Human Rights worker and former Rotary Peace Fellow to speak at 2012 convention

Former Rotary Peace Fellow Amanda Martin, who is working as a public health curriculum coordinator and teacher in a refugee camp on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, will be a speaker at the 2012 RI Convention in Bangkok, Thailand, 6-9 May. 

Martin joins two other keynote speakers, who have spent their lives promoting economic and community development, one of Rotary’s areas of focus. Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and Hugh Evans, cofounder and CEO of the Global Poverty Project, will both speak on Monday, 7 May. 

Register for the Bangkok convention by 1 March and you and your spouse or partner will pay just US$195 each to attend. Children ages 5-18 are only $10 each. Rotaractors and Rotary Foundation alumni can attend for $75, while Interactors and Rotary Youth Exchange students pay just $10.

Background

Prior to her work with the Global Health Access Program, Martin served as a director of the Guatemala Human Rights Commission in Washington D.C. for three years, leading international advocacy campaigns for improved human rights in Guatemala. Martin's background in the country began as a Peace Corps volunteer in the mid 1990s, during which she worked with Mayan women's cooperatives while traveling extensively through the country. She has also worked in Bolivia and Colombia, doing human rights monitoring  and community development.

In 2010, Martin received the Alumna of the Year Award from the College of Social Work at the University of South Carolina, from which she received two master's degrees in public health and social work. She completed a three-month fellowship at the Rotary Peace and Conflict Center at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, in the spring of 2011.

Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank, which provides small loans to entrepreneurs, particularly women, in impoverished communities. In October 2006, Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to foster economic and social development from the bottom up. Yunus chairs the Yunus Centre, which was formed to help disseminate information and promote the Grameen model. Read more.

Evans began his humanitarian work at age 14, traveling to the Philippines from his home in Australia as an ambassador for World Vision. He founded the Australia-based Oaktree Foundation, a youth-run aid organization that aims to end global poverty, and in 2004 was named Young Australian of the Year.

Using a combination of advocacy campaigns and education, The Global Poverty Project seeks to motivate the public to halve poverty and hunger by 2015, a target of the UN Millennium Development Goals. Recently, the Global Poverty Project has set its sights on another goal of particular importance to Rotarians: ending polio. The organization is conducting an online petition drive to encourage world leaders to fully fund polio eradication, and held an End of Polio Concert on 28 October in Perth, Australia. 

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