2008 Woodie Awards
Nobel Prize recipient speaks on survival
Courtney Roberts
Issue date: 9/5/08 Section: SPORTS
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"I remember the feeling of people having watched me hop to the edge of the pool, and then when I dove in, the feeling of not having my foot for the first time underwater was sort of sad but interesting," he said.
Students and faculty packed the Silver Eagle Suite Thursday afternoon as White related his experiences and signed copies of his book "I Will Not Be Broken: Five Steps to Overcoming a Life Crisis" for EncoUNTers, NT's international speaker series that brings in one speaker per semester to promote cross-cultural understanding on campus.
"His life work is transforming victims into survivors," said Earl Gibbons, vice provost of academic affairs and assistant vice president of international education. "I am proud that EncoUNTers has become a UNT tradition."
Guest speaker White is a global activist and cofounder of Survivor Corps, formerly Landmine Survivors Network, as well as a recognized leader in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and a corecipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.
"Survivor Corps is a global movement of people helping people to overcome the effects and consequences of war and violence," he said. "To me, survivorship is a way of life - a way of living positively and dynamically in the face of death."
Since his accident, White has dedicated his life not only to addressing the root causes of violence and armed conflict around the world, but also to giving people the tools to rise above tragedy and give back to their communities.
"Eighty percent of those affected by conflict are civilians," said Scott Quiltly, an Army captain who lost his arm and leg to an improvised explosive device while in service in the Sunni Triangle, a heavily populated and volatile region of Iraq.
In his book, White addresses the five steps to survivorship: face facts, choose life, reach out, get moving and give back.
He recounted experiences ranging from meeting a desperate woman who had lost her husband to a land mine to a young boy wanting to be a photographer despite losing his hands.
Carlos Fiol, a graduate student and Plano East Senior High School teacher who was in the army rotation with NATO as a part of the stabilization force, could relate to White's speech.
"When I went to Bosnia in 2000, there were land mines everywhere," he said. "I wanted to see if anything had changed since I was there eight years ago."
White encouraged listeners to rise above and grow from their experiences.
"His Holiness the Dalai Lama once said to me that you have to de-mine your own heart before you can de-mine the world," he said. "Violence is external to ourselves, but it is internal as well."
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