Veneranda Nzambazamariya, a leader in the Rwandan women’s movement who died in an air crash in January last year, was one of seven winners announced on Thursday of the Millenium Peace Prize, sponsored by UNIFEM and the NGO International Alert. Nzambazamariya was given the award posthumously as the “founder and driving force behind many major Rwandan NGOs working for peace, such as the Reseau des Femmes, the Pro-Femmes Twese Kamwe and the Campagne Action pour la Paix,” a UN press release stated. The purpose of the prize was “to recognise leadership that was often not recognised nor rewarded, yet was essential to holding communities together and to building peace from the community to the negotiating table,” the statement said. The winners, like Nzambazamariya, had built peace “through resistance to violence... holding the fabric of society together and rebuilding trust across communities,” it added.
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