Jody Williams

Activist, Change Agent, Concerned citizen, Connector, Educator/Teacher, Idea generator, World traveler, Writer/Editor

Jody Williams received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for her work to ban landmines through the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which shared the Peace Prize with her that year. At that time, she became the 10th woman – and third American woman—in its almost 100-year history to receive the Prize. Since her protests of the Vietnam War, she has been a life-long advocate of freedom, self-determination and human and civil rights. Like others who’ve seen the ravages of war, she’s an outspoken peace activist who struggles to reclaim the real meaning of peace—a concept which goes far beyond the absence of armed conflict and is defined by human security, not national security. Williams believes that working for peace is not for the faint of heart. It requires dogged persistence and a commitment to sustainable peace, built on sustainable development, environmental justice and security, and meeting the basic needs of the majority of people on our planet. Since January of 2006, Jody Williams has worked to achieve her peace work through the Nobel Women’s Initiative, which she chairs. Along with sister Laureate Dr. Shirin Ebadi of Iran, she took the lead in establishing the Nobel Women’s Initiative, and was joined by sister Laureates Wangari Maathai (Kenya), Rigoberta Menchu Tum (Guatemala) and Betty Williams and Mairead Maguire (Northern Ireland). Its mission is to use the prestige and access afforded by the Nobel Prize to spotlight and promote efforts of women’s rights activists, researchers and organizations working to advance peace, justice and equality for women. By helping to advance the cause of women, the Nobel Women’s Initiative advances all of humanity.

Every person believing in their ability to participate in changing our world for the better for us all. Speaking out, even if our insides are quaking with fear. Not abdicating power by silence.

Peace is not simply the absence of armed conflict. That is merely the baseline, the prerequisite for the possibility of real, sustainable peace. Peace is really about societies built on justice and equality -- including equal access to resources necessary for all of us to live with freedom from want and freedom from fear. Peace must rest on global security built on human security, not one that arms nations against each other under the banner of national security. Not one that feeds on fear of "the other," whoever that "other" may be at any moment in time. Violence and war are NOT heroic. Individual soldiers in war may act heroically; war in and of itself is anything but heroic. Working day in and day out for peace with justice and equality despite seemingly impossible odds IS heroic. Working for peace is not "Kumbaya." Nor is it a dove flying through a rainbow. Peace is hard work every single day. Building peace is not for wimps.

Coalition Building, grassroots organizing, Public Speaking - Power of Vision and Values, Writing

My TED story is pretty much the same as the idea that I think is worth spreading about the real nature of peace -- and how to get there.

Poetry. Cooking -- especially with my husband who also is a rather terrific cook. Vacuuming -- it's immediate gratification; it's instant "clean." Weeding. Reading, reading and more reading.