Forbes Launches Inaugural 30 50 Summit, Cross-Generational Women’s Event In Abu Dhabi, For International Women’s Day 2022
Forbes “50 Over 50” platform, in partnership with Mika Brzezinski’s “Know Your Value,” is dedicated to shining a light on women over the age of 50 who have achieved significant success later in life, often overcoming formidable odds or barriers. The first 50 Over 50 list launched in June 2021, initially honoring 50 women, and was expanded to a total of 200 women recognized for their impactful careers in the categories of Investment, Impact and Vision.
Forbes gathered the list honorees today at an event featuring First Lady Dr. Jill Biden in New York City on Wednesday afternoon, December 15, 2021.
The Executive Director and co-founder of the Indigenous-led environmental justice non-profit, Honor the Earth, La Duke and her fellow honorees were recognized for “changing their communities and the world in ways big and small through social entrepreneurship, law, advocacy and education.” The 50 were selected from more than 10,000 nominations.
Other women recognized include Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N;, Judith Spitz, Founder and Executive Director, Break Through Tech; Ala Stanford, Founder, Black Doctors Covid Consortium, Margaret Moss, Associate Professor and Director, First Nations House of Learning, University of British Columbia; Val Demmings, Congresswoman, Florida's 10th district; Debi Brooks, Cofounder and CEO, The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research; Hali Lee, Founder, Asian Woman Giving Circle; and many more.
Forbes singled out LaDuke’s work for The White Earth Land Recovery Project for its ongoing revival of Indigenous life-ways and to protect native seeds, traditional foods, and knowledge of Indigenous land-based communities, including the maintenance of cultural practices – including ways to address intergenerational trauma through mind-body-spirit medicine practices -- and the resistance to the global, industrialized food system and genetic engineering.
Photo by Keri Pickett
Her work also includes Winona's Hemp & Heritage Farm, and 8th Fire Solar, creating high-quality, efficient and renewable solar thermal panels for heating homes and small businesses throughout the continent. 8th Fire Solar is part of a new initiative of Honor the Earth called Akiing, which is the Ojibwe word for “the land to which we belong.” This non-profit Community Development Corporation was launched in 2017 with the goal to transition to a truly sustainable local economy, one that better aligns with Native American values and culture.
“I am honored to be among a group of powerful women from all walks of life who defy what a woman over 50 can or can’t do,” LaDuke says. “And I’m grateful for the recognition of our essential work among Indigenous people in northern Minnesota that preserves our culture and protects our land and waters.”
More About Winona La Duke and Her Previous Awards
Winona LaDuke is an Anishinaabekwe (Ojibwe) enrolled member of the Mississippi band of Ashinaabeg who lives and works on the White Earth Indian Reservation. She is a mother, grandmother and hemp farmer, and the former two-time Vice Presidential candidate with Ralph Nader on the Green Party ticket. Winona founded the White Earth Land Recovery Project in 1989 and served as its executive director for 25 years. She is currently the Executive Director of Honor the Earth, where she works on a national level to advocate, raise public support, and create funding for frontline Native environmental groups.
In 1994, Winona was nominated by Time Magazine as one of America’s fifty most promising leaders under forty years of age. She was awarded The Thomas Merton Award in 1996, The Biha Community Service Award in 1997, The Ann Bancroft Award for Women’s Leadership Fellowship, and The Reebok Human Rights Award (which she used to begin the White Earth Land Recovery Project). In 1998, Ms. Magazine named her woman of the year for her work with Honor the Earth.
She is also the author of seven books including: The Militarization of Indian Country (2011); Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming (2005); The non-fiction book All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life (1999, South End Press); and a novel, Last Standing Woman (1997, Voyager Press). Her new book, To Be a Water Protector: Rise of the Wiindigoo Slayers (Fernwood Press/Columbia University), is an expansive, provocative engagement with issues that have been central to her many years of activism, including seven years of battling Line 3 -- an Enbridge tar sands oil pipeline in northern Minnesota.
A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities, Winona has written extensively on Native American and Environmental issues. She is a former board member of Greenpeace USA and serves as co-chair of the Indigenous Women’s Network, a North American and Pacific Indigenous women’s organization.
