THE DOING MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
After learning her own breast milk was making her baby sick—and realizing her child wasn’t the only one suffering from lead poisoning—Phyllis Omido galvanized the community in Mombasa to shut down the smelter that was exposing people to dangerous chemicals.
With no prior experience in grassroots organizing, Jonathan Deal led a successful campaign against fracking in South Africa to protect the Karoo, a semi-desert region treasured for its agriculture, beauty and wildlife.
Ikal Angelei organized local people to fight the construction of the massive Gibe 3 Dam that would block access to water for indigenous communities around Lake Turkana.
Raoul du Toit coordinated conservation initiatives that have helped develop and maintain the largest remaining black rhino populations in Zimbabwe.
Swaziland’s only public interest environmental attorney, Thuli Makama, won a landmark case to include environmental NGO representation in the Swaziland Environment Authority, reinforcing the right to public participation in environmental decision making.
Marc Ona led efforts to publicly expose the unlawful agreements behind a huge mining project threatening the sensitive ecosystems of Gabon’s equatorial rainforests.
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.
In an area where illegal wildlife poaching decimated the wild elephant population and left villagers living in extreme poverty, Hammer Simwinga created an innovative program that successfully restored wildlife and transformed the poverty-stricken area.
At great personal risk, Silas Siakor released evidence that former President Charles Taylor used profits from illegal logging to pay for a brutal civil war, leading to a United Nations Security Council ban on the export of Liberian timber.
As chief botanist of the Okapi Faunal Reserve, Corneille Ewango stayed during the civil war to protect the reserve’s rare animals and plants and confronted military commanders to stop poaching.
