PROFILE OF SPEAKERS
Mirta Kennedy
Mirta Kennedy is an activist and a researcher of the feminist movement and women in Honduras and Central America. She is co-founder of the Centre for Women Studies – Honduras, CEM-H, (1986), where she has coordinated the research program since 1992. Of particular note has been her research to denounce exploitation and violence against women, the feminisation of poverty, and the impact of neoliberal globalisation on the lives and rights of women. She has also participated in advocacy campaigns nationally and internationally, including the UK in 2000. She has coordinated and conducted Spanish language research on Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Honduras (2004), Domestic Child Labour in Third-Party Homes (2003), Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Girls and Adolescents in Honduras (2003) Critical Route of Women Affected by Violence (1999), Women in Sweatshops (1994), Sexual Violence Against Girls and Women (1992), and various published articles. She is a professor in the Gender and Education Masters programme of the Pedagogical University Francisco Morazán, in Honduras.
Mirta Kennedy, investigadora y activista del movimiento feminista y de mujeres en Honduras y Centro América, es co-fundadora del Centro de Estudios de la Mujer – Honduras, CEM-H, (1986), donde coordina el Programa de Investigaciones desde 1992. Se destaca su trabajo en actividades de investigación y denuncia de las diferentes formas de explotación y violencia contra las mujeres, la feminización de la pobreza, y el impacto de la globalización neoliberal en la vida y los derechos de las mujeres en Honduras y la región centroamericana. Y su participación en campañas de incidencia política, en el ámbito nacional e internacional, incluyendo el Reino Unido (2000). Ha coordinado y realizado investigaciones publicadas en español, Derechos Sexuales y Reproductivos en Honduras (2004), Trabajo Infantil Doméstico en Hogares de Terceros (2003), Explotación Sexual Comercial de Niñas/os y Adolescentes en Honduras (2003), Ruta Crítica de las Mujeres Afectadas por la Violencia (1999), Mujeres en la Maquila (1994), Violencia Sexual contra Niñas y Mujeres (1992), y varios artículos publicados. Es profesora de la Maestría Género y Educación de la Universidad Pedagógica Francisco Morazán en Honduras.
William Rodriguez
William Rodriguez works at the Centre for International Studies (CEI) in Managua. CEI is an NGO that does research on the impact of globalisation on Nicaragua particularly debt and trade, organises conflict transformation programmes with ex combatants, and publishes popular education materials on global issues. CEI also plays a key role in social movement mobilisations most recently against water privatisation and the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). William is responsible for CEI's participation in COMPA: (Convergence of Movements of Peoples of the Americas), a continental wide network of indigenous, peasant and grass roots organisations mobilising on issues relating to social and economic justice.
Hilary Wainwright
One of the founders of Red Pepper in 1994, Hilary became editor in 1995. She is also research director of the New Politics Project of the Transnational Institute, Amsterdam; as well as an honorary research fellow at the Manchester Business Schools Change Centre and the LSEs Centre for Global Governance. Hilary is a regular writer in The Guardian and routinely appears on TV and radio current affairs programmes. In her spare time she is on the Advisory Board of the left think tank Catalyst. Her books include Beyond the Fragments: feminism and the making of socialism (with Sheila Rowbotham and Lynne Segal), Labour: a tale of two parties, and Arguments for a New Left: answering the free-market right. Her most recent book, Reclaim the State: experiments in popular democracy, has been welcomed by Naomi Klein as an extremely valuable contribution to the debate about concrete alternatives to neo-liberalism and by Walden Bello as likely to become the intellectual flagship of the new politics movement.
She was an economic adviser to Ken Livingstone at the Greater London Council in the 1980s, during which time she founded and directed the GLCs Popular Planning Unit, which worked with community groups and trade unions to develop economic and industrial policies for London. She has lectured widely on an international scale including at the University of California, Los Angeles and at the Todai University, Todai University, Tokyo. She is currently actively involved in the World and European Social Forums, meeting and organising points of the movement for global justice.
Ed Brown
Ed Brown is a lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Loughborough. He has written extensively on structural adjustment, social movements and alternatives to neoliberalism in Central America.
John Hilary
John Hilary is Director of Campaigns and Policy at War on Want and Chair of the Policy Committee for the Trade Justice Movement. John Hilary was at the forefront of the successful campaign to stop privatisation as a condition of receiving aid from Britain. War on Want’s report ‘Profiting from Poverty’ drew attention to the fact that the British Government has given away millions of pounds from the UK aid budget to privatisation consultants such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and the Adam Smith Institute, engaged to ‘advise’ developing countries on handing over their public services to private companies.
Luis Gorjon
Luis is currently researching at the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research, looking at structural adjustment in Mexico. He previously worked for the Federal Ministry of the Interior in Mexico and was the Director for Governmental Media and Communications; Head of the Federal Ministry for Social Development (SEDESOL); and President of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) for the area of Durango.
Camilo Melara
Camilo graduated in Law with Masters in Local Development, from the University of Central America, San Salvador. He was an FMLN activist since the 1980s. He is now no longer with them and living in the UK. He is active in campaigning against the financial system which controls El Salvador.
