U. S. Human Rights Heroes Announced
The Petra Foundation is honoring four unsung heroes this weekend in Washington for their contributions to the rights, dignity and autonomy of others.
Washington (PRWEB) November 6, 2009 –-
The Petra Foundation is honoring four unsung heroes this weekend in Washington for their contributions to the rights, dignity and autonomy of others.
Being honored as Petra Fellows on Saturday, November 7, are individuals who fight for clean drinking water in California, work to ensure the future of Native Americans on the Crow Reservation in Montana, help to rebuild of the lives of exonerated inmates in Louisiana, and provide a lifeline to women released from Baltimore’s city jail.
“With a renewed call to service by the Obama administration, we are proud to amplify the stories of these extraordinary community leaders,” said Meg Fidler, Petra executive director. “Each of them not only inspires others to take action against injustice, but also to change the policies that affect their lives.”
2009 Petra Fellows:
Susana De Anda, founding co-director of the Community Water Center in Visalia, California, secured legislation that directed $2 million to a pilot project for water quality and wastewater treatment for the Tulare Lake Basin. To reverse the effects of decades of intensive fertilizer and pesticide use and run-off from animal factories that have poisoned tap water in the San Joaquin Valley, De Anda has galvanized families who have buried too many stillborn infants and who drive long distances to purchase bottled water they cannot afford.
Peggy White Wellknown Buffalo, director of The Center Pole in Garryowen, Montana, fights for a sustainable future for children on the impoverished Crow Indian Reservation. By providing food, shelter and warm clothing along with cross-cultural enrichment, leadership training and higher-education opportunities, Wellknown Buffalo’s programs enable young Crow not only to leave the reservation but also to bring culturally appropriate leadership and entrepreneurial skills back to the reservation to improve the quality of life there and strengthen the social fabric.
John Thompson served 18 years – 14 on death row, surviving seven scheduled execution dates – in Angola, Louisiana’s State Penitentiary, for a crime he did not commit. Ultimately retried on the basis of new evidence and acquitted of all charges, Thompson was released in 2003 and immediately went to work on behalf of those who remain behind bars. With the encouragement of 2006 Petra Fellow Emily Maw at the Innocence Project - New Orleans, Thompson launched Resurrection After Exoneration, the first transitional housing and resource center in the country run by the exonerated, for the exonerated. Thompson’s wrongly convicted colleagues advocate for change by adding their voices to the national movement for criminal system reform.
Jacqueline Robarge founded Power Inside to break the cycle of the same women being repeatedly locked up in Baltimore’s city jail. Providing what Robarge describes as a “health and human rights response to women traumatized by violence, the street economy and the criminal system,” she works to bridge the gap between correctional settings and public health and housing programs. In 2003, Robarge collaborated with Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services and Johns Hopkins School of Public Health to collect data on the needs of women in jail. The result – Release from Jail: Moment of Crisis or Window of Opportunity for Female Detainees in Baltimore City – has become a nationally recognized guide to the design and evaluation of reentry programs for women.
About The Petra Foundation
Established in 1988, the Petra Foundation champions unsung local leaders making distinctive contributions to the rights and dignity of the millions who are marginalized in America. For more information, see www. petrafoundation. org.
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