Jody Williams

Apart from the fact that she had a short-lived marriage with her high-school sweetheart for three years, very little is known about her personal life.

Jodie Williams was born on October 9, 1950, in Brattleboro, Vermont, USA. His father was a country judge and her mother supervised public housing projects.

She was the second of her parent’s five children. Her youngest brother was deaf and a schizophrenic patient. Williams was deeply affected by the sufferings of her brother and this is what enabled her to think about the unfortunate from a very young age.

In 1972, she graduated from the University of Vermont with a Bachelor of Arts degree.

In 1976, she received a Master’s Degree in Teaching Spanish and ESL from the School for International Training in Vermont.

In 1984, she completed her Post graduation studies in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.

In 1984, Jody Williams became a co-ordinator of the Nicaragua–Honduras Education Project.

In 1986, she became the deputy director of Medical Aid for El Salvador.

In November 1991, the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation and Medico International Williams approached her to direct an international campaign against antipersonnel landmines.

In October 1992, Williams became the founding coordinator of the project: International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL). The campaign began with the mission of signing an international treaty that would stop the production and distribution of landmines as weapons of wars.

Williams spent the next few years by seeking the support of government and NGO leaders all over the world and discussing the hazards of landmines at the European Parliament and the Organization for African Unity.

In 1995, Jody Williams co-authored an influential book on the socioeconomic influence of land-mine crisis in four countries, ‘After the Guns Fall Silent: The Enduring Legacy of Landmines’.

In March 2008, she published ‘Banning Landmines: Disarmament, Citizen Diplomacy and Human Security’, which examines the Mine Ban Treaty and its impact on other human security- related work.

Apart from these, she has also contributed chapters in several books like ‘This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women’; ‘A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant, and A Prayer’; Lessons from our Fathers’; ‘Girls Like Us: 40 Extraordinary Women Celebrate Girlhood in Story, Poetry and Song’.

In March 2013, she released her memoir, ‘My Name Is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl’s Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize’.