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Kaisha Atakhanova is the Founder and Director of EcoCenter in Karaganda, Kazakhstan, and the Coordinator of the national Anti-Nuclear Campaign in Kazakhstan. This campaign, spearheaded by Kaisha and her colleagues, mobilized largely women citizens to stop the government from weakening the legislation against commercial import and storage of radioactive waste in 2003. In recognition of her accomplishments, Kaisha received the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2005, which she plans to use to establish a Socio-Ecological Investment Fund to support women’s initiatives and NGO activists in the region.

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Josette is the co-founder of the Lambi Fund of Haiti, whose accomplishments include 12 years of working with peasant organizations in Haiti on sustainable development and environmental justice. Her work with Lambi Fund of Haiti has accompanied over 100 peasant organizations on grassroots projects that have impacted over 1.2 million Haitians. Every year, Josette Perard organizes two conferences for grassroots women in Haiti, training them to be environmental activists. In addition, she has motivated grassroots organizations to commit to planting tens of thousands of trees.

Lambi Fund has organized peasant organizations on reforestation, water quality and sustainable agriculture projects that are run by and for the peasants.

“I am the Haiti Director of the Lambi Fund of Haiti,which organizes grassroots organizations on sustainable development and environmental justice. Sustainable agricultural projects, ox plows and grain mills help increase food security and income for peasant families. Many of these projects benefit women, who bear more of the burden in the agricultural economy.

"The conservation of Haiti's waning natural resources is central to all Lambi Fund projects. Community cisterns and irrigation systems help communities secure safe and efficient water supplies while community reforestation projects curb deforestation – the most rapid in the Western Hemisphere. See more details at our website at www.lambifund.org."

"I organize women's groups in the North and the South every year. Last year I organized a conference called "Women, Organizing and the Environment" and we taught Haitian grassroots women to use alternative energy sources such as solar ovens. This year I organized a Haitian women's conference called "Families, Health and the Environment" and we discussed water quality, hygiene and how it relates to family health."

"We are currently in the process of negotiating with Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize winner of the Greenbelt Movement in Kenya, to bring recognition and awareness to the critical deforestation in Haiti. More women need to be trained to be reforestation activists. Recognition, funding and awareness will help support that movement.”

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Gemma has traveled around the world and mobilized over 100 cities in over 60 countries to join this global peace movement, The Million Voice Choir. Her organization, a Single Drop (ASD) mobilizes the Million Voice Choir to promote social action specifically around water issues and encourage environmental stewardship to cultivate peace. The Million Voice Choir’s purpose bridges cultures worldwide, creating a worldwide experience for people to see and feel the magnitude of a simple action as it's effects ripple outward.

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Sizani is recognized by her peers as a great leader because she is the founder and director of the Rural Women’s Movement. She worked for ten years as a gender specialist for the Association for Rural Advancement in KwaZulu Natal. Prior to that she worked for the South African Women’s National Coalition as a provincial coordinator. Her skills and abilities were recognized when she was appointed the first organizer in the Northern Natal Region by the African National Congress (ANC).

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The Reverend Marta Benavides is an activist working in community in her homeland of El Salvador. Her strategy is to work locally, to work on national public policy, and to work internationally simultaneously. She brings proposals with her to every meeting she attends.

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Teresa Flores is coordinating advocacy activities of the Bolivian Civil Society Alliance for Sustainable Development (ABDES), a network made of 5 CSO networks, working for access to land, advocating justice for indigenous peoples, women’s rights, education, and the improvement of living conditions of the poorest people in Bolivia. This network, in its turn, is affiliated to the network Sustainability Watch, which is working in 18 Southern countries, monitoring the implementation of the Johannesburg Summit and the MDGs 1 and 7.

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Temra Costa works with the Community Alliance for Family Farmers (CAFF) to promote sustainable agriculture in the Sacramento Valley region of Northern California. Working under a truly holistic definition of “sustainable”, Temra’s work focuses on both the environmental and social sustainability elements of agriculture. As such, her work is highly interdisciplinary, involving issues of sustainable development, environmental justice, public health, immigrant labor, youth education, alternative media and much more.

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Olanike has worked for years to mobilize disadvantaged women in Kaduna State, Nigeria to address a socially oppressive government and a number of environmentally destructive cultural practices in water supply, energy services, urban transport and education issues. As director of the Environmental Management Initiative and the Environmental Management and Protection Network, Olanike networks governmental and intergovernmental bodies, NGOs, CBOs and other individuals and corporate organizations to develop environmentally sustainable initiatives.

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I am currently an Environmental Studies Masters student conducting research into environmental and health impacts of inadequate solid waste disposal services amongst the minority Bedouin community in the Negev, Israel. The treatment of the Indigenous Bedouins in the Negev is a critical example of environmental/social injustice. The data that I have collected is of great importance to grassroots advocates and government ministries (health and environment), and has already led to some very interesting projects.

The biogas project is targeting the women of the community both as a solution to women's health issues (due to the lack of toilette facilities, exposure to smoke emitted from burning organic waste) and as a tool of empowerment (women will be responsible for maintaining the biogas facilities once running) and hence the involvement of the Center for Women's Health Studies & Promotion of BGU.

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Oral is the director of the Center Perzent in Nukus, Uzbekistan. A gynecologist and an expert on reproductive health, Oral established the Center Perzent to increase public awareness about environmental issues, and promote women's rights in order to improve the health and status of women and children in the region. Oral Ataniyazova won the Goldman Prize in 2000 for her work addressing the Aral Sea crisis. The Aral Sea, once a large inland sea in Uzbekistan, is on the verge of disappearance.

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Ms Rosemary Olive Mbone Enie is a Cameroonian Geologist and Gender Ambassador with the Gender and Water Alliance (GWA) of the Netherlands. She was as the General Secretary of Women International Coalition Organization (WICO) International, The President of WICO Africa and the Executive Director of Cameroon Vision Trust, a Cameroon based NGO. For over 15 years she has been actively working in the field of sustainable development and environmental management at grassroots levels in Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya and beyond.

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“Shawna is a leader in tribal sovereignty efforts and has been chosen to represent Alaska Native peoples at statewide, national and international meetings to testify and speak out in support of environmental justice struggles. She should represent her region because she is a very powerful young Indigenous leader, extremely connected with the Alaska Native communities, and causes for environmental justice."

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Tara has worked for many years with the Lower East Side Ecology Center, developing opportunities for inner-city youth to learn about, and develop responsibility for, their local environment. She has worked alongside countless local environmental and youth organizations, as well as local city government offices in addition to her community-based work in different parts of the world.

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Ms. Nadya Boneva is well-known within Bulgaria and the Countries of Central and Eastern Europe in the field of environmental protection and sustainable development. She has deep experience working within governmental, business arenas and has created partnerships among NGOs and different citizen movements living and working in rural areas of Bulgaria. She is working with many municipalities in remote parts of the country, where the communication is difficult and follow-up is essential. Nadya helped the municipalities to establish NGOs, and has worked to strengthen NGO's capacity with training, fundraising, and running advocacy initiatives.

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Ana Maria Vasquez has been committed to helping women organize for their own empowerment and for environmental justice throughout Latin America for decades. From Panama to Mexico, she has support dozens of women in their efforts to launch sustainable local businesses.

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Anna Pinto has worked for over 18 years in Bihar, Manipur and the North East Region in India mobilizing around women’s and children’s rights, and community rights and responsibilities in sustainable management of water and land. Anna has written a number of papers and has developed innovative methods for raising community awareness through audio-visual and interactive media and skill b

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For years, Asha has been actively participating in different young women’s networks meetings and activities. Asha created a young women’s network within her organization Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD). Her work on the campaign team of APWLD to lead the “Don’t Globalise Hunger! Assert Women’s Rights to Food Sovereignty” campaign provided a space for grassroots women from different sectors to share their experiences, and together, along with campaigners, advocates, link experiences to the global forces which affect their lives.

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According to Sharón Benheim, director of the Arava Institute, “Dana’s work in the Ministry of Planning in Jordan, her research as a student for the master’s degree, and her activism in the Arava Peace and Environmental Network have all been tireless and sincere. Dana is dedicated to seeking environmental justice through cooperation and serious research, analysis of problems, and finding the ways to involve the people in the creative process to seek possible solutions. She is also dedicated to working with women, and empowering women to make change. Dana is poised to be a leader from within.

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Arshinder Kaur has worked on the academic level to the grassroots to enhance her community’s understanding of environmental sustainability. She has organized and coordinated schools with Navdanya on themes of ‘Organic food & Culture’, Gandhi and Non Violence, Soil as a living system, Water democracy and Third International Conference on Water and Women 2005. Arshinder has developed resource materials and worked with students and farmers throughout India to incorporate sustainable techniques and alternatives. Arshinder has also developed a system for the standardization of several traditional plants in the Indian system of medicine - Neem, Diospyrus, Careya arborea, Cucumber and Trichosanthes. She has also developed a flora field guide as a tool for the conservation and protection of Harike Wetland, a RAMSAR site, in Punjab, India.

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Devorah Brous is the founder/director of Bustan, an Israeli environmental justice concerned with distributing resources in an equitable and sustainable way throughout Israel. Devorah works in the field establishing connections with historically disenfranchised communities (particularly the Bedouin) and bringing them on as partners in the work of Bustan, as well as advocating for them in public arenas. She is on the board of various projects and think tanks, and is called upon for her expertise and personal connections in the Bedouin community.

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Maria is the Executive Director of a province-based network of NGOs, Palawan NGO Network. She is very active in environmental protection and engages in policy discussions with local political leaders and organizes campaigns, marches, rallies and small enterprise support activities.

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Martha “Pati” Ruiz Corzo is a recognized leader for building a bottom-up civil conservation movement in central Mexico. Located in the Sierra Gorda mountains, Pati and her husband began organizing concerned citizens for a regional rescue program based on environmental education, economic development, forestry management, and community development specifically directed to women who are the heads of household in the rural extreme poverty communities due to high rates of migration of working age men to the USA.

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Dr. Mercy Palatty is the President of an organization that has organized more than 7,000 neighbourhood parliaments of about 30 neighbouring families each in one district. These neighbourhood forums carry out various awareness and action programs, such as the collection of 100,000 signatures for a safe water campaign.

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Moema Viezzer ahd been involved in environmental and gender popular education work in her country Brazil for more than 25 years. She has led networks on these concerns at the national, regional and global levels, and is currently facilitating processes for water concerns for a meeting of 5 countries and civil society organizations in South America. She has mobilized and educated communities and networks in popular education and worked with citizens to better impact policies related to water and environmental health.

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Lucy Mulenkei is a Maasai from Kenya who has began as a broadcast Journalist in the Government run radio for 17 years on issues of the environment and development. Her programming focused on environment problems in the rural Kenya and the East African Region.

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Melinda (Mindy) Kramer’s vision for the Women’s Global Green Action Network was inspired by her work around the world observing the remarkable change that can emerge from empowered, community-based environmental initiatives. From East Africa, to China, to the Russian Far East, to rural Missouri, Mindy has worked alongside grassroots non-governmental organizations in their pursuit for sustainable local economies, indigenous rights and environmental justice. Working with organizations such as Pacific Environment, the PIRGs, the Sierra Club, CARE Kenya and St. Louis Lead Prevention Coalition, Mindy has been involved in multi-stakeholder work, coalition-building, campaign-organizing, legal assistance and capacity-building.

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Mary Rose Kaczorowski (Redwood Mary) is moved by her experiences working from the local grassroots to the United Nations in her quest for forest protection, environmental justice and human rights. She has been a NGO delegate to several U.N. and WTO conferences and proceedings. Her work has included close partnerships with the U.N. Commission on Sustainable Development NGO International Women’s Caucus, Global Exchange, National Congress of Neighborhood Women, NYC’s Wetlands Activism Center, Sierra Club, Circle of Life, Kids Against Pollution, Greenhouse Network Climate Education Project and Greenwood Watershed Association. As founder of the Plight of the Redwoods Campaign, Mary has inspired new generations of activists to take action in protecting the world’s forests and creating earth friendly solutions as they work for social and economic justice.

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In March of 2006, Women’s Global Green Action Network (WGGAN) will convene a group of visionary grassroots women from around the world, who are working on the frontlines of sustainable development and environmental, social and economic justice in their communities. These key environmental advocates, organizers and entrepreneurs will gather in Mexico City, Mexico, from March 12-16, 2006.

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In September-October 2006, a team of lawyers and legal professionals will travel to Bolivia , to conduct a short-term advocacy project in conjunction with grassroots women environmental leaders. With the intentions of effecting immediate positive change, directing resources towards sustained women's environmental leadership, and building trust and understanding among diverse members of the global environmental movement, the team will develop and implement an advocacy strategy. This may entail document development and distribution, engagement with governmental and industry representatives, and/ or media involvement, and may occur in local, regional, or international fora. Upon returning to the United States, the delegates will participate in an active and comprehensive follow-up process with the women leaders.

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During U.N. World Environment Day 2005 (UNWED 2005), WGGAN took the lead to educate the public on the linkages between gender equity, environment, sustainable development and democracy. UNWED convened the public, and mayors from more than 50 cities around the world in San Francisco CA, to forge a path to a more sustainable future. Over 200 events were held and open to the public and media to learn about strategies that reduce waste, increase biodiversity and provide clean food, water and air.

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Join us along with the co-founders of the Women's Global Green Action Network (WGGAN) for an evening of fun and support for this crucial initiative. WGGAN will be sponsoring all travel arrangements for thirty women leaders from the grassroots environmental movement to attend the World Water Forum and meet for a three day WGGAN Strategy Meeting to discuss their building of a long-term global support network.

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Minu has regularly participated at UN Summits and Commission meetings since 1996, covering sustainable development, urbanisation, and gender issues. She served as an advisor on the UK Government delegation to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development. She also co-coordinated the Women's Caucus to the UN Commission on Sustainable Development from 1999-2001.

Minu’s areas of work include participation of stakeholders in policy-making; communication and collaboration of stakeholder groups (multi-stakeholder processes); women/gender and sustainable development (e.g. tourism; consumption; land rights); information tools and capacity development.

Minu was closely involved in the World Summit on Sustainable Development (South Africa, August 2002), and the discussions on multi-stakeholder partnerships for sustainable development in the Summit process. She coordinated the 'Implementation Conference: Stakeholder Action For Our Common Future', held immediately prior to the UN Summit in Johannesburg. This multi-stakeholder process and event resulted in over 20 partnership initiatives in the areas of freshwater; energy; food security; and health.

Since 2002, Minu has been developing and implementing the SEED Initiative (Supporting Entrepreneurs for Environment and Development), designed to support locally driven, entrepreneurial partnerships for sustainable development. She is also engaged on advising organisations, process design and facilitation with a variety of partners.

Her latest publications include articles and reports on gender & sustainable development issues, stakeholder participation in policy making and collaboration of stakeholders. Her book “Multi-Stakeholder Processes for Governance and Sustainability - Beyond Deadlock and Conflict” was published by Earthscan, London, in January 2002.

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Mary is the coordinator of a grassroots non-governmental organization in Jos, Plateau State Nigeria. Mary's NGO focuses on educating rural women on issues of clean water, sanitation and hygiene, reproductive health and micro-financing. She is committed to empowering women to promote healthy, equitable communities.

As the founder of the organization, Organized Centre for Empowerment and Advocacy in Nigeria (OCEAN), Mary has helped to establish 52 women groups in rural communities. These women are organized into groups to encourage and teach each other skills. Her groups also do advocacy work for single women to help boost their morale and income base. Mary also leads HIV/AIDS leadership training sessions and teaches life skills for women and adolescent girls.

"We try as much as possible to let out women groups contribute in all our activities and projects, so they can sustain the projects when we have disengaged ourselves. For instance, we carried out a project with UN-Habitat on Rapid Gender Assessment as it affects water supply in urban cities....We mobilized women groups and advocated for clean environment through good hygiene and sanitation, since there is an unavoidable link between water, hygiene and sanitation. As a back drop of our advocacy efforts, these women have now formed volunteers hygiene promotion clubs in order to sustain the campaign within their communities."