GUEST COLUMN
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August 2009
Meet Our Featured Guest Columnist:
Jody Williams
Jody Williams coordinated the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and received a Nobel Peace Prize for her work.
Q: How did you get involved in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL)?
A: By the late 1980s, there was the beginning of awareness about a significant global landmine problem and small steps were being taken to try to deal with the problem. I was asked if I thought it would be possible to harness that emerging awareness to create a coalition of nongovernmental organizations that would work together in a coordinated political effort to get rid of landmines - this was in 1991. By then, I had been working for more than a decade on issues related to the wars in Central America, but with the end of the Cold War, people began to look at war and peace differently. So did I and I began to want to work on an issue that had the possibility of global reach and impact.
A: By the late 1980s, there was the beginning of awareness about a significant global landmine problem and small steps were being taken to try to deal with the problem. I was asked if I thought it would be possible to harness that emerging awareness to create a coalition of nongovernmental organizations that would work together in a coordinated political effort to get rid of landmines - this was in 1991. By then, I had been working for more than a decade on issues related to the wars in Central America, but with the end of the Cold War, people began to look at war and peace differently. So did I and I began to want to work on an issue that had the possibility of global reach and impact.