Originally published on Open Democracy 50.50, 30 September 2016.

By Fiona Lloyd-Davies

Masika was a tiny woman, barely five feet tall, but she was a giant of a person. She was often in a hurry, and at the moment I am recollecting, she was irritated. I was holding her up. “Fiona,” she says, “I don’t have time to sit and talk to you. If I don’t go out to the fields and get cassava, we’ll all starve.” “No problem,” I say, “I’ll come too.”

It was 2011, and I’d come to eastern Democratic Republic of Congo to film her. I’d been slowly gathering footage over the past four years to make a feature-length documentary called Seeds of Hope. On each visit I filmed different aspects of Masika’s life and work, hoping to capture her remarkable story. It’s a tale of survival and hope lived in defiance of the nearly unbearable physical and psychological violence Masika experienced in her lifetime.

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Originally published on Open Democracy 50.50, 27 September 2016.

By Valerie Hudson

Gloria Steinem’s name has become synonymous with feminism, but it’s also true to say her life has been devoted to the cause of peace. In her 81st year, Steinem joined a group of 30 women peacemakers who marched (or attempted to march) across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, to highlight the political-military stalemate there. Two Nobel laureates, Mairead Maguire and Leymah Gbowee, also marched. This was no orchestrated photo op. Steinem explained that they’d arrived not knowing if they’d actually be allowed to cross or not, and that it was “remarkable” that they were given permission to do so by the two opposed governments. “North and South Korean women can’t walk across the DMZ legally,” she said. “We from other countries can. So I feel we are walking on their behalf.”

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Originally published on Open Democracy 50.50, 27 September 2016.

By Marilyn Waring

If you were growing up in New Zealand and Australia post World War II, there’s a chance you knew about the United States using the Marshall Islands as a nuclear testing site from 1947 until 1962. In an agreement signed with the United Nations, the U.S. government held the Marshall Islands as a “trust territory” and detonated nuclear devices in this pristine area of the Pacific Ocean—leading, in some instances, to huge levels of radiation fall-out, health effects, and the permanent displacement of many island people. In all, the U.S. government conducted 105 underwater and atmospheric tests. You would have also known that the British conducted seven atmospheric tests between 1956 and 1963 on traditional Aboriginal land, in Maralinga, Australia…

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Originally published on Open Democracy 50.50, 27 September 2016.

By Rachel Vincent

When I was 10, I was an avid reader and particularly loved reading biographies. I vividly recall reading short, child-versions of biographies about Florence Nightingale — the nurse who pioneered the use of hygiene in field care and saved countless lives on the front lines during the Crimean War — and biographies of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, two African Americans who had bravely made their way from the South to the North to escape slavery. Harriet Tubman traveled mostly at night, and used moss — which grows on the side of the tree that gets the least amount of light, the north side — to guide her to freedom. To this day, while walking in the woods, I find myself checking on which side of the tree the moss is growing…

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Originally published on CTV Ottawa, 27 September 2016.

Originally published on CTV Ottawa, 27 September 2016.

Ottawa International Writers Festival launches book on activist women.

Originally published in Metro News Ottawa, 28 September 2016.

By: Adam Kveton For Metro Published on Wed Sep 28 2016

The fall edition of the Ottawa International Writers Festival is underway and features a potent mix of both reality checks and escapes this year.
But this week, there’s a definite focus on reality, and how to change it.

The festival, along with the Nobel Women’s Initiative, launched a new book outlining the inspiring stories of 28 women across the world, as told by 28 high-profile authors.
The book, entitled “When we are Bold: Women who Turn our Upside-down World Right,” is meant as a celebration of the work women have done, often without acknowledgement, to promote and instil peace and justice, said the book’s editor, Rachel Vincent. But hopefully it will also serve as a motivation and a guide to show “ordinary” people how they can change the world around them.

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Originally published on CBC News Ottawa All In A Day, 27 September 2016.

Originally published on CBC Ottawa Morning, 27 September 2016.