FEATURED ADVOCATES
KEY ADVOCATES FOR THIS GENDER JUSTICE MOVEMENT
OSPREY ORIELLE LAKE
Osprey Orielle Lake is the founder and executive director of WECAN International, and the the co-director of the Indigenous Women's Divestment Delegations. She is an advocate for women and climate change justice, and is also an author and an artist. Her work has been published in The Guardian, Common Dreams, Earth Island Journal, The Ecologist, OpenDemocracy, and EcoWatch, and she is the author of 'Uprisings for the Earth: Reconnecting Culture with Nature'.
Lake studied Ancient History and Biology at Reed College with a focus on the ecological impact of the Oregon river system. She also holds a BA in Environmental Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a MA in Culture and Environmental Studies from Holy Names University. She has been recognized many times for her work, winning a number of prestigious awards, including the Woman Of The Year Outstanding Achievement Award from the California Federation Of Business And Professional Women, and the Be the Dream Lifetime Achievement award.
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(Pictured left: Lake posing in front of a river.)
MELINA KRAMER
Melina Kramer is the founder of the Women’s Earth Alliance and serves as one of its co-directors. Previously, she worked with a variety of nonprofit organizations, such as CARE Kenya and Pacific Environment, to do work towards environmental justice and community sustainability. Kramer also co-founded the Global Women’s Water Initiative, which teaches women about hygiene, sanitation, and environmentally sustainable practices. She attended Washington University in St. Louis and graduated with a B.A. in cultural anthropology and environmental studies. She is a white, cisgender woman, and has a husband and two children whom she lives with in Berkeley, California. Her first language is English, but she speaks some Spanish, Swahili, and Mandarin. She is a passionate environmentalist and has devoted her life to environmental and sustainable work. Additionally, as a woman, she feels hyper aware of the issues women around the world face, and works to redress these problems.
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(Pictured Left: Melina is pictured here in her official profile for the Women’s Earth Alliance.)
DR. VANDANA SHIVA
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Vandana Shiva, founder of Navdanya, was born in India. She graduated from PanJab university in Chandigarh and moved to Canada to pursue a master’s in philosophy in science. It’s here that she found her love for nature and she talks about her journey to ecofeminism in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGC1DxyISNY). She was spurred to action by the government of India spreading pesticides that killed the land for small farmers. She took action to save the biodiversity of the land and crops and started the seed banks mentioned under the section on Navdanya. She also wrote several articles including one titled “Most Farmers in India are Women” and also wrote a book called “Staying Alive” which focused on changing perspectives of third world women. Dr. Vandana has been fighting for ecofeminism and biodiversity for years and looks to have no plans to stop.
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(Pictured to the left: Dr. Shiva Vandana accepting the Care2 Enviromental Impact Award)
WANJIRA MATHAI
Maathai had three children, including daughter Wanjira Mathai. Mathai was born in 1971, just years before her mother founded the Green Belt Movement, and lived in Nairobi, Kenya from birth through high school. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from Hobart and William Smith College in New York, then continued on to earn master’s degrees in public health and business administration from Emory University in Georgia. From there, she worked in disease management and social advocacy before becoming Chair of GBM. In a 2017 interview with Millicent Mwololo, she cites her mother as a great inspiration and the source of her passion for sustainability, gender equality, and environmental justice. Today, she is the secretary for the GBM American Branch based in New York. Her continued work helps protect the future of Kenyan people, particularly women, by preserving their environment.
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Pictured left: Wanjira Mathai, courtesy of the World Resources Institute
BELLA ABZUG
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Bella Abzug who founded the WEDO organization. She was born in New York in 1920 and died in 1998. Here parents were Russian and Jewish immigrants. She went to City University of New York, Hunter to get her bachelors. After, she went to Columbia University to get her Bachelor of Law. Bella was, “an American lawyer, U.S. Representative from New York, social activist and leader of the Women’s Movement.” She was nicked named, “Battling Bella.” During her time in politics, Bella was one of the feminists to found the “National Women’s Political Caucus” in 1971. After serving in politics for many years, she went and followed her dream of equality and power for women all over the world. In 1980, Bella was the grand marshal of the, “Women’s Equality Day in New York.” Around 1990, she founded the WEDO organization. Bella became significant leader at the United Nations world conferences that are helping women around the world. She also was there, along with women from eighty-three countries, to produce the “Women’s Action Agenda 21.” Bella did a lot in her lifetime. She died in March 1998 from battling breast cancer and a heart disease, but even her last year she was still going out, leading the organization, and giving speeches around the globe. This website is about Bella Abzug and has clips of her talking on certain issues going on then
(https://jwa.org/womenofvalor/abzug)
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Pictured left: Bella Abzug