IPEN Heroes:

Olga Speranskaya and Yuyun Ismawati have been awarded the Goldman Environment Prize for their work with communities and grassroots organizations in protecting human health and the environment from toxic chemicals and waste.

This award is a celebration for all of IPEN and everyone devoting energy, time and spirit to ensuring healthy communities and a future where children are born free from toxics.

Olga Speranskaya has formed a civil society network that has grown to include NGO groups, governmental bodies and academia in 11 former Soviet states. Together they have focused on phasing out toxic chemicals, identifying hazardous stockpiles and reducing harmful exposures to human health and the environment. Olga successfully transformed the NGO community in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia (EECCA) into a potent, participatory force working to identify and eliminate the Soviet legacy of toxic chemicals in the environment. Olga is Director of the Chemical Safety Program at the Eco-Accord Center for Environment and Sustainable Development (Eco-Accord), where she has worked since 1997. Speranskaya holds a Doctorate in physics from the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Yuyun Ismawati, since 1996, has used her engineering skills working with poor communities, to design safe and well-coordinated waste management initiatives, while protecting environmental health and economic benefits for local people. In June 2000, Yuyun founded her own NGO, Bali Fokus, to expand her community-based urban environmental management program into replicable initiatives for Indonesia. In 2003, working in cooperation with a local Rotary Club, Yuyun initiated a solid waste management program with Temesi Village Bali consisting of a waste management facility owned and operated by the village itself. In 2008, Ismawati expanded her area of interest by establishing Indonesia's Toxics-Free Network to work against the spread of toxic subtances from burning wastes, pesticides, and heavy metals such as mercury.

The work of both these women to protect communities and the environment from toxic chemicals and hazardous waste is truly inspiring and this award well earned.

Read about their incredible work on the Goldman Prize website and share it with others:
Goldman Prize website http://www.goldmanprize.org/

Find Olga at - Olga

Find Yuyun at - Yuyun

An article on the goldman prize from the San Francisco news paper - Article

  Version: April 2009