Elie Wiesel~Genocide Profile

ELIE WIESEL~GENOCIDE PROFILE Elie Wiesel was brought up in a closely knit Jewish community in Sighet, Transylvania (Romania). When he was fifteen years old, his family was herded aboard a train and deported by Nazis to the Auschwitz death camp. Wiesel’s mother and younger sister died at Auschwitz-two older sisters survived. Wiesel and his father were then taken to Buchenwald, where his father also perished. Wiesel has devoted his life to ensuring that the world does not forget the atrocities of the Nazis, and that they are not repeated. After the war, Wiesel became a journalist in Paris, ending his silence about his experiences during the Holocaust with the publication of Night in 1958. Translated into twenty-five languages, with millions of copies in print around the world, Night was a searing account of the Nazi death camps. Wiesel has written over forty books, and won numerous awards for his writing and advocacy. He served as the chairman of the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, and was the founding chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. Wiesel teaches at Boston University and travels the globe advocating for human rights and the discussion of ethical issues. IN HIS OWN WORDS In his autobiography, Wiesel writes: “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreathes of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God himself. Never.” In a later interview with Speak Truth to Power he also said “When you think of the other you realize that something must be done. If I think of myself, I probably wouldn’t have done many of these things. But what else can they do to me that they haven’t done already? I think of the children today who need our voices, possibly our presence, possibly all our help, but at least our emotions.” LOUNE VIAUD~ HEALTH CARE AND POTABLE WATER PROFILE Loune Viaud, Director of Operations and Strategic Planning at Zanmi Lasante (Partners in Health – Haiti), has worked with the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights since 2002, when she received the RFK Human Rights Award. Loune was recognized for her innovative human rights-based approach to establishing health care systems in Haiti. Loune was honored, not only for her groundbreaking work in effective, rights-based HIV/AIDS treatment, but for advocating that health, access to medicine, and clean water are all fundamental rights, and working with the local government and citizens to build the government’s capacity to respond to those human rights. Loune’s ongoing work in Haiti took on an even greater urgency when Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake in January 2010. Loune has since been working to provide health care to the most vulnerable populations and to strengthen the health care sector. Loune also worked in partnership with the government and other organizations to help establish a children’s shelter for orphaned and abandoned children, many of whom are disabled. She has testified before the U.S. Congress on the urgent need to strengthen the capacity of the Government of Haiti following the earthquake and to effectively include Haitians in the reconstruction. IN HER OWN WORDS Do the sick deserve the right to health care? Do the naked deserve the right to clothing? Do the homeless deserve the right to shelter? Do the illiterate deserve the right to education? The group I represent is Haitian, American, Russian, Mexican, and Peruvian. It is the family that constitutes Partners In Health, the group I have served and helped to build for all of my adult life. We all believe the answer to each of these questions is a resounding YES. Martin Luther King is credited with saying that "of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhumane." The struggle for health and human rights is only part of our struggle, because we believe that the poor must be respected when they say, as they so often do, "we want to see health, education, and welfare (including water) as our birthrights." These basic social and economic rights must be part of being human. As a Haitian woman who has seen first-hand what it means to be poor and sick, I know that we can all do better. We can move from the way things are, where the bottom billion is merely struggling not to suffer, to be as we say in Haiti, kapab pa soufri, to a place in which tout moun se moun. Everyone is a person. We are all human. KAILASH SAYARTHI~ HUMAN SLAVERY PROFILE Kailash Satyarthi is India’s lodestar for the abolition of child labor. Since 1980, he has led the rescue of over 75,000 bonded and child slaves in India and developed a successful model for their education and rehabilitation. Kailash has emancipated thousands of children from bonded labor, a form of slavery where a desperate family typically borrows needed funds from a lender (sums as little as $35) and is forced to hand over a child as surety until the funds can be repaid. But often the money can never be repaid-and the child is sold and resold to different masters. Bonded laborers work in the diamond, stonecutting, manufacturing, and other industries. They are especially prevalent in the carpet export business, where they hand-knot rugs for the U.S. and other markets. Satyarthi rescues children and women from enslavement in the overcrowded, filthy, and isolated factories where conditions are deplorable, with inhuman hours, unsafe workplaces, rampant torture, and sexual assault. Satyarthi has faced false charges and death threats for his work. Satyarthi rescues children and women from enslavement in the overcrowded, filthy, and isolated factories where conditions are deplorable, with inhuman hours, unsafe workplaces, rampant torture, and sexual assault. Satyarthi heads the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude, which he cofounded in 1989. Under his leadership, SACCS carries out public awareness campaigns, advocacy, legal actions, and direct intervention to emancipate children and women from bonded and child labor. Satyarthi organized and led two great marches across India to raise awareness about child labor, and, in 1998, organized over ten thousand NGOs around the world to participate in the Global March Against Child Labor. Still there is much to do. There are 6 to 10 million children in bonded labor in India alone. There are 250 million children forced into child labor across the world, including 246,000 children working at agricultural labor and in sweatshops in the United States. Satyarthi’s job has just begun. IN HIS OWN WORDS I think of it all as a test. This is a moral examination that one has to pass. If you decide to stand up against such social evils, you have to be fully prepared-not just physically or mentally, but also spiritually. One has to pull oneself together for the supreme sacrifice-and people have done so in the past. Robert F. Kennedy did, Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, John Kennedy-the list can go on endlessly. Resistance-it is there always, we only have to prepare ourselves for it. We will have to face it, sooner or later. It is the history of humanity, after all. May I become at all times both now and forever ~ A protector for those without protection ~A guide for those who have lost their way ~ A ship for those with oceans to cross ~ A bridge for those with rivers to cross ~ A sanctuary for those in danger~A lamp for those without light ~ A place of rugs for those who lack shelter ~ And a servant to all in need. WANGARI MAATHAI~ ENVIRONMENT PROFILE Wangari Maathai, Kenya’s foremost environmentalist and women’s rights advocate founded the Green Belt Movement on Earth Day 1977, encouraging the farmers (70 percent of whom are women) to plant “greenbelts” to stop soil erosion, provide shade, and create a source of lumber and firewood. She distributed seedlings to rural women and set up an incentive system for each seedling that survived. To date, the movement has planted over fifteen million trees, produced income for eighty thousand people in Kenya alone, and has expanded its efforts to over thirty African countries, the United States, and Haiti. Maathai won the Africa Prize for her work in preventing hunger, and was heralded by the Kenyan government and controlled press as an exemplary citizen. A few years later, when Maathai criticized President Moi’s proposal to erect a sixty-two-story skyscraper in the middle of Nairobi’s largest park, officials warned her to curtail her criticism. When she took her campaign public, she was visited by security forces. When she still refused to be silenced, she was subjected to a harassment campaign and threats. Members of parliament denounced Maathai, dismissing her organization as “a bunch of divorcees.” Eventually Moi was forced to forego the project, in large measure because of the pressure Maathai successfully generated. Years later, when she returned to the park to lead a rally on behalf of political prisoners, Maathai was hospitalized after pro-government thugs beat her and other women protesters. Following the incident, Moi’s ruling party parliamentarians threatened to mutilate her genitals in order to force Maathai to behave “like women should.” But Wangari Maathai was more determined than ever, and today continues her work for environmental protection, women’s rights, and democratic reform.

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