Esther Omam Njomo | |
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| Born | |
| Citizenship | Cameroon |
| Awards | |
Esther Omam Njomo [2] is a Cameroonian human rights activist and the Executive director of Reach Out Cameroon, an NGO that promotes women's and children's rights in conflict-affected areas and ensures women's participation in the process of peacebuilding. [3] [4] [5] She is the winner of the 2023 Global Centre for Pluralism Award, and the 2023 German Africa Prize. [6]
Born in Douala, Cameroon, Omam was forced out of school to get married at a young age. [7]
Omam is a mediator of peace who belongs to the Women Mediators across the Commonwealth (MWC) network and became a member of the Women's Alliance for Security Leadership (WASL) in 2020. [8] [9]
In 1996, Omam created Reach Out Cameroon as a small initiative which got legally permitted in 2000 alongside a group of medical doctors, gender specialists, social workers, nurses, community relay agents and agronomists in response to HIV epidemic outbreak in Fako District, Cameroon. [10]
In 2018, she proposed the creation of South West and North West Women's Task Force (SNWOT), bringing together women's civil society organizations from across the two regions of Cameroon and beyond. [11] [12]
In 2021, she played an important role in organizing the first ever National Women's Peace Convention in Cameroon, an event that brought over 1200 women together from across the country demanding an end to violence and calling for peace. She was a finalist for the 2021 Women Building Peace Award. [13]
In 2023, she was awarded the German Africa Prize alongside Marthe Wandou and Sally Mboumien for organizing the first National Women's Convention for Peace in Cameroon. [14] [15]
In 2024, she won the Africa Women's Award in the Woman of Impact and Exception for the Promotion of Peace's Category for her contributions to ensuring peacebuilding in Cameroon and beyond. [16]
François Omam-Biyik is a Cameroonian football manager and former player who works as assistant manager of Cameroon.
The International Children's Peace Prize is awarded annually to a child who has made a significant contribution to advocating children's rights and improving the situation of vulnerable children such as orphans, child labourers and children with HIV/AIDS.
The Global Centre for Pluralism is an international centre for research, education and exchange about the values, practices and policies that underpin pluralist societies. Based in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, the Centre seeks to assist the creation of successful societies.
Vital Voices Global Partnership is an American international, 501(c)(3), non-profit, non-governmental organization that works with women leaders in the areas of economic empowerment, women's political participation, and human rights. The organization is headquartered in Washington, D.C.
Denis Mukwege is a Congolese gynecologist and Pentecostal pastor. He founded and works in Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, where he specializes in the treatment of women who have been raped by armed rebels. In 2018, Mukwege and Iraqi Yazidi human rights activist Nadia Murad were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict".
The United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel is a United Nations political mission in Dakar, Senegal established in 2002 for preventive diplomacy, political mediation, and facilitation in West Africa and the Sahel. It is managed by the United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs
The Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) is a global research center based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology aimed to reducing poverty by ensuring that policy is informed by rigorous, scientific evidence. J-PAL funds, provides technical support to, and disseminates the results of randomized controlled trials evaluating the efficacy of social interventions in health, education, agriculture, and a range of other fields. As of 2020, the J-PAL network consisted of 500 researchers and 400 staff, and the organization's programs had impacted over 400 million people globally. The organization has regional offices in seven countries around the world, and is headquartered near the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Lenin Raghuvanshi is an Indian Dalit rights activist, political thinker and social entrepreneur. He is one of the founding members of People's Vigilance Committee on Human Rights (PVCHR), which works for the upliftment of the marginalised sections of the society. His work has been recognized with awards like Gwangju Human Rights Award (2007), the ACHA Star Peace award (2008), the International Human Rights Prize of the city of Weimar (2010), Special Mentions Prize of Human Rights of The French Republic (2018), Public Peace Prize(2018) and Karmaveer Maharatna Award (2019). He nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to combat masculinity driven militarist traditions, for his contribution to bettering conditions for peace in world and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of masculinity driven militarist traditions as a weapon of war and conflict. His childhood learning on hegemonic masculinity has been acknowledged by film actor Aamir Khan and he has been invited to participate in Satyamev Jayate TV series, a TV show hosted by Aamir Khan that discussed issue of violence and hegemonic masculinity that went on air in 2014.
The Viasna Human Rights Centre is a human rights organization based in Minsk, Belarus. The organization aims to provide financial and legal assistance to political prisoners and their families, and was founded in 1996 by activist Ales Bialatski in response to large-scale repression of demonstrations by the government of Alexander Lukashenko.
Ayo Ayoola-Amale is a Nigerian poet and lawyer born in Jos, Nigeria.
Nadia Murad Basee Taha is an Iraqi-born Yazidi human rights activist based in Germany. In 2014, during the Yazidi genocide by the Islamic State, she was abducted from her hometown of Kocho in Iraq. Much of her community was massacred. After losing most of her family, Murad was held as an Islamic State sex slave for three months, alongside thousands of other Yazidi women and girls.
Alice Wairimu Nderitu is a Kenyan national serving since November 2020 as the United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.
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Jean-Marie Teno is a Cameroonian film director and filmmaker, "one of Africa's most prolific filmmakers". His films address censorship, human rights violations, globalization, and the effects of colonialism. Teno has made films in many different forms but favors making documentaries. In an interview when asked about his favor style of film to make he responded, "documentary because when you do fiction, people think it's not true. When it's the documentary, they are embarrassed, embarrassed".
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Local Youth Corner Cameroon (LOYOC) is a Cameroonian non-governmental organization founded in 2002 to react on the increase in the socio-political and economic challenges facing young people. LOYOC focuses on youth empowerment in the domain of peacebuilding, healthy living, preventing and countering violent extremism.