Global Women Leaders to Appear in New York City, Receive Award in Boston

Press release 9/10/2013

Who: Global Human Rights Leaders Itelvina Masioli and Miriam Nobre will be in New York as part of their East Coast tour with Grassroots International When: Masioli and Nobre available for interviews in New York City September 24-26. Afterward, they will go to Boston, MA to receive the Global Partnership Award from Grassroots International at a ceremony on Saturday, September 28.

• Itelvina Masioli is a farmer and member of the national leadership of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil as well as a member of the International Coordinating Committee of the Via Campesina. The MST is the largest popular movement in Latin America, they work with landless peasants to identify and settle on underutilized land, through their efforts more than 370,000 families have been settled on 17 million acres of land. The Via Campesina is a global social movement that brings together approximately 200 million peasants, small farmers and producers to promote food sovereignty, justice and dignity. “As peasants of the world, we want to reaffirm our promise and commitment to defend Mother Earth,” said Masioli. “We believe that the real solutions to all of the crises in this historic moment in which we live are solutions that need to be based in integral agrarian reform and food sovereignty as a principle and as a right of the peoples.”
• Miriam Nobre is a feminist activist from Brazil whose work for justice for women is global. She coordinates the World March of Women (WMW), an international feminist action movement connecting grass-roots groups and organizations working to eliminate the causes at the root of poverty and violence against women worldwide. “WMW activists use different perspectives to analyze the oppression of women in the current context,” explains Nobre. “Some work with the idea of systems that feed one another: patriarchy, capitalism, racism. Others work with the idea that capitalism is based on the sexual division of labor and men’s control over women’s labor, their bodies and desires. Activists are really interested in understanding how these inter-relationships and interconnections happen, not as a theoretical exercise, but to raise awareness on the everyday practices of women and men and on how to overcome injustice, oppression and exploitation.

The WMW and the Via Campesina – both supported by Grassroots International – have collaborated together to support a global campaign to end violence against women and promote land rights and dignity for rural women.   A pioneering organization headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Grassroots International has successfully partnered over three decades with courageous human rights leaders around the world, and the organizations they work with. A global advocate for the human rights to land, water and food, Grassroots provides support to some of the most progressive social movements around the world. The organization remains committed to standing with its partners, amplifying their voices and struggles, telling their stories, and engaging other donors and activists to support their vital work.   Media contact: Jonathan Leaning, Communications Coordinator, Grassroots International e-mail:jleaning@grassrootsonline.org

ph: +1 617 524 1400, web: www.GrassrootsOnline.org/30th