NGOs contribute to peace by addressing education, poverty, equality, and environmental concerns around the world.
NGO stands for non-governmental organization. These Not-for-profit organizations have a great social impact in education, children’s lives, poverty reduction, women and girls, animals, arts and culture, the environment, peace, empowerment at home and abroad.
They are charitable organizations promoting sustainability and harmony between people, animals and nature.
Many NGOs are often entrepreneurial in solving local problems in some of the world’s toughest communities. They focus on existing projects to improve access to education or health care, create jobs or build safer homes in developing countries. They believe that local leaders understand the unique challenges of their communities and with assistance are the most effective.
The Red Cross and Development and Peace are examples of international NGOs; Operation Dismantle and PeaceQuest are examples of peace NGOs, The David Suzuki Foundation and Greenpeace of environmental NGOs. Other examples are: KAIROS, Ten Thousand Villages, ACORN Canada, World Vision, and all kinds of philanthropy connections etc., etc.
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Antonine Maillet contributed to peace by chronicling the expulsion of Acadians in 1735 in The Great Upheaval. #Canada150
Antonine Maillet, novelist, playwright, translator and scholar was born in 1929 in Bouctouche, NB .
A prolific writer of more than a dozen plays and almost 20 novels, Maillet published her second play, Poire-Acre, and first novel, Pointe-aux-Coques, in 1958. Her works celebrate the dialect and heritage of the Acadian people. Maillet’s renown coincides with an Acadian cultural revival, a renewed sense of Acadian cultural distinctiveness and pride. As the author herself says, to recognize her works is to recognize the people to whom she belongs.
She earned a BA (1950) from the Collège Notre-Dame d’Acadie, an MA (1959) from the Université de Moncton, and a PhD in literature from Université Laval in 1970. She taught literature and folklore at Laval. She has also taught at the Université de Montréal, the University of California, Berkeley, the University at Albany, State University of New York, and the Université de Moncton. She has worked for CBC Radio-Canada in Moncton.
After the success of her play La Sagouine (1971; tr. 1979) and the novel Pélagie-la-Charrette (1979), which charts the triumphant return home of the Acadian people after the 1755 expulsion, Maillet dominated contemporary Acadian literature. The latter won the Prix Goncourt, bringing her fame in France, where it sold over one million copies. Maillet has famously remarked that with the publication of the novel she “avenged [her] ancestors.” Maillet’s imaginary universe is rooted in the geography, history and people of Acadia. Her novels, often reworked for the theatre, fuse adventure, desire, frustration, agony and joy to offer a new image of the original Acadia, restructured to fit an epic vision. She
Among her honours and awards:
Prix Champlain ((1961)
Governor General’s Award (1972)
Grand prix du livre de Montréal (1973)
Prix France-Canada (1975)
Prix des Volcans (France, 1975)
Prix littéraire de La Presse (Québec, 1976)
Officer of the Order of Canada (1976)
Prix des Quatre Jurys (1978)
Prix Goncourt (France, 1979)
Officier de l’Ordre des Palmes académiques (France, 1980)
Lorne Pierce Medal, Royal Society of Canada (1980)
Companion of the Order of Canada (1981)
Médaille Gloire de l’Escolle (1981)
Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Pléiade (Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie) (1981)
Ordre des francophones d’Amérique (1984)
Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France, 1985)
Officierde l’Ordre national du Québec (1990)
Grands Montréalais (1991)
Officier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur (France, 2004)
Order of New Brunswick (2005)
Prix Hommage 2010, Soirée des prix Éloizes (Acadie, 2010)
Antonine Maillet has received honourary degrees from more than 30 universities in Canada and internationally.
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Naomi Klein, activist, author and filmmaker contributed to peace by influencing mainstream discussion of capitalism and globalization. #Canada 150
Newsweek acclaimed Klein as one of the World’s Most Influential Women in 2010. She was born in Montreal on May 8, 1970, and brought up in a Jewish family of peace activists. Her American parents were Vietnam War resisters that moved to Montreal in 1967. Her mother, Bonnie Klein, a documentary film maker is best known for her anti-pornography documentary “Not a Love Story.” Her father, Michael, a medical doctor, is a member of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Her brother, Seth, is director of the BC office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Klein’s husband, Avi Lewis, (son of Stephen Lewis, politician and diplomate to the UN and journalist and activist, Michelle Landsberg), is also an activist and documentary filmmaker.
As a young teenager, Naomi was caught up in consumerism and designer labels, and was embarrassed with her mother’s strong feminist views. Then her mother had a stroke and became severely disabled. Naomi’s life changed as she and her family cared for her mother. When she entered university in 1989, the Ecole Polytechnique massacre of female engineering students proved a wake-up call to feminism.
Her writing career began, with contributions to U of T’s student newspaper, The Varsity, where she served as editor-in-chief. Eventually she left academia for journalism. Her first book No Logo, published in 2000, became for many a manifesto in opposition to the corporate globalization movement. In it, she attacks brand-oriented consumer culture and the operations of large corporations. She also accused several corporations of unethically exploiting workers in the world’s poorest countries in pursuit of greater profits. It became an international best seller, selling over a million copies in 28 languages. Her next book, Fences and Windows (2002) is a collection of her articles and speeches written on behalf of the anti-globalization movement.
Naomi and her husband, Avi Lewis made a documentary film called “The Take” (2004) about factory workers in Argentina who took over a closed plant and resumed production, operating as a collective.
Her third book, TheShock Doctrine, The Rise of Disastrous Capitalism, (2007) became a New York Time best seller, translated into 28 languages. Central to the book’s thesis is the contention that those who wish to implement unpopular policies now routinely do so by taking advantage of certain features of the aftermath of major disasters, be they economic, political, military or natural. The suggestion is that when a society experiences a major ‘shock’ there is a widespread desire for a rapid and decisive response to correct the situation; this desire for bold and immediate action provides an opportunity for unscrupulous actors to implement policies which go far beyond a legitimate response to disaster. The book suggests that when the rush to act means the specifics of a response will go un-scrutinized, that is the moment when unpopular and unrelated policies will intentionally be rushed into effect. The book posits that these shocks are in some cases intentionally encouraged or even manufactured. The Shock Doctrine was adapted into a short film of the same name.
Since 2009, Klein’s attention has turned to environmentalism, with particular focus on climate change. Klein’s fourth book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus the Climate was published in September 2014. The book puts forth the argument that the power of neoliberal market fundamentalism is blocking any serious reforms to halt climate change and protect the environment. The book won the 2014 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction and was a shortlisted nominee for the 2015 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. Then in 2015 with Jason Box, Naomi wrote, Why a Climate Deal is the Best Hope for Peace.
Since This Changes Everything was published, Klein’s primary focus has been on putting its ideas into action. She is one of the organizers and authors of Canada’s Leap Manifesto, a blueprint for a rapid and justice-based transition off fossil fuels. The Leap has been endorsed by over 200 organizations, tens of thousands of individuals, and has inspired similar climate justice initiatives around the world.
Klein is a member of the board of directors for climate-action group 350.org, and took part in their “Do the Math” tour in 2013, encouraging a divestment movement. In 2015, she was invited to speak at the Vatican to help launch Pope Francis’s historic encyclical on ecology, Laudato si’.
In 2017, Klein became Senior Correspondent for The Intercept. She is also a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute and contributor to the Nation Magazine. Recent articles have also appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, the London Review of Books and Le Monde.
Awards and Honours:
International Studies Association’s IPE Outstanding Activist-Scholar Award 2014
Sydney Peace Prize
Holds multiple honourary degrees
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Cyrus Eaton, a banker- philanthropist, contributed to peace by sponsoring and organizing Pugwash Conferences on World Peace. #Canada150
Cyrus Stephen Eaton was born on December 27, 1883 on a farm near the village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia. After graduating from McMaster University where he studied philosophy and finance, he became one of the most influential, powerful and sometimes controversial financiers in the American Midwest. However, for decades he was also known for his passion for world peace and for his outspoken criticism of United States Cold War policy.
In July 9, 1955 The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was issued in London by Bertrand Russell in the midst of the Cold War. It highlighted the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and called for world leaders to seek peaceful resolutions to international conflict. The signatories included eleven preeminent intellectuals and scientists, including Albert Einstein, who signed it just days before his death. A few days after the release, philanthropist Eaton offered to sponsor a conference, called for in the manifesto, in his birthplace, Pugwash, NS. This conference was to be the first of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, held in July 1957.
Eaton became dedicated to the quest for international friendship, disarmament and peace. He actively encouraging and promoting better trade relations between the United States and members of the Communist bloc, and by financed and supported international venues for friendly discussion about peace and nuclear disarmament.
By the time Richard Nixon became President, Cyrus Eaton and others had so influenced the political climate in the United States that not only did Nixon seek peace with North Vietnam, but laws and public policy resisting trade and cultural communications between American businessmen and Communistic countries were being changed in favour of detente, mutual cooperation on important international issues and an easing of military tensions. This was also a period when, despite bitterness and setbacks, progress was being made in the objectives first established at Pugwash Conferences supported and financed by Cyrus Eaton, objectives such as mutual curtailments in nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere and negotiations leading to the first agreements on nuclear disarmament and international teams of inspection.
In recognition of his efforts to bring scientists and other public figures from the East and West together for discussion at the Pugwash Conferences, the Soviet Union awarded him a Lenin Peace Prize in 1960. Since Cyrus Eaton`s death an International Student/Young Pugwash Group have continued his efforts for international friendship and understanding among the youth.
The Conferences have now brought peacemakers together for over 60 years. Pugwash seeks a world free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. Moving beyond rhetoric, the participants (now over 300 strong at Conferences) foster creative discussions on ways to increase the security of all sides in the affected regions.
Besides financial support for the peace conferences, Eaton gave money to support education in Nova Scotia, particularly in Pugwash and to Acadia University. He supported the establishment of a game sanctuary in Nova Scotia on the Aspotogan Peninsula. “Cyrus Eaton has been moved to care about education, and making the planet a vibrant and safe place to live, no matter what the particulars of the politics or philosophy you grew up with,” said Alice Guilk.
Eaton’s 1950s efforts at reconciliation with the Soviet Union won him the 1960 Lenin Peace prize. He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958, and was the recipient of an honorary degree from Bowling Green State University in 1969. The Pugwash Conferences and their chairman Joseph Rotblat were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.
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Dr. Jean Chamberlain Froese contributes to peace with her work on maternal health in East Africa. #Canada150
Dr. Jean Chamberlain Froese, CM, MD, MEd, FRCSC, is an obstetrician, associate professor, and an international expert in women’s reproductive health. She is the Founder and Director of McMaster University’s International Women’s Health Program.
Together with her Ugandan colleagues, Dr. Jean Chamberlain Froese founded Save the Mothers, an international non-profit organization that educates local leaders to become influencers for change for safe motherhood.
The Program offers a Master’s Degree in Public Health Leadership (at Uganda Christian University) to working professionals from a wide range of disciplines and not only the health discipline. Since 2005, nearly 200 East African leaders have come through the program.
Froese is an internationally respected leader in the field of maternal health, and has been appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada in recognition of her commitment to saving the lives of women and babies in the developing world.
As a Director of the International Women’s Health Program at McMaster University, she has dedicated her life to making pregnancy and childbirth safer in the developing world.
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Maurice Strong contributed to peace as a leader in global discussions on environmental protection, particularly at the United Nations.
Early in his career, Maurice Strong served as head of the Canadian International Development Agency. He then held a number of posts with the United Nations, including presiding over the 1972 Stockholm conference on the human environment. In 1976 Strong was appointed as the first head of the national oil company Petro-Canada – his business associations with “big oil” were not without their controversies. In 1992, he presided over the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. This led to the launch of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; both events are considered watershed moments in international environmental diplomacy.
“Don’t accept that you can’t make a difference. Because if you can’t make a difference, you won’t make a difference, and if you put a multiplier on that we will continue on an unsustainable pathway.”
Strong’s work was instrumental in ushering in a new era of international environmental diplomacy which saw the birth of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the first UN agency to be headquartered in a developing country (Kenya). As head of UNEP, Strong convened the first international expert group meeting on climate change. For his service, he was made a companion of the Order of Canada and a member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada. Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau said of him, “Mr. Strong was an internationally recognized environmentalist and philanthropist who used his remarkable business acumen, organizational skills and humanity to make the world a better place.”
“We must, from here on in, all go down the same path… There may not be another chance.”
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Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier contributed to peace through championing national unity through political compromise.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, lawyer, journalist, and politician was leader of the Liberal Party 1887–1919 and Canada’s eighth prime minister, 1896–1911.
Though his time in office was not without controversy, he was a skillful and pragmatic politician who is known for seeking compromise. He was a fervent promoter of national unity at a time of radical change and rising cultural conflict between French and English Canadians.
Though historians still debate Laurier’s legacy, it was under his leadership that the country continued its industrialization and urbanization, expanded westward, constructed another transcontinental railway, and was strengthened by the addition of two provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, and two million inhabitants.
Laurier studied law at McGill and established close ties with members of the Parti Rouge, a radical liberal political party from Canada East (Québec). An early opponent of Confederation, he argued that the federal government would have too much power, and that French Canadians would be overwhelmed. In 1871, when the Catholic Church in Québec was ferociously attacking the Rouges and liberalism, Laurier became the Liberal member for Drummond-Arthabaska in the Québec legislature. In place of his earlier radical liberalism, he adopted a position of moderate liberalism, which he hoped would be more acceptable to the Catholic clergy. He also decided, like many liberals of his time, he eventually accepted Confederation, and became committed to working within it.
For some, he was, as prime minister, the spiritual successor to Macdonald, who pursued and consolidated Confederation. For others, Laurier, in the name of national unity and necessary compromise, too often sacrificed the interest of French Canadian Catholics.
In 1885, outraged by the hanging of Louis Riel, he recognized the need to unite the French and English in Canada. From 1887 he devoted himself to building a truly national party. In 1893, Laurier proposed a new program which served as the basis for a new national structure. In the 1896 election, contrary to the expectations of many French Canadians, Laurier did not champion the minority rights of Catholics in Manitoba. Instead, his focus as prime minister was on the country’s development and on implementing policies designed to heal the wounds of national unity.
As leader of the opposition, and out of personal conviction, Laurier vigorously supported Canadian participation in the First World War. In 1917, when the country was plunged into national crisis following imposition of military Conscription, he refused to support this measure, which was so repulsive to Québec, and proposed instead a referendum and continued voluntary enlistment.
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Canada’s Disaster Assistance Response Team contributes to peace by providing shelter, first aid, water & food to victims of disaster.
The Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) is a multidisciplinary unit of military members and civilians from Global Affairs Canada. It is not a standing force, but a group of pre-identified personnel that deploys on short notice anywhere in the world upon the request of the country in need.
From the National Defense Website:
“In 1994, the DND medical unit from Petawawa, Ontario was deployed to Rwanda, where hundreds of thousands of people living in refugee camps faced an outbreak of cholera. Despite best efforts, the medical contingent did not arrive until after the epidemic had passed its peak. The Canadian government recognized the need for a rapid-response capability to provide effective humanitarian aid.”
DART is designed to deploy in situations ranging from natural disasters to complex humanitarian emergencies, and works to prevent the onset of secondary effects of disaster. It acts to stabilize the primary effects of the disaster until the local government and international organizations are capable of assuming responsibility for subsequent recovery and reconstruction efforts. DART works alongside local authorities and other international organizations and agencies.
The team focuses on delivering water purification, primary medical help and engineering
assistance. It supplies aid for up to 40 days to those suffering from natural disasters.
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Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw worked outside the law to establish the first Birth Control Clinic in Canada.
Dr. Bagshaw affected profound change at a time of great adversity. She pursued a career in medicine at a time when women were not accepted in the field. Dr. Bagshaw entered Toronto Women’s Medical College in 1901, just 18 years after it opened. She established a family practice, with a focus on obstetrics in Hamilton, Ontario. For three successive years in the 1920’s Dr. Bagshaw signed more birth certificates than any other Hamilton doctor. Working before the existence of public healthcare, she often worked for free to care for families who couldn’t afford care. (Canadian Medical Hall of Fame Video)
In 1932 she established the first birth control clinic, which at the time was illegal. She served as the clinic’s medical director for over 30 years and pioneers areas of family medicine that, while universal now, were not widely practiced.
She believed it a detriment to the country for families to have more children than they could afford, she provided reproductive information and education, and championed the notion that women are in control of their reproductive destinies. In 1969, the clinic became legal.
Founder of the Canadian Federation of Medical Women, Dr. Elizabeth Bagshaw has received numerous awards and honours. In 1973, she was invested as a Member of the Order of Canada, and in 1979 she received the Governor General Persons Award. She was named Hamilton’s Citizen of the Year in 1970 and the Hamilton Academy of Medicine established a guest lectureship in her name in 1981.
In 1976, she retired from active medical practice at the age of 95, the oldest practicing physician in Canada.
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Raffi Cavoukian contributes to peace by honouring children & encouraging adults to do so, too. #Canada150
Raffi Cavoukian is a Canadian singer-songwriter, author, entrepreneur and music producer born in Egypt. Well-known and loved as a global troubadour of childrens’ entertainment his musical work focuses on social and environmental causes. He also promotes those causes through his books, academic lectures and as a speaker. In 2007, Raffi wrote, recorded and produced the single, Cool It, a “call to action” on global warming with Dr. David Suzuki in the chorus. It was the theme song for Dr. Suzuki’s recent Canadian tour to promote action on climate change. In February 2016, Raffi released a song in support of American Senator Bernie Sanders run for the US Democratic Party nomination and the Presidency. Raffi has sold over 15,000,000 albums and DVDs.
In 2006 Raffi created “Child-Honouring”, a comprehensive meta-framework for societal transformation connecting person, culture and planet. Through his many years of working with children he understands their place in the creation of an evolving world, the primary importance of supporting them; and that through supporting them, we support all of humanity. By putting the universal needs of children first, strategies can be developed to build community, restore the planet’s health, be peace-makers, and create sustainable economies devoted to the wellbeing of all. The essence of the vision is expressed in A Covenant for Honouring Children and its underlying principles. In part:
“We commit ourselves to peaceful ways and vow to keep from harm these (children) our most vulnerable citizens. As guardians of their prosperity we honour the bountiful earth whose diversity sustains us. Thus we pledge our love for generations to come.”
Raffi‘s supporters have included the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and an estimated tens of millions of children and their parents.
Awards and Honours:
Order of Canada (1983)
Order of British Columbia (2001)
Fred Rogers Integrity Award (2006)
Special Achievement Award at the SOCAN Awards in Toronto in 2000
Holds Doctorates of Letters and Music from several Canadian Universities
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