A panel featuring African grassroots organizers who helped defend and empower their communities in time of war will join three local V.I. women leaders in a symposium on violence, community and women’s issues Oct. 29 at the Reichhold Center for the Arts.
Headlining the free event will be Leymah Gbowee, who led thousands of women to protest civil war-related violence in her native Liberia, and Teboho Molebatsi, a trustee of the Women’s Legal Centre, which works on women’s and children’s issues in South Africa.
Gbowee and the Women’s Legal Centre are recipients of this year’s Gruber Women’s Rights Prize, awarded in June by the St. Thomas-based Gruber Foundation.
They will share the stage with other African experts and activists, as well as some locals: Sandra Hodge Benjamin, a representative from the V.I. Family Resource Center, and two prominent V.I. judges, Patricia D. Steele, Superior Court judge on St. Croix, and Audrey L. Thomas, Superior Court judge on St. Thomas.
"To hear from women who are on the front lines of women’s issues is going to be an eye opener for all of us," said Bernetia Akin, director of grants and administration for the Gruber Foundation.
Other participants include Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, a professor of International Affairs at New York’s New School focused on human rights, poverty and conflict prevention, and Thandabantu Nhlapo, deputy vice chancellor at the University of Cape Town. Nhlapo was a former South African deputy ambassador to the United States who was appointed by that country’s former president, Nelson Mandela, to serve on the South African Law Commission.
"We’ll be hearing from the experts," Akin said.
Gbowee, now executive director of the African branch of the Women in Peace and Security Network, was instrumental in ending the civil war that ravaged Liberia. She positioned women’s groups in peace negotiations and led efforts to demobilize the military and regional militias. Her dramatic story was the subject of the recent documentary film "Pray the Devil Back to Hell," which has received wide acclaim and brought international attention to her work with women.
Gbowee’s appearance marks the first time the Gruber Foundation has hosted recipients of its prestigious awards on home turf in the Virgin Islands, Akin said.
"We have our own issues," she said. "And they may not be exactly the same [as in Africa]. But there may be a lot of crossover issues here. It’s something we hope could benefit the whole community."
The Gruber International Prize Program "honors contemporary individuals in the fields of cosmology, genetics, neuroscience, justice and women’s rights, whose groundbreaking work provides new models that inspire and enable fundamental shifts in knowledge and culture," according to the foundation’s literature.
Of the five prizes, the Justice and Women’s Rights Prizes recognize "courage and commitment in the face of significant obstacles."
For more information on the symposium, which begins at 4 p.m. Oct. 29, contact the Gruber Foundation at (340) 775-8035.
