© Jonathan Snow
A MADRE Timeline:
20 Years of Women's Human Rights in Action
1983: MADRE launches a partnership with Nicaraguan women, sends its first delivery of humanitarian aid, and promises to build a women's organization that will provide resources and training to women living in conflict areas around the world. Susan Sarandon accompanies MADRE's first delegation to Nicaragua.
1984: MADRE raises two million dollars for Bertha Calderon Hospital, Nicaragua's first women's hospital.
1985: MADRE supports a clinic and daycare center for women and children imprisoned in El Salvador's Ilopango Prison by the US-backed military.
1986: MADRE launches "Boycott South Africa, Not Nicaragua," bringing together students from South Africa, Namibia, Nicaragua and the US to demand a US foreign policy that promotes justice and human rights.
1987: MADRE supports 22 childcare centers and an orphanage in Nicaragua for children threatened by the US-sponsored Contra War.
1988: MADRE supports a mobile health clinic in the mountains of El Salvador for families fleeing the bombing.
1989: MADRE artists work with youth in New York and Los Angeles to combat racism and violence through the arts.
1990: MADRE begins an art counseling program to treat children traumatized by bombings in El Salvador.
Vivian Stromberg leaves a 23-year teaching career to become MADRE's Executive Director. Under Vivian's leadership, MADRE's work has expanded to over a dozen countries.
MADRE launches Weaving the Strands of Hope, a women's corn mill and weaving cooperative that produces food and clothing for the community of Xemal, Guatemala. John Sayles accompanies a MADRE delegation to Xemal.
1991: On the first anniversary of the Gulf War, MADRE delivers 10 tons of milk and medicines to Iraqi women and families and issues a call to lift the US-led sanctions
1992: MADRE supports a kindergarten in the Palestinian city of Nablus.
1993: Alice Walker collaborates with MADRE to organize Mother Courage, a nation-wide speaking tour to combat rape as a weapon of war, with women from Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, South Africa, Nicaragua and other embattled countries.
1994: MADRE partners with K'inal Antzetik, developing health education, humanitarian relief and community development projects with Indigenous women in Chiapas, Mexico.
1995: MADRE and members of our sister organizations promote an international women's human rights agenda at the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. MADRE is granted consultative status at the United Nations Social and Economic Council.
1996: June Jordan accompanies MADRE's delegation to Lebanon to protest the US-funded Israeli bombing and call for an end to all military occupations.
1997: MADRE works directly with women who survived rape committed as part of the terror campaign against Haiti's pro-democracy movement. MADRE also provides Klinik Fanm - Haiti's first women's health clinic - with an on-site laboratory, and sends a shipment of medicines and supplies to three Haitian clinics.
1998: MADRE creates health care, counseling and economic development programs with women who survived rape and genocide in Rwanda.
MADRE delivers emergency funds for food, fuel and medicines to communities that have no other source of aid after Hurricane Mitch devastates Nicaragua's North Atlantic Coast. Los Lobos, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and others perform at "After the Strom," a benefit concert to help raise funds for the project.
1999: MADRE campaigns against the NATO bombings of Kosovo and Serbia. MADRE supports Women in Black with counseling and legal advocacy programs for refugees and survivors of war-time rape.
2000: MADRE launches Share Hope, a campaign to combat breast cancer in Cuba, sending over $700,000 worth of medication. MADRE sends regular shipments of medicines, supplies, AIDS drugs and toys to Cuban hospitals and clinics.
2001: MADRE launches Justice Not Vengeance, a campaign to help people in the US formulate a progressive response to the atrocities of September 11, and deliver support to Afghan women and the families of undocumented workers killed at the World Trade Center. Blanche Wiesen Cook, Eve Ensler, Danny Glover, Tony Kushner, Sonia Sanchez and Susan Sarandon, join MADRE's Imagining Peace benefit, the first major New York event benefiting Afghan families and undocumented workers killed at the World Trade Center.
2002: MADRE initiates relationships with partner organizations in three new countries: Kenya, Peru and Colombia. MADRE also and sends a shipment of medical supplies to CADAMUC, the only women's clinic on the North Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua, co-founded by MADRE.
2003: MADRE's Every Child Has a Name campaign raises funds for emergency supplies of milk and medicine for Iraqi women and children, mobilizes people against the US invasion of Iraq, and petitions the UN to hold the US accountable to international human rights and humanitarian law.
