Pro-Peace and Anti-War Education

Wale Adeboye holds a PhD degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria with specialization on the Boko Haram Insurgency, military operations and human security. He was in Thailand in 2019 as a Rotary Peace fellow and studied the Shan State conflicts of Myanmar and the Mindanao Peace process in the Philippines. Since 2016, Adeboye has been a Global Peace Index Ambassador of the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) and is West Africa focal representative in the Africa Working Group of the Global Action Against Mass Atrocities (GAMAAC). Prior to GAAMAC assignment, Adeboye founded the West Africa Responsibility to Protect Coalition (WAC-R2P), an independent think tank on issues of human security and responsibility to protect (R2P). Adeboye worked in the past as a journalist and has been a policy analyst, project coordinator, and researcher contributing to the US Department of Defense; The United Nations Office to the African Union (UNOAU), Global Centre For Responsibility to Protect, PeaceDirect, West Africa Network for Peacebuilding, Institute for Economics & Peace; Rotary International and the Budapest Center for Atrocities Prevention. Through UNDP and the Stanley Foundation, Adeboye in 2005 contributed to two key policy documents in Africa- ‘Framing the Development Solutions to Radicalization in Africa’ and ‘Taking Stock of the Responsibility to Protect in Africa.

Tom Baker has 40 years of experience as a teacher and school leader in Idaho, Washington State, and internationally in Finland, Tanzania, Thailand, Norway, and Egypt, where he was the Deputy Head of School at International School Bangkok and Head of School at Oslo International School in Oslo, Norway and at Schutz American School in Alexandria, Egypt. He is now retired and live in Arvada, Colorado.  He is passionate about youth leadership development, peace education, and service-learning. A Rotarian since 2014 in Golden, Colorado and Alexandria, Egypt, he has served as his club’s International Service Committee Chair, Youth Exchange Officer, and Club President, as well as a member of the District 5450 Peace Committee. He is also an Institute for Economic and Peace (IEP) Activator. One of his favorite quotes about peacebuilding, by Jana Stanfield, states, “I cannot do all the good that the world needs. But the world needs what I can do.” There are so many needs in this world and the world needs what you can and will do!

Siana Bangura is Board Member of World BEYOND War. She is a writer, producer, performer and community organiser hailing from South East London, now living, working, and creating between London and the West Midlands, UK. Siana is the founder and former editor of Black British Feminist platform, No Fly on the WALL; she is the author of poetry collection, ‘Elephant’; and the producer of ‘1500 & Counting’, a documentary film investigating deaths in custody and police brutality in the UK and the founder of Courageous Films. Siana works and campaigns on issues of race, class, and gender and their intersections and is currently working on projects focusing on climate change, the arms trade, and state violence. Her recent works include the short film ‘Denim’ and the play, ‘Layila!’. She was an artist-in-residence at the Birmingham Rep Theatre throughout 2019, a Jerwood supported artist throughout 2020, and is the co-host of ‘Behind the Curtains’ podcast, produced in partnership with English Touring Theatre (ETT) and host of ‘People Not War’ podcast, produced in partnership with Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), where she was formerly a campaigner and co-ordinator. Siana is currently a producer at Catalyst, co-creating networks & ecosystems and Head of Phoenix Education‘s Changemakers Lab. She is also a workshop facilitator, public speaking trainer, and social commentator. Her work has been featured in mainstream and alternative publications such as The Guardian, The Metro, Evening Standard, Black Ballad, Consented, Green European Journal, The Fader, and Dazed as well as the ‘Loud Black Girls’ anthology, presented by Slay In Your Lane. Her past television appearances include the BBC, Channel 4, Sky TV, ITV and Jamelia’s ‘The Table’. Across her vast portfolio of work, Siana’s mission is to help move marginalised voices from the margins, to the centre. More at: sianabangura.com | @sianaarrgh | linktr.ee/sianaarrgh

Leah Bolger was Board President of World BEYOND War from 2014 until March 2022. She is based in Oregon and California in the United States and in Ecuador. Leah retired in 2000 from the U.S. Navy at the rank of Commander after twenty years of active duty service. Her career included duty stations in Iceland, Bermuda, Japan and Tunisia and in 1997, was chosen to be the Navy Military Fellow at the MIT Security Studies program. Leah received an MA in National Security and Strategic Affairs from the Naval War College in 1994. After retirement, she became very active in Veterans For Peace, including election as the first woman national president in 2012. Later that year, she was part of a 20-person delegation to Pakistan to meet with the victims of U.S. drones strikes. She is the creator and coordinator of the “Drones Quilt Project,” a traveling exhibit which serves to educate the public, and recognize the victims of U.S. combat drones. In 2013 she was selected to present the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Memorial Peace Lecture at Oregon State University.

Cynthia Brain is a Senior Program Manager at the Ethiopian Institute of Peace in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, as well as independent human rights and peacebuilding consultant. As a peacebuilding and human rights specialist, Cynthia has almost six years of experience implementing various programs and projects in the U.S. and across Africa related to social inequality, injustices, and cross-cultural communication. Her program portfolio includes international terrorism education aimed to increase students’ awareness of terrorism types, capacity building training for women to improve women’s rights advocacy on university campuses, educational programs aimed to educate female students on the harmful effects of female genital mutilation, and provided human rights education training to improve students’ knowledge of the international human right systems and legal infrastructure. Cynthia has moderated peacebuilding intercultural exchanges to enhance students’ intercultural knowledge-sharing techniques. Her research projects include conducting quantitative research on female sexual health education in Sub-Sahara Africa and a correlational study on the influence of personality types on perceived terrorism threats. Cynthia’s 2021-2022 publication topics include international legal research and analysis on children’s right to a healthy environment and the United Nation’s implementation of the Peacebuilding and Sustaining Peace Agenda at the local level in Sudan, Somalia, and Mozambique. Cynthia has two Bachelor of Arts degrees in Global Affairs and Psychology from Chestnut Hill College in the United States and holds an LLM in Human Rights from the University of Edinburgh in the UK.

Ellis Brooks is the Peace Education Coordinator for Quakers in Britain. Ellis developed a passion for peace and justice accompanying people in Palestine in nonviolent action, pursuing activism in the UK with Amnesty International. He has worked as a secondary school teacher, and with Oxfam, RESULTS UK, Peacemakers and CRESST. Trained in mediation and restorative practice, Ellis has worked extensively in UK school training staff and young people in conflict resolution, active citizenship and nonviolence. He has also delivered training internationally with nonviolent activists in Afghanistan, Peace Boat and and the Quaker Council for European Affairs. In his current role, Ellis delivers training and creates resources as well as campaigning for peace education in Britain, challenging militarism and cultural violence in the education system. Much of this work involves supporting networks and movements. Ellis chairs the Peer Mediation Working Group for the Civil Mediation Council and represent Quakers in the Peace Education Network, Our Shared World and IDEAS.

Lucia Centellas is a Member of the Board of World BEYOND War based in Bolivia. She is a multilateral diplomacy, and arms control governance activist, founder, and executive dedicated to disarmament and non-proliferation. Responsible for including the Plurinational State of Bolivia in the first 50 countries to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). Member of the coalition honored with the Nobel Peace Prize 2017, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Member of the lobbying team of the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) to advance Gender aspects during the negotiations of the Programme of Action on Small Arms at the United Nations. Honored with inclusion in the publications Forces of Change IV (2020) and Forces of Change III (2017) by the United Nations Regional Centre for Peace, Disarmament, and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean (UNLIREC).

Dr Michael Chew is a sustainability educator, community cultural development practitioner, and photographer/designer with degrees in participatory design, social ecology, art photography, humanities and mathematical physics. He has a background in community-based sustainability programs in NGO and local government sectors and is passionate about the potential for creativity to empower and connect communities across cultural, economic and geographic divides. He co-founded the Melbourne Environmental Arts Festival in 2004, a multi-venue community arts festival, and has since coordinated various social and environmentally focused creative youth projects. He developed his international perspectives from involvement in grassroots global solidarity initiatives: co-founding the NGO Friends of Kolkata to coordinate international volunteer programs and teach photovoice; working in Bangladesh on community-based climate adaptation; and co-founding the Friends of Bangladesh group to continue climate justice solidarity activities. He has just finished a design based action-research PhD exploring how participatory photography can inspire youth environmental behaviour change across cities in Bangladesh, China and Australia, and is now developing a freelance consultancy practice.

Dr. Serena Clark works as a postdoctoral researcher at Maynooth University and is a research consultant for the International Organization of Migration, United Nations. She holds a doctorate in international peace studies and conflict resolution from Trinity College Dublin, where she was a Rotary International Global Peace Scholar and Trinity College Dublin Postgraduate Fellow. Serena has extensive experience researching conflictual and post-conflict areas, such as the Middle East and Northern Ireland and teaches courses on conflict and conflict resolution. She has published on topics related to immigration policy, the use of visual methods to measure peace processes in post-conflict areas and migration crises, the impact of COVID-19 on peacebuilding, and the pandemic’s impact on gender inequality. Her research interests include post-conflict reconstruction, peacebuilding, displaced populations, and visual methodologies.

Charlotte Dennett is a former Middle East reporter, investigative journalist, and attorney. She is the co-author of Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil. She is the author of The Crash of Flight 3804: A Lost Spy, A Daughter’s Quest, and the Deadly Politics of the Great Game for Oil.

Eva Czermak, MD, E.MA. is a trained physician, has a Master’s degree in Human Rights and is Rotary Peace Fellow besides being a trained mediator. In the last 20 years she has mainly worked as medical doctor with marginalized groups such as refugees, migrants, homeless people, people with substance abuse problems and without health insurance, 9 of those years as manager of an NGO. Currently she works for the Austrian ombudsman and for Caritas’ aid projects in Burundi. Other experiences include participation in dialogue projects in the US, international experience in the development and humanitarian fields (Burundi and Sudan) and several training activities in the medical, communication and human rights fields.

Mary Dean is formerly Organizer at World Beyond War. She worked previously for various social justice and antiwar organizations, including leading delegations to Afghanistan, Guatemala, and Cuba. Mary also traveled on human rights delegations to several other war zones, and has done volunteer accompaniment in Honduras. In addition she worked as a paralegal for prisoner rights, including initiating a bill in Illinois to limit solitary confinement. In the past, Mary spent six months in federal prison for nonviolently protesting the U.S. Army School of the Americas, or School of Assassins as it is commonly known in Latin America. Her other experience involves organizing various nonviolent direct actions, and going to jail a number of times for civil disobedience to protest nuclear weapons, end torture and war, close down Guantanamo, and walk for peace with 300 international activists in Palestine and Israel. She also walked 500 miles to protest war from Chicago to the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis in 2008 with Voices for Creative Nonviolence. Mary Dean is based in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.

Robert Fantina is a Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. He is based in Canada. Bob is an activist and journalist, working for peace and social justice. He writes extensively about the oppression of the Palestinians by apartheid Israel. He is the author of several books, including ‘Empire, Racism and Genocide: A History of U.S. Foreign Policy’. His writing appears regularly on Counterpunch.org, MintPressNews and several other sites. Originally from the U.S., Mr. Fantina moved to Canada following the 2004 U.S. presidential election, and now resides in Kitchener, Ontario.

Donna-Marie Fry is a Member of the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War. She is from the UK and based in Spain. Donna is a passionate educator with over 13 years of experience learning with young people in formal and non-formal education settings in the UK, Spain, Myanmar, and Thailand. She has studied Primary Education and Reconciliation and Peacebuilding at the University of Winchester, and Peace Education: Theory and Practice at UPEACE. Working for and volunteering within Non-Profit and Non-Governmental Organizations in education and peace education for more than a decade, Donna feels strongly that children and youth hold the key to sustainable peace and development.

Elizabeth Gamarra is a TEDx speaker, Fulbrighter at Instituto Empresa (IE) University in Madrid, and former World Rotary Peace Fellow at International Christian University (ICU). She has a double Masters in the field of Mental Health (U.S) and Peace and Conflict Studies (Japan) which has permitted her to work as a therapist and mediator with refugee and indigenous communities from the U.S, as well as engage in nonprofit work in Latin America. At age 14, she founded “generations of legacies” which is an initiative focused on educational empowerment. After completing her graduate-level studies at the record age of 19, she continued to grow this initiative from abroad. She has worked closely with Amnesty International USA, the Center of Migration and Refugee Integration, the Global Peacebuilding of Japan, Mediators Beyond Borders International (MBBI) and currently, working with the Tokyo Office Academic Council of the United Nations Systems (ACUNS) as the Tokyo Liaison Officer. She is also a MEXT Researcher with the Japanese Government. She is the former recipient of the 2020 TUMI USA National Award, the Martin Luther King Drum Major Award, Young Philanthropy Award, the Diversity and Equity University Award among others. Currently, she sits in the GPAJ Board of Directors and is a Board of Trustees for Pax Natura International. Recently, she has been part of helping start “RadioNatura,” a unique multilingual podcast on peace and nature.

Henrique Garbino is currently a Doctoral Student at the Swedish Defence University (2021-). He is mainly interested in bridging theory and practice in the fields of in mine action, peace operations, and civil-military relations. His dissertation focuses on the use of landmines and other explosive devices by non-state armed groups. As a combat engineer officer in the Brazilian Army (2006-2017), Henrique specialised in explosive ordnance disposal, civil-military coordination, and training and education; in contexts as diverse as border control, counter-trafficking and United Nations peace operations. He was deployed internally in the border between Brazil and Paraguay (2011-2013) and in Rio de Janeiro (2014), as well as externally to the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (2013-2014). Later, he joined the Brazilian Peace Operations Joint Training Center (2015-2017), where he served as an instructor and course coordinator. In the humanitarian and development sector, Henrique supported the mine action programmes in Tajikistan and Ukraine as a Rotary Peace Fellow (2018); and later joined the International Committee of the Red Cross as a Weapon Contamination Delegate in Eastern Ukraine (2019-2020). Henrique holds a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies Master’s Programme from Uppsala University (2019); a Postgraduate Certificate in Military History from the University of South Catarina (2016), and a bachelor’s degree in Military Sciences from the Military Academy of Agulhas Negras (2010).

Phill Gittins, PhD, is World BEYOND War’s Education Director. He is from the UK and based in Bolivia. Dr. Phill Gittins has over 20 years of leadership, programming, and analysis experience in the areas of peace, education, youth and community development, and psychotherapy. He has lived, worked, and travelled in over 55 countries across 6 continents; taught in schools, colleges, and universities around the world; and trained thousands on peace and social change-related issues. Other experience includes work in youth offending prisons; oversight management for research and activism projects; and consultancy assignments for public and non-profit organisations. Phill has received multiple awards for his work, including a Rotary Peace Fellowship, KAICIID Fellowship, and Kathryn Davis Fellow for Peace. He is also a Positive Peace Activator and Global Peace Index Ambassador for the Institute for Economics and Peace. He earned his PhD in International Conflict Analysis, MA in Education, and BA in Youth and Community Studies. He also holds postgraduate qualifications in Peace and Conflict Studies, Education and Training, and Teaching in Higher Education, and is a qualified counsellor and psychotherapist as well as certified Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner and project manager. Phill can be reached at phill@worldbeyondwar.org

Yasmin Natalia Espinoza Goecke. I’m a Chilean-German citizen currently residing in Vienna, Austria. I have been educated in political science and hold a Master’s degree in Politics and International Relations, specializing in peace and conflict studies from Uppsala University in Sweden. I have a broad experience working in the field of human rights, disarmament, arms control, and nuclear non-proliferation. This work includes my engagement in several research and advocacy projects concerning inhumane weapons and the conventional arms trade. I have also participated in several international diplomatic processes related to international arms control and disarmament. Regarding firearms and other conventional arms, I carried out various research and writing assignments and coordinated advocacy actions. In 2011, I drafted the chapter on Chile for a publication developed by the Coalicion Latino Americana para la Prevencion de la Violencia Armada known as “CLAVE” (the Latin-American Coalition for the Prevention of Armed Violence). The title of that publication is Matriz de diagnóstico nacional en materia de legislación y acciones con respecto de Armas de fuego y Municiones” (Matrix Diagnosis in National Legislation and Actions regarding Firearms and Ammunition). In addition, I coordinated the Military, Security and Police program work (MSP) in Amnesty International Chile, conducting high level advocacy with officials in Chile and at the Arms Trade Treaty Preparatory Committee in New York (2011), and at the Cartagena Small Arms Action Plan Seminar (2010). More recently I wrote a paper entitled “Children Using Guns Against Children” published by IANSA. (The International Action Network on Small Arms). Regarding the prohibition of inhuman weapons, I participated in the Santiago Conference on Cluster Munitions (2010) and also the Meeting of States Parties to the Convention on Cluster Munitions (2010), Between 2011 and 2012, I served as a researcher for the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor. As part of my role, I provided updated information on Chile with respect to cluster munitions and landmine ban policy and practice. I provided official information on measures that the government of Chile took to implement the Convention, such as national legislation. That information included Chile’s previous cluster munitions exports, including the models, types, and destination countries, as well as areas cleared of landmines by Chile. In 2017, I was named a Global Peace Index Ambassador by the Institute for Economic and Peace, based in Australia, with offices in Brussels, the Hague, New York and Mexico. As part of my role, I gave annual lectures on international peace issues in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022 at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. The lectures were focusing on the Global Peace Index as well as report on Positive Peace.

Jim Halderman has taught court ordered, company ordered, and spousal ordered, clients for 26 years in anger and conflict management. He is certified with National Curriculum Training Institute, the leader in the field of Cognitive Behavioral Change Programs, personality profiles, NLP, and other learning tools. College brought studies in science, music, and philosophy. He has trained in prisons with Alternative to Violence Programs teaching communication, anger management, and life skills for five years prior to the closure. Jim is also treasurer and on the board of Stout Street Foundation, Colorado’s largest drug and alcohol rehab facility. After extensive research, in 2002 he spoke against the Iraq war in several venues. In 2007, after yet more research, he taught a 16-hour class covering “The Essence of War”. Jim is thankful for the depth of materials World BEYOND War brings to all. His background includes many successful years in the retail industry, along with an avocation in music and theatre. Jim has been a Rotarian since 1991, serves as the Ombudsman for District 5450 where he also serves as the Peace Committee chair He was one of 26 in the US and Canada to be trained in the new peace endeavor of Rotary International and the Institute of Economics and Peace. He trained for PETS and at Zone for eight years. Jim, and his Rotarian wife Peggy, are Major Donors and members of the Bequest Society. A recipient of Rotary International’s Service Above Self Award in 2020 his passion is to work with Rotarian’s effort to bring peace to all.

Farrah Hasnain is an American writer and researcher based in Tokyo, Japan. She is a contributing writer for The Japan Times and has been featured with Al-Jazeera, The New York Times, The National UAE, and NHK. Since 2016, she has conducted ethnographic research on Brazilian Nikkei communities in Japan.

Patrick Hiller is a Member of the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War and a former Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. Patrick is a peace scientist who is committed in his personal and professional life to create a world beyond war. He is the Executive Director of the War Prevention Initiative by the Jubitz Family Foundation and teaches conflict resolution at Portland State University. He is actively involved in publishing book chapters, academic articles and newspaper op-eds. His work is almost exclusively related to the analysis of war and peace and social injustice and advocacy for nonviolent conflict transformation approaches. He studied and worked on those topics while living in Germany, Mexico and the United States. He talks regularly at conferences and other venues about the “The Evolution of a Global Peace System” and produced a short documentary with the same name.

Raymond Hyma is Canadian peacebuilder who has spent much of his career working in Cambodia, as well as throughout Asia, Latin America,and North America in research, policy, and practice. A practitioner of conflict transformation approaches, he is the co-developer of Facilitative Listening Design (FLD), an information-gathering methodology that directly involves community in all stages of action research planning and implementation to explore underlying conflict and negative sentiment. Hyma is a recent graduate of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Program at the East-West Center in Hawai’i and a two-time Rotary Peace Fellow awardee holding a Master’s Degree in International Relations from the Universidad del Salvador in Argentina and a Professional Development Certificate in Peace and Conflict Studies from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. He is a forthcoming PhD student at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago in New Zealand.

Rukmini Iyer is a leadership and organization development consultant and a peacebuilder. She runs a consulting practice called Exult! Solutions based in Mumbai, India and has been working with clients around the world for over two decades. While her work straddles the corporate, educational and development spaces, she finds the idea of eco-centric living a common thread that binds them all. Facilitation, coaching and dialogue are the core modalities she works with and she is trained in a variety of approaches including human process work, trauma science, non-violent communication, appreciative inquiry, neuro linguistic programming, etc. In the peacebuilding space, interfaith work, peace education and dialogue are her main areas of focus. She also teaches interfaith mediation and conflict resolution at Maharashtra National Law University, India. Rukmini is a Rotary Peace Fellow from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand and has Master’s degrees in Organizational Psychology and Management. Her publications include ‘A Culturally Sensitive Approach to Engage Contemporary Corporate India in Peacebuilding’ and ‘An Inner Journey of Casteism’. She can be reached at rukmini@exult-solutions.com.

Foad Izadi is a Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. He is based in Iran. Izadi’s research and teaching interests are interdisciplinary and focus on United States-Iran relations and U.S. public diplomacy. His book, United States Public Diplomacy Towards Iran, discusses the United States communication efforts in Iran during the George W. Bush and Obama administrations. Izadi has published numerous studies in national and international academic journals and major handbooks, including: Journal of Communication Inquiry, Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy and Edward Elgar Handbook of Cultural Security. Dr. Foad Izadi is an associate professor at the Department of American Studies, Faculty of World Studies, University of Tehran, where he teaches M.A. and Ph.D. courses in American studies. Izadi received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University. He earned a B.S. in Economics and an M.A. in Mass Communication from University of Houston. Izadi has been a political commentator on CNN, RT (Russia Today), CCTV, Press TV, Sky News, ITV News, Al Jazeera, Euronews, IRIB, France 24, TRT World, NPR, and other international media outlets. He has been quoted in many publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, China Daily, The Tehran Times, The Toronto Star, El Mundo, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The New Yorker, and Newsweek.

Tony Jenkins is a Member of the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War and a former Education Director of World BEYOND War. Tony Jenkins, PhD, has 15+ years of experience directing and designing peacebuilding and international educational programs and projects and leadership in the international development of peace studies and peace education. He is a former Education Director of World BEYOND War. Since 2001 he has served as the Managing Director of the International Institute on Peace Education (IIPE) and since 2007 as the Coordinator of the Global Campaign for Peace Education (GCPE). Professionally, he has been: Director, Peace Education Initiative at The University of Toledo (2014-16); Vice President for Academic Affairs, National Peace Academy (2009-2014); and Co-Director, Peace Education Center, Teachers College Columbia University (2001-2010). In 2014-15, Tony served as a member of UNESCO’s Experts Advisory Group on Global Citizenship Education. Tony’s applied research has focused on examining the impacts and effectiveness of peace education methods and pedagogies in nurturing personal, social and political change and transformation. He is also interested in formal and non-formal educational design and development with special interest in teacher training, alternative security systems, disarmament, and gender.

Kathy Kelly has been President of the Board of World BEYOND War since March 2022, prior to which time she served as a member of the Advisory Board. She is based in the United States, but is often elsewhere. Kathy is WBW’s second Board President, taking over for Leah Bolger. Kathy’s efforts to end wars have led her to living in war zones and prisons over the past 35 years. In 2009 and 2010, Kathy was part of two Voices for Creative Nonviolence delegations which visited Pakistan to learn more about the consequences of U.S. drone attacks. From 2010 – 2019, the group organized dozens of delegations to visit Afghanistan, where they continued learning about casualties of U.S. drone attacks. Voices also helped organize protests at U.S. military bases operating weaponized drone attacks. She is now a co-coordinator of the Ban Killer Drones campaign.

Spencer Leung. Born and raised in Hong Kong, Spencer is based in Bangkok, Thailand. In 2015, graduating from the Rotary Peace Fellowship Program, Spencer set up a social enterprise, GO Organics, in Thailand, focusing on supporting smallholder farmers in moving them towards sustainable organic farming. The social enterprise works with hotels, restaurants, families, individuals, and other social enterprises and NGOs, in creating an effective market place for farmers in selling their organic produce. In 2020, Spencer founded GO Organics Peace International, a not-for-profit organization in Hong Kong, promoting peace education and sustainable, regenerative agriculture across Asia.

Tamara Lorincz is a Member of the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War. She is based in Canada. Tamara Lorincz is a PhD student in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs (Wilfrid Laurier University). Tamara graduated with an MA in International Politics & Security Studies from the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom in 2015. She was awarded the Rotary International World Peace Fellowship and was a senior researcher for the International Peace Bureau in Switzerland. Tamara is currently on the board of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and the international advisory committee of Global Network Against Nuclear Power and Weapons in Space. She is a member of the Canadian Pugwash Group and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Tamara was a co-founding member of the Vancouver Island Peace and Disarmament Network in 2016. Tamara has an LLB/JSD and MBA specializing in environmental law and management from Dalhousie University. She is the former Executive Director of the Nova Scotia Environmental Network and co-founder of the East Coast Environmental Law Association. Her research interests are the military’s impacts on the environment and climate change, the intersection of peace and security, gender and international relations, and military sexual violence.

Marjan Nahavandi is an Iranian-American who grew up in Iran during the war with Iraq.  She left Iran one day after the “ceasefire” to pursue her education in the U.S. After 9/11 and the ensuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Marjan curtailed her studies to join the pool of aid-workers in Afghanistan. Since 2005, Marjan has lived and worked in Afghanistan hoping to “fix” what the decades of war had broken. She worked with government, non-government, and even military actors to address the needs of the most vulnerable Afghans across the country. She has seen the destruction of war firsthand and is concerned that shortsighted and poor policy decisions of most powerful world leaders will continue to result in more destruction.   Marjan holds a Masters in Islamic Studies and is currently based in Portugal trying to make her way back to Afghanistan.

Helen Peacock is Rotary’s Coordinator for Mutually Assured Survival. She led the inspiring campaigns, in 2021 and 2022, to build grassroots support within Rotary for a Resolution asking Rotary International to endorse the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. And she has personally spoken to Rotary Clubs in over 40 Districts, on every continent, about Rotary’s potential, if committed to both Positive Peace AND Ending War, to be the “Tipping Point” in shifting our planet toward Peace. Helen is Co-Chair of the new Rotary education program Ending War 101, developed in collaboration with World Beyond War (WBW). She served as Peace Chair for D7010 and is now a member of WE Rotary for International Peace. Helen’s peace activism extends well beyond Rotary. She is the founder of Pivot2Peace a local peace group in Collingwood Ontario which is part of the Canada-wide Peace and Justice Network; she is a Chapter Coordinator for WBW; and she is a member of Enlightened Leaders for Mutually Assured Survival (ELMAS) a small think tank working to support the mission of the United Nations. Helen’s interest in Peace – both Inner Peace and World Peace – has been part of her life since her early twenties. She has studied Buddhism for over forty years, and Vipassana meditation for ten. Prior to full-time peace activism Helen was a Computer Executive (BSc Math & Physics; MSc Computer Science) and a Management Consultant specializing in Leadership and Teambuilding for corporate groups. She considers herself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel to 114 countries.

Emma Pike is a peace educator, a specialist in global citizenship education, and a determined advocate for a world free of nuclear weapons. She is a firm believer in education as the surest means for building a more peaceful and equitable world for all. Her years of experience in research and academia are supplemented by more recent experience as a classroom teacher, and currently works as an education consultant with Reverse The Trend (RTT), an initiative that amplifies the voices of young people, primarily from frontline communities, who have been directly affected by nuclear weapons and the climate crisis. As an educator, Emma believes that her most important job is to see the vast potential in each of her students, and to guide them in the discovery of this potential. Every child has a super power. As an educator, she knows it is her job to help each student bring their super power to shine. She brings this same approach to RTT through her firm conviction in the power of the individual to effect positive change toward a world free of nuclear weapons. Emma was raised in Japan and the United States, and has spent much of her academic career in the United Kingdom. She holds a Master of Arts in International Relations from the University of St Andrews, a Master of Arts in Development Education and Global Learning from the UCL (University College London) Institute of Education, and a Master of Education in Peace and Human Rights Education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Tim Pluta describes his path to peace activism as a slow realization that this is a part of what he ought to be doing in life. After standing up to a bully as a young teen, then getting beaten up and asking his attacker if he felt better, having a gun pushed up his nose as an exchange student in a foreign country and talking his way out of the situation, and getting out of the military as a Conscientious Objector, Tim found that the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 finally convinced him that one of his focuses in life would be peace activism. From helping to organize peace rallies, speaking and marching at conferences around the world, co-founding two chapters of Veterans For Peace, the Veterans Global Peace Network, and a World BEYOND War chapter, Tim says that he delights in being invited to help facilitate the first week of World BEYOND War’s War and the Environment, and looks forward to learning. Tim represented World BEYOND War in Glasgow Scotland during COP26.

Katarzyna A. Przybyła. CREATOR and SUPERVISOR of International Peace and Conflict Studies at Collegium Civitas in Warsaw, first such program in Poland and one of very few in Europe.DIRECTOR OF ANALYSIS and SENIOR EDITOR at the analytical center Polityka Insight.Fulbright Scholar 2014-2015 and GMF’s Marshall Memorial Fellow 2017-2018.More than 12 years of professional experience in international affairs, including studying and working overseas. Areas of interest/expertise: critical thinking, peace studies, international conflict analysis/assessment, Russian and American foreign policies, strategic peacebuilding.

John Reuwer is a Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. He is based in Vermont in the United States. He is a retired emergency physician whose practice convinced him of a crying need for alternatives to violence for resolving tough conflicts. This led him to the informal study and teaching of nonviolence for the last 35 years, with peace team field experience in Haiti, Colombia, Central America, Palestine/Israel, and several US inner cities. He worked with the Nonviolent Peaceforce, one of very few organizations practicing professional unarmed civilian peacekeeping, in South Sudan, a nation whose suffering showcases the true nature of war that is so easily hidden from those who still believe war is a necessary part of politics. He currently participates with the DC Peaceteam. As adjunct professor of peace and justice studies at St. Michael’s College in Vermont, Dr. Reuwer taught courses on conflict resolution, both nonviolent action and nonviolent communication. He also works with Physicians for Social Responsibility educating the public and politicians about the threat from nuclear weapons, which he sees as the ultimate expression of the insanity of modern war. John has been a facilitator for World BEYOND War’s online courses “War Abolition 201” and “Leaving World War II Behind.”

Andreas Riemann is a certified Peace and Conflict Consultant, Facilitator of Restorative Practices, and Trauma Counselor with a Master´s Degree in Peace and Reconciliation Studies of the University of Coventry/UK and 25 years of experience in social, peace, conflict, and development work and training. He has a strong capacity for critical thinking, strategic planning, and problem-solving. He is a great team player and uses intercultural competence, gender and conflict sensitivity, strong communication skills, and holistic thinking in decision-making processes.

Sakura Saunders is a Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. She is based in Canada. Sakura is an environmental justice organizer, Indigenous solidarity activist, arts educator and media producer. She is a co-founder of the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network and a member of the Beehive Design Collective. Before coming to Canada, she worked primarily as a media activist, serving as an editor for Indymedia newspaper “Fault Lines”, program associate with corpwatch.org, and regulatory research coordinator with Prometheus Radio Project. In Canada, she has co-organized several cross-Canada and international tours, as well as several conferences, including being one of the 4 main coordinators for the Peoples’ Social Forum in 2014. She currently resides in Halifax, NS, where she works in solidarity with the Mi’kmaq resisting Alton Gas, is a board member of the Halifax Workers Action Centre, and volunteers at the community arts space, RadStorm.

Susi Snyder is the Nuclear Disarmament Programme Manager for PAX in the Netherlands. Mrs. Snyder is the primary author and coordinator of the Don’t Bank on the Bomb annual report on nuclear weapon producers and the institutions that finance them. She has published numerous other reports and articles, notably the 2015 Dealing with a ban; the 2014 Rotterdam Blast: The immediate humanitarian consequences of a 12 kiloton nuclear explosion, and; the 2011 Withdrawal Issues: What NATO countries say about the future of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. She is an International Steering Group member of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, and a 2016 Nuclear Free Future Award Laureate. Previously, Mrs. Snyder served as the Secretary General of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Yurii Sheliazhenko is a member of the Board of World BEYOND War. He is executive secretary of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement and a board member of the European Bureau for Conscientious Objection. He obtained a Master of Mediation and Conflict Management degree in 2021 and a Master of Laws degree in 2016 at KROK University. In addition to his participation in the peace movement, he is a journalist, blogger, human rights defender, and legal scholar, an author of academic publications and a lecturer on legal theory and history.

Natalia Sineaeva-Pankowska is a sociologist and Holocaust scholar. Her forthcoming Ph.D. dissertation deals with Holocaust distortion and identity in Eastern Europe. Her experience includes work at the POLIN Museum of the History of the Polish Jews in Warsaw as well as cooperation with the Toul Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and other museums and sites of memory in Europe and Asia. She has also worked with organisations monitoring racism and xenophobia such as the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. In 2018, she acted as a Rotary Peace Fellow at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, and an European Holocaust Remembrance Infrastructure Fellow at the Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Bucharest, Romania. She has written widely for academic and non-academic journals including ‘The Holocaust. Studies and Materials’ of the Polish Center for Holocaust Research.

Rachel Small is Canada Organizer for World BEYOND War. She is based in Toronto, Canada, on Dish with One Spoon and Treaty 13 Indigenous territory. Rachel is a community organizer. She has organized within local and international social/environmental justice movements for over a decade, with a special focus on working in solidarity with communities harmed by Canadian extractive industry projects in Latin America. She has also worked on campaigns and mobilizations around climate justice, decolonization, anti-racism, disability justice, and food sovereignty. She has organized in Toronto with the Mining Injustice Solidarity Network and has a Masters in Environmental Studies from York University. She has a background in art-based activism and has facilitated projects in community mural-making, independent publishing and media, spoken word, guerilla theatre, and communal cooking with people of all ages across Canada. She lives downtown with her partner, kid, and friend, and can often be found at a protest or direct action, gardening, spray painting, and playing softball. Rachel can be reached at rachel@worldbeyondwar.org

Rivera Sun is a change-maker, a cultural creative, a protest novelist, and an advocate for nonviolence and social justice. She is the author of The Dandelion Insurrection, The Way Between and other novels. She is the editor of Nonviolence News. Her study guide to making change with nonviolent action is used by activist groups across the country. Her essays and writings are syndicated by Peace Voice, and have appeared in journals nationwide. Rivera Sun attended the James Lawson Institute in 2014 and facilitates workshops in strategy for nonviolent change across the country and internationally. Between 2012-2017, she co-hosted nationally two syndicated radio programs on civil resistance strategies and campaigns. Rivera was the social media director and programs coordinator for Campaign Nonviolence. In all of her work, she connects the dots between the issues, shares solutionary ideas, and inspires people to step up to the challenge of being a part of the story of change in our times. She is a member of World BEYOND War’s Advisory Board.

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is cofounder and executive director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk World Radio. He is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and was awarded the 2018 Peace Prize by the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation. Longer bio and photos and videos here. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook, Longer bio. Sample videos. Areas of focus: Swanson has spoken on all variety of topics related to war and peace. Facebook and Twitter.

Barry Sweeney is a former Member of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War. He is from Ireland and based in Italy and Vietnam. Barry’s background is in education and environmentalism. He taught as a primary school teacher in Ireland for a number of years, before moving to Italy in 2009 to teach English. His love for environmental understanding led him to many progressive projects in Ireland, Italy, and Sweden. He became more and more involved in environmentalism in Ireland, and has now been teaching on a Permaculture Design Certificate course for 5 years. More recent work has seen him teaching on World BEYOND War’s War Abolition course for the last two years. Also, in 2017 and 2018 he organized peace symposia in Ireland, bringing together many of the peace/anti-war groups in Ireland. Barry has been a facilitator for World BEYOND War’s online course “Leaving World War II Behind.”

Brian Terrell is an Iowa based peace activist who has spent more than six months in prison for protesting targeted assassinations at U.S. military drone bases.

Dr Rey Ty is a Member of the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War. He is based in Thailand. Rey is a visiting adjunct faculty member teaching Ph.D.-level courses as well as advising Ph.D.-level research in peacebuilding at Payap University in Thailand.  A social critic and political observer, he has wide experience in academia and practical approaches to peacebuilding, human rights, gender, social ecological, and social justice issues, with a focus on training peace and human rights activists. He is widely published in these topics. As the coordinator for peacebuilding (2016-2020) and human rights advocacy (2016-2018) of the Christian Conference of Asia, he has organized and trained thousands from all over Asia, Australia, and New Zeland on various peacebuilding and human rights issues as well as lobbied before the United Nations in New York, Geneva, and Bangkok, as a representative of  U.N.-recognized international non-governmental organizations (INGOs). As the the training coordinator of the International Training Office of Northern Illinois University from 2004 to 2014, he was involved in training hundreds of Muslims, indigenous peoples, and Christians in interfaith dialogue, conflict resolution, civic engagement, leadership, strategic planning, programme planning, and community development. Rey has a Master’s degree in Political Science Asian Studies specialization from the University of California at Berkeley as well as another Master’s degree in Political Science and a doctorate in education with cognate in Political Science and specialization in Southeast Asian studies from Northern Illinois University.

Deniz Vural has been fascinated by frozen and pristine environments ever since she could remember and thus, the poles become the most relevant regions for her to concentrate her efforts. During the bachelor’s degree in Marine Engineering, and after the internship as an engine cadet, Deniz had focused on polar code requirements for ships for the Bachelor thesis, where she first became aware of the vulnerability of the Arctic to climate variability. Eventually, her aim as a global citizen was to be part of the solution to the climate crisis. Despite the positive impacts of Marine Engineering, such as improving engine efficiency, she did not feel that taking part in the shipping industry was not coherent with her personal views on environmental protection, which led her to switch the career path for her Master’s program. Studying in Geological Engineering brought a middle ground between Deniz’s interest in engineering and the environment. Deniz both studied at Istanbul Technical University and also has accomplished the lectures in Geosciences during her mobility at the University of Potsdam. In detail, Deniz is an MSc candidate in permafrost research, focusing on the investigation of abrupt permafrost thaw features, especially thermokarst lakes in lowland settings, and better understanding its relationship with the permafrost-carbon feedback cycle. As a professional, Deniz is working as a researcher in the Education and Outreach department at the Polar Research Institute (PRI) at The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) and helped conduct project writing on the H2020 Green Deal, which applies citizen science approaches to illustrate the effects of climate change on polar regions and communicate those impacts to a general audience to foster sustainable-living, is improving middle and high school-level curriculum and presentations to explain the relationship polar ecosystems associated with climate change, as well as is preparing the activities both on raising the awareness on polar-climate topics, and on encouraging to diminish individual footprints such as CO2 in an environmentally- friendly manner. In harmony with her profession, Deniz has been involved in various non-governmental organizations associated with protecting the marine environment/wildlife and fostering environmental sustainability, and leading several activities to increase individual engagement, contributing to other organizations such as Rotary International. Deniz is part of the Rotary family since 2009 and has taken part in many projects in different capacities (e.g. workshops on water and hygiene, improving the guidebook on green events, collaborating with peace projects, and volunteering in increasing education on health issues, etc.), and is currently active in the board of Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group to spread the peaceful and environmental action not only for Rotary members but also for every individual in the planet Earth.

Stefanie Wesch completed her undergraduate degree in the field of International Relations at Hawai´i Pacific University. She was able to gain initial work experience at the Mission of Afghanistan to the United Nations in New York, where she was active in the First and Third Committee of the General Assembly, as well as writing occasional speeches for Ambassador Tanin. Ms. Wesch managed to further develop her authoring skills between 2012 and 2013 while working at the Bolivian think tank Institute of International Studies (IDEI). Here she wrote about a diverse set of topics, ranging from the Syrian conflict to the Bolivian-Chilean border dispute, from an International Law and Human Rights perspective. Realizing her strong interest in conflict studies, Ms. Wesch obtained her Master´s Degree in Conflict Resolution and Governance at the University of Amsterdam, where she focused on social movements for the purpose of her Master´s thesis. Putting to use her regional focus on the MENA region, during both her graduate and undergraduate studies, at PIK Ms. Wesch is working on the Climate-Conflict-Migration-Nexus in the MENA region and the Sahel. She has undertaken qualitative fieldwork in the regions of Agadez, Niamey and Tillaberie in Niger  in 2018 as well as in Burkina Faso in 2019. Her research in the region has focused on farmer-herder conflicts, specifically causes, prevention and mediation mechanisms and their influence on recruitment into extremist organizations and migration decisions in the Sahel. Ms. Wesch is currently a doctoral researcher and is writing her dissertation on the interaction of climate change and conflict in Central Asia plus Afghanistan for the Green Central Asia Project financed by the German Foreign Ministry.

Abeselom Samson Yosef is a peace, trade, and development nexus senior expert. Currently, he is a member of the Rotary Club of Addis Ababa Bole and serves his club in a different capacity. he is a chair for the Rotary Peace Education Fellowship at DC9212 in the 2022/23 Rotary International physical year. As a member of the National Polio Plus Committee- Ethiopia he recently received the highest recognition for his achievement to end Polio in Africa. He is currently a fellow at the Institute for economics and peace and his peace-building engagements started as a fellow of the Global People leaders Summit at the United Nations General Assembly. in 2018 followed by April 2019 and he engaged with on Harvard University-based Peace First program as an Elder mentor on voluntary. His specialization areas include peace and security, blogging, governance, leadership, migration, human rights, and the environment.

Dr. Hakim Young (Dr. Teck Young, Wee) is a Member of the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War. He is based in Singapore. Hakim is a medical doctor from Singapore who has done humanitarian and social enterprise work in Afghanistan for more than 10 years, including being a mentor to an inter-ethnic group of young Afghans dedicated to building non-violent alternatives to war. He is the 2012 recipient of the International Pfeffer Peace Prize and the 2017 recipient of the Singapore Medical Association Merit Award for contributions in social service to communities.

Salma Yusuf is a Member of the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War. She is based in Sri Lanka. Salma is a Sri Lankan Lawyer and a Global Human Rights, Peace-building and Transitional Justice Consultant providing services to organizations at the international, regional, and national levels including to governments, multilateral and bilateral agencies, international and national civil society, non-governmental organizations, regional and national institutions. She has served in multiple roles and capacities from being a Civil Society activist nationally and internationally, a University Lecturer and Researcher, a Journalist and Opinion Columnist, and most recently a Public Official of the Government of Sri Lanka where she led the process of drafting and developing of Sri Lanka’s first National Policy on Reconciliation which is the first in Asia. She has published extensively in scholarly journals including at the Seattle Journal of Social Justice, Sri Lanka Journal of International Law, Frontiers of Legal Research, American Journal of Social Welfare and Human Rights, Journal of Human Rights in the Commonwealth, International Affairs Review, Harvard Asia Quarterly and The Diplomat. Hailing from a “triple minority” background – namely, ethnic, religious and linguistic minority communities – Salma Yusuf has translated her heritage into professional acumen by developing a high degree of empathy to grievances, sophisticated and nuanced understanding of challenges, and cross-cultural sensitivity to the aspirations and needs of societies and communities she works with, in the pursuit of the ideals of human rights, law, justice and peace. She is a current sitting Member of the Commonwealth Women Mediators Network. She has a Master of Laws in Public International Law from Queen Mary University of London and a Bachelor of Laws Honours from University of London. She was called to the Bar and has been admitted as an Attorney-at-Law of the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka. She has completed specialized fellowships at University of Toronto, University of Canberra, and American University of Washington.

Greta Zarro is Organizing Director for World BEYOND War. She has a background in issue-based community organizing. Her experience includes volunteer recruitment and engagement, event organizing, coalition building, legislative and media outreach, and public speaking. Greta graduated as valedictorian from St. Michael’s College with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology/Anthropology. She previously worked as New York Organizer for leading non-profit Food & Water Watch. There, she campaigned on issues related to fracking, genetically engineered foods, climate change, and the corporate control of our common resources. Greta and her partner run Unadilla Community Farm, a non-profit organic farm and permaculture education center in Upstate New York. Greta can be reached at greta@worldbeyondwar.org.