Internationally acclaimed author, orator and activist, Winona LaDuke will speak on “Women in Leadership: Voices for Change” on Thursday, March 6 at 10:30 a.m. in N201 on the Bellevue College campus.

LaDuke is a graduate of Harvard and Antioch universities with advanced degrees in rural economic development and is founder and co-director of Honor the Earth, a national advocacy group encouraging public support and funding for native environmental groups. With Honor the Earth, she works nationally and internationally on issues of climate change, renewable energy, sustainable development, food systems and environmental justice.

In her own community in northern Minnesota, she is the founder of the White Earth Land Recovery Project, one of the largest reservation based, non-profit organizations in the country, and a leader on the issues of culturally-based sustainable development strategies, renewable energy and food systems. In this work, LaDuke also works to protect Indigenous plants and heritage foods from patenting and genetic engineering.

In 1994, Time magazine named her one of America’s 50 most promising leaders under 40 years of age, and in 1997 LaDuke was named Ms. Magazine Woman of the Year. Other honors include the Reebok Human Rights Award, the Thomas Merton Award, the Ann Bancroft Award, the Global Green Award, and the International Slow Food Award for working to protect wild rice and local biodiversity. In 2007, LaDuke was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame. LaDuke also served as Ralph Nader’s vice-presidential running mate on the Green Party ticket in 1996 and 2000.

In addition to numerous articles, LaDuke is the author of non-fiction titles including All Our Relations, The Winona LaDuke Reader, Recovering the Sacred: the Power of Naming and Claiming, Food is Medicine: Recovering Traditional Foods to Heal the People and her latest, The Militarization of Indian Country. She has also penned a work of fiction, Last Standing Woman, and a children’s book, In the Sugarbush.

LaDuke’s visit to Bellevue College is free and open to the public and made possible by Bellevue College Women’s History Month Sponsors: the Office of Equity and Pluralism, The Women’s Center, Student Programs, and Multicultural Services.