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The Ginetta Sagan Fund



"Ginetta Sagan's name is synonymous with the fight for human rights around the world. She represents to all the triumph of the human spirit over tyranny."
                                                                                   – Bill Clinton

2009 Recipient of Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Award
for Women’s and Children’s Rights: Yolanda Becerra Vega

When peace comes to Barrancabermeja, people in Colombia say, peace will come to Colombia.

No one understands the truth of this saying better than women's rights activist Yolanda Becerra Vega, national director of Popular Women's Organization, which helps women - especially the millions of internally displaced persons - resist the deadly effects of their nation's long-running civil war.

She was born in 1959 in Barrancabermeja, an oil-refining center and boomtown that has grown rapidly with Colombia's oil wealth. Male workers flocked to Barrancabermeja from all over the country, and women were brought in to work as prostitutes.

Becerra Vega's father taught her to be a help to others, while her mother taught her how to feel comfortable in any situation.

Becerra Vega attended the Camilo Torres Restrepo School, which followed "liberation theology," a philosophy that emphasizes the role of the Catholic Church in helping the poor. In 1972, the Popular Women's Organization came into being as a church-related organization helping women escape from prostitution. The organization set up a women's center in Barrancabermeja, opened a soup kitchen, and worked to provide skills training to women who needed to work. While in school, Becerra Vega helped poor people learn to read and write by discussing the social structures that polarized society economically and socially.

Full Biography | Press Release

PURPOSE OF THE FUND
The purpose of the Ginetta Sagan Fund of Amnesty International USA is to recognize and assist women who are working to protect the liberty and lives of women and children in areas where human rights violations are widespread.

Ginetta Sagan

The Ginetta Sagan Award recognizes individual accomplishment, but also serves as a beacon of hope to women everywhere who are fighting for human rights.

Call for NominationsThe Ginetta Sagan Fund of AIUSA is now accepting nominations for its 2008 Annual Award for the Human Rights of Women and Children. Here is your opportunity to honor women who are working to protect the liberty and lives of women and children in areas where human rights violations are widespread. Please submit your nominations for the 2008 Ginetta Sagan Award by downloading and completing the application form no later than October 15, 2007.

The Award:
  • recognizes outstanding achievement, often at great personal risk
  • enhances the recipient's ability to live and work freely
  • protects the recipient's capacity to continue her work
  • brings increased international scrutiny to the crisis region or issue for which the recipient works

The creation of the Ginetta Sagan Fund emphasizes that more human rights work must be done by and for women. The $10,000 award is announced and presented each year at the Annual General Meeting of Amnesty International USA. Read about past recipients.

HISTORY OF THE FUND

For more than three decades, the late Ginetta Sagan, recipient of the 1996 Presidential Medal of Freedom, fought for the lives and rights of prisoners of conscience throughout the world. A tireless crusader and eternal optimist, Ginetta's passionate dedication inspired generations of human rights advocates. In honor of her humanitarian achievements, Amnesty International USA created the Ginetta Sagan Fund in 1994, one of AIUSA's first permanently endowed funds and the only fund that specifically addresses the needs of women and children. The Ginetta Sagan Fund ensures the continuation in perpetuity of Ginetta's human rights legacy and brings worldwide attention to the abuses perpetrated on women and children.


HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THE GINETTA SAGAN FUND

Your support of the Ginetta Sagan Fund will show women and children who are victims of human rights abuses that someone cares enough about their plight to intervene.

You may wish to consider the following options for contribution:
  • Cash gifts
  • Gifts of appreciated securities
  • Gifts of real estate or charitable remainder interests
  • Transfers of assets from another foundation
  • Naming the Ginetta Sagan Fund as a beneficiary of a life insurance policy
  • Including the Ginetta Sagan Fund in a will

Cash and in-kind contributions to the Ginetta Sagan Fund are deductibleunder section 501(c)(3) of the tax code. Checks should be made payable to AIUSA/Ginetta Sagan Fund (GSF).

Send donations to our San Francisco Office:

AIUSA/Ginetta Sagan Fund
1663 Mission St.
Suite 604
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 252-1750


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