Amanda (Mandy) Hiscocks

Awesome Woman of the Day for December 28th is Amanda (Mandy) Hiscocks. Her commitment, guts, integrity and focus inspire me. She has been an activist involved with environmental, poverty and social justice issues for most of her life. She works hard to build community and awareness, and lives by her principles in a way most people can't imagine. She fights for what she believes in, and is willing to face the consequences of her actions, not without a fight, but with full acceptance of whatever comes. I am honoured to consider her a friend.

Accused G20 ringleaders challenge bail conditions

www.thestar.com

Two alleged G20 riot ringleaders have launched a legal challenge of a bail condition barring them from participating in protests or public demonstrations.

Erin Brockovich

Todays WOD is Erin Brockovich the strong, tough, stubborn and some would say sexy champion of those who have no voice. Born June 22, 1960 Erin is an American legal clerk and environmental activist.

She was born Erin Pattee in Lawrence, Kansas, the youngest child of Frank Pattee, an industrial engineer and Betty Jo O'Neal-Pattee, a journalist. Her parents always believed that she could do anything she set her mind to if she learned to focus her amazing energy.

She attended Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas, and graduated with an Associate in Applied Arts Degree from Wades Business College in Dallas, Texas. She worked as a management trainee for Kmart in 1981 but quit after a few months and entered some potentially lucrative beauty pageants. After winning Miss Pacific Coast in 1981, she gave up pageant life. Erin, her husband and two children settled in Reno, Nevada. After divorcing, the single mother became a secretary at a brokerage firm where she met and married her second husband. But that marriage was short lived and the now mother of three was solo again.

Up until this point, Erin was the average divorced single mother trying to make a living… until she crossed paths with lawyer, Ed Masry, and changed the course of both their lives.

After being seriously injured in a traffic accident in Reno, Erin moved back to California’s San Fernando Valley, and hired Masry & Vititoe to represent her. They won a small settlement but she still needed work so she got a job at their law firm as a file clerk, it was while organizing papers on a pro bono real estate case that Erin first found medical records that would explode into the largest direct action lawsuit in US history.

Erin’s exhaustive investigation uncovered that Pacific Gas & Electric had been poisoning the small town of Hinkley’s Water for over 30 years. It was because of Erin’s unwavering tenacity that PG & E had been exposed for leaking toxic Chromium 6 into the ground water. This poison affected the health of the population of Hinkley.

Despite the lack of a formal law school education, or any legal education, Erin was instrumental in constructing a case against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) of California in 1993. In 1996, as a result of the largest direct action lawsuit of its kind, spear-headed by Erin and Ed Masry, the utility giant was forced to pay out the largest toxic tort injury settlement in US history: $333 million in damages to more than 600 Hinkley residents.

A movie was made about her and what she did. The movie "Erin Brockovich" tells the story of how the people made it through the litigation that followed. What the contamination was (cancer causing hexavalent chromium), how it got into the peoples water supply; who uncovered PG&E's actions; and what the lawsuit produced. The film turned an unknown legal researcher into a 20th century icon by showcasing how her dogged persistence was the impelling force behind the largest medical settlement lawsuit in history. Although to this day the sight is not completely cleaned up and there are many more victims of the contamination. Erin continues to fight for those victims.

Since the release of the film that shares her story and name, she has hosted Challenge America with Erin Brockovich on ABC and Final Justice on Zone Reality. She is the president of Brockovich Research & Consulting, a consulting firm. 

Because of her fighting spirit, Erin has become the champion of countless women and men. She is this generations, “Dear Abby” and in fact receives thousands of “Dear Erin” letters and emails each year from people who are begging for help and support in their own personal struggles. Erin proudly answers every one of them.

As President of Brockovich Research & Consulting, she is currently involved in numerous environmental projects worldwide. She is working with Google to map clusters of illnesses that are reported to her. In the advent of social media popularity, people who have been scattered all over the country and the world have reconnected and sometimes have noticed a common factor of disease. Erin is using this information provided to her by these groups to map out potential clusters of environmental factors contributing to common illnesses.

Erin is one of the most requested speakers on the international lecture circuit and travels the world for personal appearances.
 
Erin Brockovich is a true American hero who’s icon status and “stick-to-it-iveness” only fuels her determination to expose injustice and lend her voice to those who do not have one.

She has requests for her help in ground water contamination complaints in every state of the US, Australia and other international hot spots. She is currently working on cases in California, Texas, Florida, Michigan, Illinois and Missouri.




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Brockovich

Majora Carter

The Awesome Woman of the Week is Majora Carter (born October 27, 1966), an environmental justice advocate and economic consultant from the South Bronx in New York City. While she was in graduate school pursuing a Fine Art degree she visited... her family home in the Hunts Point neighborhood, which for a time had the distinction of being the poorest Congressional district in the United States. Carter was "pulled by her dog into a weedy vacant lot strewn with trash at the dead end of Lafayette Avenue. As the pair plowed through the site they ended up, much to Carter’s surprise, on the banks of the Bronx River." (Landscape Architecture Magazine)

She organized a community effort, obtained funds from the Forest Service for river-access restoration and Hunts Point Riverside Park was developed. Following this success Carter moved forward into a career that revolves around identifying and developing small-scale projects that provide jobs, boost the local economic engine, and improve the environment and quality of life.

In 2001 Carter founded Sustainable South Bronx, "a non-profit organization that champions hope and opportunity for our community and other urban communities with innovative programs that improve both our economy and our environment," (http://www.ssbx.org/) where she served as executive director for seven years. In 2007, she secured funding for the 2007 groundbreaking of the South Bronx Greenway, which will bring 11 miles of bike and pedestrian paths to this urban community.

Since then Carter has moved on to make appearances in a variety of venues, to produce radio and television programs, and to author papers on environmental issues that affect impoverished communities. She is also a gutsy activist. When carrying the Olympic torch in San Francisco during the 2008 Summer Olympics opening, she pulled out a small Tibetan flag, causing members of the Chinese torch security escort team to pull her out of the relay and San Francisco police officers to push her into the crowd on the side of the street.

Carter has received numerous awards and honors -- among other distinctions she is a 2005 MacArthur Fellow and recipient of New York University’s 2007 Martin Luther King, Jr. Award for Humanitarian Service. She has served on New York Governor Elliott Spitzer’s Energy and Environment Transition Team and the Clinton Global Initiative’s Poverty Alleviation Panel.

This TED Talk given by Majora Carter in December 2010 is worth spending 18 minutes on. 




She presents inspiring examples of green entrepreneurs who are Doers, real Problem Solvers who have designed solutions to local economic/environmental problems, all with a social-justice twist. She shows the way to actually effect change in our world, against the odds: "How the hell did a poor girl from the South Bronx get here? Imposter syndrome aside, statistically speaking, I really shouldn’t be here."

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