Who is Olga Bianchi?

She was born on 11 of December in 1924 in Argentina, and lived in Chile and later in Costa Rica.  She is known internationally for her leadership in the resistance to the Pinochet dictatorship that exiled her in 1975, moving to Costa Rica with her young children.  In Costa Rica in 1983 she joined Centro de Amigos por la Paz, and later WILPF, which had been founded by Quaker Erna Castro (now deceased), to promote peace, social justice and a healthy environment. Olguita was a member of the Board of Directors of Amnesty International Costa Rica, founder of the local Human Rights Commission, and to date is a member of its Board.  She has been vice president of WILPF Latin America during two time periods, and has represented WILPF at the United Nations in Geneva.  She created the Film Department of the Minister of Culture, Youth and Sports, and has been a translator, professor and pacifist.

 

Who are the Butterfliers?

“Butterfliers” constitute a wing of the Wings of the Butterfly Project which aims to recognize and make visible women whose contributions need to be rendered visible.   

For this Project, “Butterfliers” are those women with whom we find resonance in the feminist struggles for a world where our worlds, our lives, our rights, our inputs and our untamed voices can have a dignified place.

“Butterfliers” are the women who stand out in the struggle for gender justice, in the processes of democratization of our societies against the abuse of power, denial of our rights and invisibilisation of the women’s contributions.

“Butterfliers” are those women that excel in this contribution while promoting feminist alternatives towards an inclusive world of social justice, equeality and a healthy planet by also challenging, with other actors, the paradigms of domination and exclusion.  

Among the  “Butterfliers” during these two years of the construction of Wings of the Butterfly we have rescued the Mirabal Sisters -  María Teresa, Minerva y Patria – assassinated the 25th. November following orders of the Trujillo dictatorship in the Dominican Republic .  Since 1981, their death became the symbol of the International Day of “No More Violence Against Women”. They challenged the dictatorship which abused their most basic  rights and tried to force them to refrain from stating the atrocities due to the disproportionate  and brutal power exerted by the State.

While they were in jail, people who identified with the Mirabal sisters and their struggles held up butterflies symbols outside the prison windows so that they would know they were not alone.