MOUNT VERNON — Betty Williams, a children’s rights advocate who won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work toward ending violence between Protestants and Catholics in her native Northern Ireland, will speak at Cornell College’s Opening Convocation on Thursday, Sept. 6.
Williams will lecture on creating safe havens for the world’s children, at 11 a.m. in King Chapel. Admission is free.
In 1976, along with Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The women founded the Community of Peace People, an organization born from a tragic accident in Belfast in 1976: A family of four was run down by an out-of-control car driven by an Irish Republican Army gunman shot dead while fleeing from British soldiers. Two children were killed, a third child later died from injuries and the mother was critically injured. Williams, a housewife, arrived at the scene after she heard the gunshot; Corrigan Maguire was the aunt of the dead children. The women joined forces to bring together Protestants and Catholics calling for an end to the fighting in Northern Ireland.
Williams moved to the United States in 1981, began lecturing worldwide on peace and in 1997 founded World Centers of Compassion for Children (WCCC), which she serves as president. Florida-based WCCC, which has 11 other offices worldwide, unites Nobel laureates such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, world leaders and ordinary citizens to battle war and acts of terrorism, drug abuse, physical abuse, starvation, exploitation and other atrocities against children.
Williams is one of only 10 female laureates in the century-long history of the Nobel Peace Prize. She also has been awarded the People’s Peace Prize of Norway, the Schweitzer Medallion for Courage, the Martin Luther King Jr. Award, the Eleanor Roosevelt Award and the Frank Foundation Child Care International Oliver Award. In 1992, she was appointed to the Texas Commission for Children and Youth. In 1995, she was awarded the Rotary Club International “Paul Harris Fellowship” and the Together for Peace Foundation Peace Building Award.
She serves on the Council of Honor for the United Nations University for Peace in Costa Rica, is a Patron for the International Peace Foundation in Vienna, chairs the Institute for Asian Democracy in Washington, D.C., and is a distinguished visiting professor at Nova Southeastern University.
More information:
Nobel Peace Prize: http://www.nobel.se
World Centers of Compassion for Children: http://www.centersofcompassion.org