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Some people use the Internet to download tunes, others use it to show the world videos of their dogs skateboarding. But one Napa woman is using the ‘net as a way to connect Web surfers with Nobel Peace Prize Laureates.
From Bishop Desmond Tutu to former President Jimmy Carter and the Dalai Lama, all are members of TheCommunity.com, the social-networking site owned and operated by Napa resident Mary Wald.
Wald started TheCommunity in 1999, as an networking site for nonprofit agencies. That soon changed when Nobel Peace Prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta put a call out for school supplies to aid children in his native East Timor. Using the Web site, Wald and her partners held a drive that managed to raise six tons of books, pencils papers and notepads for the children.
“I was in my little two-bedroom house on Main Street and UPS would bring boxes and boxes (of supplies),” she said.
Wald forged a relationship with Ramos-Horta, the president of East Timor, and began to network with other peace prize laureates, she said.
“I’ve have this amazing experience of getting to know them as people,” she said.
Through connections she’s made through Ramos-Horta, Wald said she managed to secure interviews with notable Peace Prize winners such as Tutu, the Anglican Archbishop from South Africa who helped bring an end to apartheid; and Carter, who has dedicated his post-presidential career to global justice and poverty issues.
“They are regular people who change the world,” she said. “It’s a life-changing experience (to know them). So what I’ve been trying to do is give people that same experience of getting to know them.”
Wald also forged relationships with local businesses that have offered support, such as Ubuntu Restaurant and Yoga Studio and Hall Wines.
“What she’s doing is very exciting and when I learned that she was looking for some support from the community, we were just really delighted to help,” said Kathryn Hall of Hall Wines.
Sandy Lawrence, owner of Ubuntu, said getting to know Wald and becoming a sponsor of TheCommunity gave her the opportunity to travel last year to an annual summit of Nobel Peace Prize Laureates held in Rome and meet with laureates and actors such as George Clooney and Don Cheadle, who both received awards for their humanitarian work in Sudan.
“I had a chance to talk to both (Clooney and Cheadle),” Lawrence said. “They were ... very caring (and) concerned about the problems they are working on.”
Lawrence said she first met Wald while riding a bus to the airport. The two sat next to each other and struck up a friendship that blossomed.
“She’s very committed to archiving something,” Lawrence said.
“Every year there are people awarded the peace prize and nothing is done with that, there is no follow up. There is no continuous dialog with these people.”
When the events of Sept. 11, 2001, horrified the nation, Wald teamed up with Ramos-Horta and gathered the comments of 25 Nobel Peace Price laureates, which they displayed on TheCommunity Web site, Wald said.
“It was amazing, I was getting faxes from Mikhail Gorbachev and Yasser Arafat,” she said. “The site went all over the world. It was selected the no. 2 site in USA Today’s Top 10 sites of 2001.”
After the Web site gained momentum, Wald and Ramos-Horta decided to do a TV series that would feature the laureates and spread the message of human rights and peaceful change. The shows feature Bono, lead singer of U2, Mikhail Gorbachev, actor Michael Douglas, musician Paul Simon and the Dalai Lama.
Wald said the shows will air sometime in 2009. Meanwhile, she said she plans to expand the services of The community and host special online chat sessions with the laureates. Site members can create a page at www.thecommunity.com, post blogs and photos and use them to meet others with similar interests.
Napan at work with Peace Prize winners
Nobel Peace Prize
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Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and 25 other Nobel laureates on Thursday condemned the Chinese government's violent crackdown on Tibetan protesters and called on Beijing to exercise restraint.
"We protest the unwarranted campaign waged by the Chinese government against our fellow Nobel laureate, His Holiness the Dalai Lama," the group said in a statement released by Wiesel.
Wiesel told The Associated Press that the group wanted renewed negotiations between China and the Dalai Lama, who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.
"The latest events are dramatic and the main thing is to stop the present oppression, persecution and violence," Wiesel said.
"I don't understand the Chinese hierarchy there," he added. "Why are they afraid of Tibet?"
Led by Buddhist monks, protests had begun peacefully in Lhasa early last week but erupted into rioting on March 14, drawing a harsh response from Chinese authorities.
The crackdown drew worldwide attention to China's human rights record, threatening to overshadow Beijing's attempts to project an image of unity and prosperity in the lead-up to the Aug. 8-24 Olympics.
Wiesel, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, said he is close friends with the Dalai Lama and that the Tibetan leader has repeatedly said he is not asking for a sovereign independent Tibet. "All he wants is religious and cultural autonomy," Wiesel said.
That autonomy, the statement said, "is fundamental to the preservation of the ancient Tibetan heritage."
When asked what he would do if the Chinese did not agree to talks, Wiesel said: "If they don't agree and the violence goes on we will have to ask for more, maybe the reconsideration of the Olympics ... but we are not there yet."
Wiesel said it was not the time for the international community to take actions such as boycotts. But he said pressure for peace and dialogue is needed until we "hear reports from the Tibetan themselves that all has been restored and the prisons are opened."
Tibetan exile groups have claimed that 80 people were killed during the protest and its aftermath, while Beijing maintains that 16 died and more than 300 were injured.
