Activist

Faith Bandler

Faith's father was abducted from his home in Vanuatu as a 13 year old boy in 1883. His abduction was part of "blackbirding", the slavery trade which brought cheap labour to help establish the Australian sugar industry. He eventually escaped, as [...]

Dr Dian Fossey

Dian Fossey was born in San Francisco in 1932 and trained as an occupational therapist. In 1963 she took a brief trip to Africa, where she met the anthropologist Louis Leakey and had her first glimpse of mountain gorillas. Leakey persuaded [...]

Mairead Maguire

Mairead Corrigan was born in 1944 into a Roman Catholic community in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the second of eight children. She became active with the Northern Ireland peace movement after a tragic incident in 1976 where her sister Anne's three young [...]

Annie Lennox

Annie Lennox Musician and AIDS Activist Since 2005, pop singer Annie Lennox has devoted the majority of her time to her SING campaign, raising awareness and money to combat HIV/AIDS. She shares the experiences that have inspired her, from working with [...]

Rachel Carson

Perhaps the finest nature writer of the Twentieth Century, Rachel Carson is remembered more today as the woman who challenged the notion that humans could obtain mastery over nature by chemicals, bombs and space travel than for her studies of ocean life. [...]

Alva Myrdal

Born in 1902 in Uppsala, Sweden, educator Alva Myrdal was one of the most influential social reformers of the 20th century. She was highly critical of developments in the operation of preschools for children in Sweden, becoming director of the National [...]

Maria Shriver

Maria Shriver was born in 1955 into a politically prominent family as the daughter of diplomat Sargent Shriver and Eunice Kennedy (a sister of John F. Kennedy). After earning a B.A. in American studies she forged a career in television journalism [...]

Gloria Steinem

Born in Ohio in 1934, Gloria had an unsettled childhood, living in a trailer from which her father carried out his trade as a roaming antiques dealer, attending school sporadically until she was 11. Before Gloria was born, her mother had [...]

Wilma Mankiller

In 1983, Wilma Mankiller was elected the first woman chief of the Cherokee Nation – the first woman ever to serve as chief of a major Native American tribe. Her last name, Mankiller derives from the high military rank achieved by [...]

Barbara Deming

A prolific author and activist, American Barbara Deming is known for her nonviolent political activism. She directed plays, taught dramatic literature and wrote and published fiction and non-fiction works. On a trip to India in 1959, inspired by Gandhi's writings, Barbara [...]

Violet Roumeliotis

As CEO of Settlement Services International (SSI), Violet Roumeliotis was named Telstra Australian Business Woman of the Year for 2017 – selected from 4000 entrants for her work building her not-for-profit organisation that helps settle refugees in Australia. Growing up as [...]

Lente Roode

It was during her childhood that Lente developed a great love for animals and the African bushveld. At just six years old Lente was given an orphaned cheetah cub after a neighbouring farmer had shot its mother. Together, Lente and her [...]

Jody Williams

Born in 1950 in Vermont, USA., Jody Williams learned to hate injustice at an early age when she witnessed fellow school children ruthlessly bullying her brother who was deaf and suffered from schizophrenia. Williams spent eleven years on various projects related [...]

Elizabeth Kenny

A self-trained Australian Bush nurse, Elizabeth Kenny was famous in the 1930s and 1940s for developing a controversial new approach for treating victims of polio. Instead of the conventional treatment of placing affected limbs in plaster casts, Kenny applied hot compresses [...]

Dr Shirin Ebadi

Shirin studied law at the University of Tehran and passed the judicial qualification exams upon her graduation in 1969, continuing her studies, to earn a Ph.D. in law. As a lawyer, she is known for taking up pro bono cases of [...]

Isha Judd

Born in Melbourne in 1962, Isha Judd has lived in South America since 2000, where she has built a large following as a writer and teacher as an Ambassador for Peace. She is the founder of Isha Educating for Peace, a [...]

Pam Warhurst

Pam Warhurst: Eating our landscapes With energy and humour, Pam Warhurst tells the story of how she and a growing team of volunteers came together to turn plots of unused land into communal vegetable gardens, and to change the narrative of [...]

Dr Jane Goodall

"My job is giving people hope" • This video interview is part of the Human – the movie project Valerie Jane Morris-Goodall was born in 1934 in London. Jane had always been passionate about animals and Africa, which brought her to the farm of [...]

Jane Fonda

Jane Seymour Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model and fitness guru. She is a two-time Academy Award winner, two-time BAFTA Award winner, and four-time Golden Globe Award winner. In 2014, Fonda was the recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award. In 2017, she was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime [...]

Alla Wolf Tasker

Alla Wolf Tasker has enough national and international awards to fill virtually every wall of her house on the lake. Recent accolades include a listing in Tatler’s Top 100 hotels in the world, listing in The Australian’s Hottest 50 Restaurants and [...]

Joan Baez

American folk singer, songwriter, musician, and activist, Joan Baez has performed publicly for over 55 years. Joan Baez was born in New York in 1941 after her grandfather had emigrated to the US from Mexico. When a child, a friend of Joan's father [...]

Betty Friedan

A leading figure in the women's movement in the United States, Betty Friedan's 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the second wave of American feminism in the 20th century. The "Problem That Has No Name" was described [...]

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