by Karen Topakian
With their actions. With their vision. With their leadership. They light the path to equality and justice. For us to follow.
They inspire our courage and ignite our passion for peace.
Since our elected leaders rarely exhibit these traits, we must look to ourselves and others to lead the way.
Starting in 2005, the Agape Foundation has awarded two prizes each year to individuals or organizations that put peace at the forefront of the movement for social change and equality. The Awards Committee just announced this year’s winner of the Enduring Visionary Prize and the finalists for the Rising Peacemaker Prize.
The Enduring Visionary Prize will be awarded this year to Madeline Taylor Duckles, who has been inspiring our courage and igniting our passion for peace for 60 years. During the Kennedy Administration, she was an organizer and participant in the 1961 Women Strike for Peace, when mothers from all over the country marched with baby carriages in protest against the Strontium 90 detected in mothers’ milk as a result of atmospheric nuclear testing. President Kennedy later credited them as a force responsible for the ban on atmospheric testing.
Madeline continued her work for peace by visiting Vietnam several times during the war, bringing wounded Vietnamese children to US hospitals for care. She ultimately adopted one of the children herself.
World disarmament, full rights for women, racial and economic justice, an end to all forms of violence and the establishment of political, social and psychological conditions which can assure peace, freedom and justice for all – that’s the vision of Madeline Duckles and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) of which she has been a member since the 1940s. Madeline has given decades of her life to the American Friends Service Committee, the California Women’s Agenda; she directed the Northern California chapter of the Committee for Responsibility and co-founded East Bay Women for Peace.
Despite her advancing years, (she is 92); Madeline continues to inspire women around the world with her opposition to the growth of American military power and her commitment to talking with those with whom one currently has no peace. We salute her lifetime of work that benefits us all.
Madeline won’t be the only person receiving an Agape Foundation peacemaker award. Three individuals have been selected as Rising Peacemaker finalists: Rachel Abileah of Code Pink, Roni Krouzman of Next Generation and Elizabeth Sy of Banteay Srei. Three individuals who motivate young people to oppose injustice and work for peace. Three individuals who have started and led organizations, both local and national, before they were 30. Three individuals who put their brains, hearts and creativity to the test for peace.
All three deserve the prize. Only one will receive it. And we’ll announce it at the 4th annual Agape Foundation Peace Prize event on Thursday, September 18th from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Green Room at 401 Van Ness in San Francisco.
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