International Campaigner

Winner

Caroline Lentupuru

‘No to Girl’s Early Marriage and FGM’- Kenya

Caroline is campaigning in villages and schools in her local area to ensure that young girls aged between 12 and 16 are not forced to undergo female genital mutilation and into early marriage which also leads to them dropping out of school. She wants young girls to be able to continue with their education and become more self-reliant, which in turn will lead to her minority indigenous community becoming educated and free from poverty.

Finalists

Ezilon Kasoka

‘Solve Climate Change – Energy Shift’ – Malawi

Working at the community level in Zomba in Malawi, Ezilon is campaigning to raise awareness about the climate change crisis and bring about a change in the usage of energy with a focus on renewable energy sources. Ezilon is taking a two-fold approach; campaigning to inform communities about the causes, effects and solutions to climate change, and influencing policy makers to formulate policies to protect the environment and mitigate against climate change.

Ida Mahajery

‘Promotion of Youth Participation’- Madagascar

Ida is campaigning to ensure that young Malagasy people are aware of their rights of participation and are involved in influencing decisions that impact on their lives. She has organised several workshops, bringing young people together with the aim of looking at environmental, social and political issues and how their voices can be heard for the overall improvement of conditions for young people in Madagascar.

Shiwani Palikhe

‘We are the Future, Give us Our Rights’- Nepal

Campaigning for the rights of children in Nepal, Shiwani is raising awareness of the difficult situations many children in Nepal experience. As a consequence of the low socio-economic status of many parents, children are sent out to work from a very young age and often encounter problems that are difficult to deal with. Shiwani is campaigning to ensure that children’s civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights are protected in Nepal.

Filbert Mbecha

‘Better and Safer Conditions for Cyclists in Dar es Salaam’- Tanzania

Filbert has experienced firsthand the many problems cyclists faced in Dar es Salaam and is campaigning to secure better and safer conditions for cyclists in the city. He is also promoting cycling as a sustainable means of urban transport. Working with his campaign group, he is promoting the five E’s of cycling: engineering, enforcement, education, encouragement and environment, highlighting the many positive effects that improvements in all of these areas can bring.

Award Judges

Belinda Calaguas

Belinda Calaguas joined ActionAid in June 2007, as Director of Policy & Campaigns. She has had over 20 years of development experience, initially gained in the Philippines where she has worked as organiser, campaigner, development journalist, policy researcher and programme manager. She has worked on issues involving student rights and welfare, the urban poor and access to land tenure, farmers’ struggles to lower land rent and against land-grabbing and women’s issues on reproductive health.

Belinda came to Britain in 1993 and headed an alliance of migrant and refugee community groups that advocated for refugees’ access to health, HIV-AIDS, immigration and social welfare services. She later joined WaterAid as Advocacy Manager, later Head of Policy where she developed the organisation’s policy advocacy work in the UK and across its country programmes. Belinda was a Specialist Adviser for the parliamentary inquiry into the water and sanitation crisis and DFID’s response to the crisis. She was a member of the International Working Group of The Water Dialogues and a member of the Advisory Panel of the Economic & Social Research Council’s Non-Governmental Public Action programme. Belinda holds a first degree in Communications and a post-graduate degree in voluntary sector organisation from the London School of Economics.

Nadya Kassam

Since 2006 Nadya Kassam has been Head of Global Advocacy at Plan International, leading the Universal Birth Registration campaign that has to date given 40 million people, mostly children, their right to a legal identity and creating and implementing the Learn Without Fear campaign that has demonstrated success in stopping violence in schools at every level in under three years.

Previously, she worked at UNICEF UK where she created a unique children’s event the C8 – to lobby G8 leaders. Her 20+ years campaign experience has included work on children, HIV/AIDS, education and disability.

Lyndall Stein

Lyndall Stein, Chair of the SMK Board of Trustess, is a leading authority in campaigning, income generation and communications.

She was the Executive Director of Concern UK for four years. She was responsible for launching the new UK Charity, whose HQ is based in Dublin, and developing the founding Board of Trustees.

Prior to that she was recruited to ActionAid as International Marketing Director, to lead a major change process to raise profile, develop campaigning, and create new income.

She was Interim Director of Marketing at the Terrence Higgins Trust 97-99 and Head of Fundraising from '92-'95. She was the first Fundraising Director for the Big Issue Foundation from '95-'97.

Lyndall developed the first individual fundraising program for the African National Congress in the 80's and Chaired Votes for Freedom, the initiative that raised several million for South Africa's first democratic election.

She is founder Editor of Positive Lives, a ten year photographic project showing the global human response to HIV/AIDS, an exhibition seen worldwide by over two million people worldwide - and Co Founder of HIV International, a volunteer group committed to raising support for the HIV crisis in the developing world.