Jerry White (activist)

Jerry White is an American political activist and co-founder of Survivor Corps. He is a recognized leader of the historic International Campaign to Ban Landmines, co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and co-founder of Survivor Corps (formerly Landmine Survivors Network — the first international organization created by and for survivors to help victims of war rebuild their lives).^[1]

Background

In 1984, White lost his leg — and almost his life — in a landmine accident.^[2] According to an interview he gave to the Israeli Channel 10^[3], he came to Israel to learn Hebrew as part of his studies of Judaism (though his roots are Irish Catholic). On one occasion he visited northern Israel with a few other American backpackers to follow the Biblical prophets' footsteps. When they reached the Banias River in the Golan Heights, they decided to go off the beaten track and set up their camp on a nearby hill, where White stepped on a landmine. He said they later learned that the hill was Tel Azaziat, a former battlefield in which many minefields had been laid during the 1960s. White said he was hospitalized in the Sheba Medical Center at Tel HaShomer, and despite having the possibility to receive good medical treatment in the United States, he decided to stay at Tel HaShomer until he was fully recovered and rehabilitated, because he was impressed with the center's methods of rehabilitating people with serious limb injuries.

Following this incident, White became a co-founder of Survivor Corps (together with Ken Rutherford). He led efforts to draft and enact human rights and humanitarian laws that promote and protect the rights of 650 million people with disabilities.^[4]

White arranged for, and escorted, Diana, Princess of Wales, on her last humanitarian mission, to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and then spearheaded efforts to promote a mine-free Middle East with King Hussein and Queen Noor of Jordan.

White has appeared and published extensively in the media; testified before the United States Congress and the United Nations; and received several awards in recognition of his humanitarian and human rights leadership, including: the first International UNA Humanitarian Prize from Sir Paul McCartney and Heather Mills; the 2001 Paul G. Hearne/American Association of People with Disabilities Leadership Award; the 2000 Mohammed Amin Humanitarian Award; Brown University's 2000 William Rogers Alumni Award; the Center for International Rehabilitation's Leadership Award in 1999; and the 1997 Nobel Prize for Peace awarded to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.

I Will Not Be Broken

In May 2008, he published his book, I Will Not Be Broken: 5 Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis,^[5][6] containing a detailed account of his injury, his recovery and his work on the international campaign to ban landmines culminating in the founding of Landmine Survivors Network, later renamed Survivor Corps. The book has since been re-issued in paperback as Getting Up When Life Knocks You Down: 5 Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis.

Personal

Jerry White used to live in Maryland with his wife Kelly and four children. He is presently living in the Mediterranean island of Malta.^[7]

He holds a bachelor’s degree from Brown University, a master’s of business administration from University of Michigan, and an honorary doctorate from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. In 2005 White delivered the commencement speech at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, where he had recently been awarded an MBA from the Ross School of Business. In May 2010 White delievered the commencement address at the Mendoza Graduate School of Business, University of Notre Dame.

Before he began the LSN, White had been an activist campaigning against weapons of mass destruction and had been interviewed or published in newspapers and journals such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The New Republic. He has been Assistant Director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, an editor for the award-winning publication Risk Report and in the late 1990s served on the Board of Directors of the Amputee Coalition of America. He has testified before the United Nations and the United States Senate.

References

1. ^ Chet Cooper, "A Step Towards Awareness," Ability Magazine, Aug/Sep 2009.
2. ^ Jerry White, I Will Not Be Broken, 2008, Chapter 2.
3. ^ "London and Kirshenbaum", 18 July 2011
4. ^ Cameron MA, Lawson RJ, Tomlin BW. To walk without fear : the global movement to ban landmines. Toronto ; New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Chapter 7, "The Role of the Landmine Survivors Network," pp. 99-117.
5. ^ Chapter 1 of I Will Not Be Broken.
6. ^ Chapter 2 of I Will Not Be Broken
7. ^ "The mine that set off a mission", The Times of Malta, 27 September 2010.

External links

• Profile of Jerry White
• Survivor Corps
• "Americans and Landmines: Jerry White"
• I Will Not Be Broken: 5 Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis
• White speaks at Michigan's Ross School of Business's commencement in 2005
• Jerry White: Time for an immediate global ban on landmines
• Interview at World Vision Radio
• Speech at press conference on March 8, 2001
• Jerry White, "Landmine Survivors Speak Out," Disarmament Forum, issue 4, 1999.
• Kathleen Ganster, "Landmine survivor shares personal journey," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 06, 2008.
• Transforming victims of conflict into active survivors and leaders through a global peer support network and policy shifts.

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