International 2009
This award will recognise campaigners based outside of the UK in the global South, working to achieve social or environmental justice in their home countries. This award will target campaigners living in the lowest 52 countries in the world as defined by the United Nations Human Development Index.
Winner
Raphael Ahenu
‘Access to clean water and sanitation campaign’, Ghana
Raphael, a journalist and human rights campaigner, is campaigning for clean water and sanitation facilities to be provided to 100 communities, schools and hospitals in the Brong-Ahafo and Ashanti regions of Ghana by 2015. Through radio talk shows and other publicity methods Raphael mobilises rural communities to demand their rights to such facilities. He plans to advocate at the local level and lobby central government so that water and sanitation facilities are provided to rural communities in both these regions.
Finalists
Benza Akongo
‘Magoro women savings and credit scheme’, Uganda
Benza is married with five children and got involved with her campaign as a consequence of the poverty her family faced. Her campaign focuses on the economic empowerment of poor women through a savings and credit scheme. Each week the women meet to save money together. From the savings they give money to other women in the scheme, to undertake small scale business to generate income and repay the loan over a period of three months at only a 5% rate of interest.
Velaphi Mamba
‘Education for All (EFA) Campaign’ , Swaziland
Velaphi works as a Youth and Child Protection Officer with the Council of Swaziland Churches and as part of the Education for All Campaign. He campaigns passionately for the provision of quality education at all levels for all Swazis. Using the Millennium Development Goals and other legal frameworks that support education, Velaphi campaigns to create awareness amongst the public of their education rights and of the Government’s legal obligations to implement them.
Caroline Mirembe
Anti-environmental degradation campaign, Uganda
Caroline is a biology and chemistry teacher who is campaigning on anti-environmental degradation issues in Kampala. She plans to raise awareness of the need for proper environmental planning and management, particularly with regard to garbage collection and related health and sanitation issues. Caroline has already run two radio programmes with the Uganda Broadcasting Service to raise awareness of environmental matters and has brought together six other schools to discuss environmental sustainability in Kampala.
Bikash Mohapatra
‘Make Helmets Mandatory’, India
Bikash is an advocate with a passion for promoting road safety in India. Although legislation has been passed in India requiring motorcyclists to wear a helmet, implementation of the law is left to individual states with few showing an interest to do so. Given the high number of fatal road accidents in India, Bikash’s ‘Make Helmets Mandatory’ campaign aims to raise awareness of the issue and ensure effective implementation of the law, which in turn will reduce the number of road deaths resulting from head and neck injuries.
Award judges
Rachel Blain
Rachel Blain is an international campaigner who is currently responsible for the Because I am a Girl campaign on girls' rights at Plan International's UK office. She has worked for The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Amnesty International as well as several UK-based campaigning NGOs. She brings with her over 10 years of campaigning experience.
Nick Roseveare
Nick Roseveare joined BOND as Chief Executive in June 2008.
Nick lived and worked in Sudan, Ethiopia and Mozambique for the first ten years of his twenty year career with Oxfam. He then worked in UK-based senior management roles - latterly serving as global Humanitarian Director during the Tsunami, the Darfur crisis, the Pakistan Earthquake, and numerous other major disasters. His final role was as Director of Oxfam's West Africa Region.
He served for five years on the Management Board of The SPHERE Project (the sector-wide initiative on common principles and standards), and was a founder member of the innovative transatlantic "IWG" NGO collaborative. He currently serves as a Trustee of the Diana, Princess of Wales, Memorial Fund, an invited member of the Cass Business School (London) Advisory Board on Charity Effectiveness, and as a Council member of the Development Studies Association.
Andrew Reading
A chartered secretary, Andrew has been Company Secretary of Consumers' Association since 1991 and fulfils the same function for the Which? Ltd Board and the Audit Committee. He is responsible for the annual elections to the Council and the Annual General Meeting. Andrew is also a Trustee of Consumers' Association's Pension and Employee and Benefits Scheme and responsible, on the Trustees' behalf, for the administration of the scheme. Before joining Which?, Andrew was Assistant Secretary at the Engineering Employers' Association.
