Oxfam Canada mourns passing of peace activist Muriel Duckworth

It is with sadness that Oxfam Canada marks the passing of Muriel Duckworth on Saturday, Aug. 22. 

A  long-time friend of Oxfam Canada, Muriel will be remembered as an advocate for peace, and a strong champion of women's rights.

“I am honoured that Muriel lent her name to the fund development efforts of Oxfam Canada because she forever believed that, even above all the organizations she founded and supported, Oxfam understands the complexity of what it takes to build a just and peaceful world,” said Patricia Kipping, a personal friend of Muriel’s and a Senior Fund Development Officer at Oxfam Canada’s regional office in Halifax.

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The Jack and Muriel Duckworth Fund for Active Global Citizenship celebrates the inspiring leadership exemplified by Canadian activists, Jack and Muriel Duckworth. As a couple and individually, they moved thousands to speak out for universal peace and social justice.

The funds raised in their names will support Oxfam Canada’s work at home and with our counterparts overseas.

We work particularly with youth and women who are exercising their rights to be heard in order to create peaceful states and communities where poverty is overcome and social justice prevails. 

As the Jack and Muriel Duckworth Fund grows and thrives, it will stimulate new initiatives in Canada, Africa, the Americas and Asia – initiatives such as exchanges and scholarships for young women and men to build leadership abilities and prepare them to become active citizens.

The Fund was officially launched at Muriel Duckworth’s 100th birthday concert and celebration in Halifax on November 2, 2008.

To make a donation to the Fund online, please click here.

Muriel and Jack Duckworth worked and volunteered on the leading edge of social justice movements in Canada beginning in the 1930s.

Jack, born in 1897, was a highly regarded leader in the national YMCA movement and an outspoken pacifist from the 1930’s until his death in 1975.  A highly effective fundraiser, Jack led the first $1 million capital fundraising campaign in Halifax that built the South Park Street YMCA.  As the Secretary General of that Y for 15 years, he built a strong program of family involvement and youth leadership.  By the 1960s, the Halifax Hi-Y youth group was the largest in Canada. Jack also contributed his typing and organizing skills to many of Muriel’s endeavors.  In her moments of doubt, he encouraged her by saying, “If anyone can do it, you can.”

Muriel was Canada’s most enduring champion of peace, the environment and women’s rights. She was best known as a founder and president of the national Voice of Women , the first women’s peace organization in Canada.  As an exemplary active citizen, she gained notoriety for withholding the portion of her income tax that went to military spending and for being the first woman in Halifax to run for political office at the provincial or federal levels.  With honorary degrees from 10 universities, the Order of Canada, the Persons Award and the Pearson Peace medal, Muriel was recognized as a distinguished citizen whose convictions are shared by many others.

Oxfam is proud to have earned her support.  Muriel was an active supporter of Oxfam’s work and mission since our beginnings in Canada in 1963.  In 1985 she participated in a Peace Mission to Central America. She was a monthly SharePlan donor, a regular participant in our local events and actions and heartily endorses our intensified focus on women’s rights and gender equality.  In 1999 she said, “I like the fact that Oxfam has never been afraid to speak out on more controversial issues.”

Oxfam Canada is honoured to be entrusted with continuing and extending work begun by Jack and Muriel.

Oxfam Canada's work

Oxfam supports women and men to achieve their civil and political rights, to have their voices heard and to influence decisions that affect their lives. Like Muriel and Jack, we believe that creating lasting change requires tackling the underlying policies and practices that perpetuate violence, poverty and injustice. 

We believe the most effective way to strengthen our program – and to build lasting solutions to global poverty and injustice – is to focus our efforts and expertise in support of women’s rights and gender equality. We go beyond improving women's access to resources and work toward increasing women's access to power.

Oxfam uses the term "active citizenship" to describe an integrated and holistic approach to development. This approach especially supports efforts to increase women’s power to secure and control resources, to build organizing capacity and support women’s leadership, and to change attitudes and legislation to promote women’s equality.

A few examples of the work Oxfam Canada supports:

• A women's farming coop in Nicaragua works to gain access to fertile land, credit, technical assistance, improved health service and freedom from violence.
• Youth leaders in Canada and within the global south gather and learn from one aanother.
• Women’s groups train police and the judiciary in South Africa to address sexual assault more effectively and press the government to increase services to end domestic violence.
• Community leadership capacity is rebuilt and strengthened in the post-tsunami reconstruction areas of Sri Lanka.

Click here to find out more about where we work, how we work and some of the key issues Oxfam addresses in our global programs.

For an in depth analysis of what we mean by "active citizenship" take a look at Oxfam's highly regarded book, From Poverty To Power: How Active Citizens And Effective States Can Change The World