Fall / Winter 2006
Eight Nominated for Nobel Peace Prize
Tecla Wanjala, one of eight women trained at CP nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005,
Eight women trained at CJP were among a group of 1,000 women nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize by a Switzerland-based committee.
The committee combed the world to find 1,000 women to represent the millions of women who have devoted themselves to a future free of violence, according to the committee’s website, www.1000peacewomen.org.
The 2005 peace prize was awarded to the International Atomic Energy Agency and its Egyptian director general, Mohamed El Baradei. But the work and stories of each woman are featured in a 1,000-page book sold through the committee’s website.
The eight CJP-trained women hail from six countries:
- Tecla Wanjala, MA ’03, and Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, SPI ’98, from Kenya;
- Myla Leguro, SPI ’98,’04, and Miriam Suacito, SPI ’01, from the Philippines;
- Stella Tamang, STAR ’05, from Nepal;
- Valentina Cherevatenko, STAR ’05, from Russia;
- Mary V. Balikungeri, STAR ’04, from Rwanda;
- and Asha Hagi Elmi Amin, SPI ’98, from Somalia.
The nominees “rebuild what has been destroyed, they mediate in conflicts between enemies, and they fight poverty,” said the nominating committee.
“They step in for access to land and clean water, they defend human rights and denounce every sort of child abuse. They create alternative sources of income, they care for HIV patients and take care of their children. They organize vigils and they document the atrocities of war.”