ORDINARY PEOPLE. EXTRAORDINARY IMPACT.
Russian scientist Olga Speranskaya successfully transformed the NGO community in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia into a potent, participatory force working to identify and eliminate the Soviet legacy of toxic chemicals in the environment.
Leading environmental attorney Rizwana Hasan spearheaded a legal battle resulting in increased government regulation and heightened public awareness about the dangers of ship breaking.
Yuyun Ismawati implemented sustainable community-based waste and sanitation management programs that provide employment opportunities to low-income people and empower them to improve the environment in Indonesia.
Using traditional music, grassroots outreach and innovative technology to bring sanitation to the most remote corners of Mozambique, Feliciano dos Santos empowered villagers to participate in sustainable development and rise up from poverty.
Craig Williams formed a national grassroots coalition against the incineration of chemical weapons stored in the United States, and convinced the Pentagon to halt incineration plans at four major chemical weapons stockpiles.
Despite intense industry pressure and government corruption, Von Hernandez led the Philippines to institute the world’s first national ban on waste incinerators, a source of cancer-causing dioxins.
Eileen Kampakuta Brown and Eileen Wani Wingfield led the campaign to block construction of a nuclear waste dump 50 years after nuclear bomb tests caused birth defects, cancer and the poisoning of the environment and wildlife.
Maria Foronda fostered partnerships between community groups, fishmeal producers and the government to institute environmentally sound and profitable business practices in lieu of dumping untreated industrial waste into streams and out of smokestacks.
An obstetrician, Oral Ataniyazova fought the damage to public health caused by the shrinking of the Aral Sea, which has led to increased salinity and concentrated pollutants, huge dust storms and changes in the regional weather.
At the age of 9, Kory Johnson founded Children for a Safe Environment and led the successful opposition to a proposed industrial incinerator in Phoenix, Arizona.
