with the audience what it means to put compassionate ideas into practice. She was certainly one of the more fiery and provocative speakers at the Summit, encouraging people to stop thinking and to start doing.

If you missed Jody Williams at the Summit or if you just want an opportunity to see her again, join her in discussion on Friday at SFU’s Segal Graduate School of Business. Her talk begins at 7:00 pm and afterwards she will open up the floor to questions.  You can find tickets at VancouverTix.com.

All proceeds go to the Nobel Women's Initiative.