Quietly Heralded

Tauranga-born peace campaigner Alyn Ware, 47, has been awarded what is commonly known as “the alternative Nobel prize” for “his effective and creative advocacy and initiatives over two decades to further peace education and to rid the world of nuclear weapons”. Ware was one of four winners of The Right Livelihood Award 2009, worth €50,000 ($100,000). The awards were founded by Swedish-German philanthropist Jakob von Uexkull in 1980 to recognise deeds he felt were being ignored by the Nobel Prizes. Ware told The New Zealand Herald from New York that his quiet, considerate approach as a teacher, and later as an activist, had allowed him to be successful in negotiating peace deals. “Some people are loud, shout-in-the-street, ban the bomb types. I’m the softly-softly type of person. When I’m with children, I try and sit down with them and not lecture them. The same applies for politicians and congressman,” he said. Ware has recently drafted a model treaty for the United Nations on the abolition of nuclear weapons, which is being circulated by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Ware is director of the Peace Foundation Wellington Office, global co-ordinator of the Parliamentarians for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament network and director of Aotearoa Lawyers for Peace. He is the second New Zealander to receive the award after the late David Lange, who received an honorary prize in 2003. The awards will be presented in a ceremony at the Swedish Parliament on December 4, six days before the Nobel Prizes are handed out.