Speakers

Chiara Anfuso is a young peacebuilder and activist from Italy, a member and among the founders of the World BEYOND War Youth network (WBWYN), a community for young people, led by young people, with the mission of ending war and establishing a just and sustainable peace by focusing on strengthening the role and impact of youth in war abolition and peace issues. She currently is in her final academic year of a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Organizations (BSc) at the Leiden University. Chiara has a special interest in issues of peace and security, crisis management, international development, and human rights, particularly women and children’s rights. She has worked and taken part in several internships in a variety of non-profits around the world and is a Translators Without Borders and Witness Change volunteer.
Saul Arbess is Co-Founder and was National Co-Chair, 2005-2011, and currently a Director, of the Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures for Peace (GAMIP), representing 50+ country representatives, including 5 countries and one autonomous region with Ministries of Peace. We are working in concert with other countries to form ministries of peace in all nations. He is also a Co-Founder and currently a Director of the Canadian Peace Initiative (CPI). He is Co-Founder of Restorative Justice Victoria. He was a Professor of Anthropology (retired) with faculty positions at several Canadian universities. He specializes in: intercultural education, especially First Nations; rapid social change in the Arctic; and cultural adaptation in the American Southwest. Arbess was Director, First Nations Education, Province of British Columbia, 1976-1983, a period of significant expansion of the program for First Nations students with the direct involvement of that community in all aspects of the program.
Siana Bangura is a writer, producer, performer and community organiser hailing from South East London, now living, working, and creating between London and the West Midlands. 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. 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. Siana is Training & Events Co-ordinator at Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), a UK-based organisation working to end the international arms trade.
Taylor Barnes is a multilingual Atlanta-based investigative journalist who covers militarism, the defense industry, and foreign affairs. Her work has appeared in The Intercept, In These Times, Southerly, Scalawag Magazine, Public Radio International, USA Today, and the New York Times.
Credit: Jalani Morgan

Simon Black is a professor of labour studies at Brock University and founder of Labour Against the Arms Trade, a coalition of peace and labour activists working to end Canada’s participation in the international arms trade. LAAT organizes for arms conversion and a just transition for arms industry workers. @_SimonBlack @LAATCanada
Leah Bolger 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. Currently she serves as the President of the Board of Directors of World BEYOND War.
Robin Brookes has been a war tax resister for the last 18 years. He is a director and committee member of Conscience – Taxes for Peace Not War in England. He is also the chair of Conscience and Peace Tax International, which has consultative status at the UN. In 2003 he joined with six others to challenge the British Government with a judicial review on the right for conscientious objectors to divert their taxes away from military spending. They called themselves the Peace Tax Seven and more about them can be found on Conscience’s website.
Julie Brown is an activist and organizer from the United States. Julie has spent time on teams in Palestine and Iraqi Kurdistan and now serves as the Outreach Coordinator for Christian Peacemaker Teams. Outside of her work, she divides her time between her Catholic Worker Community in Iowa, USA and her family in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Angelo Cardona is a Colombian human rights defender, peace and disarmament activist. He is co-founder and President of the Ibero-American Alliance for Peace, Vice President of Humanity United for Universal Demilitarization, Representative of Latin America in the Council of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Peace Bureau, member of the Advisory Board of World BEYOND War, and leader of Youth Against NATO. In 2019, his work for peace and disarmament earned him the Inspirational Icon Award at the 21st Century Icon Awards in London, England.
Shannon Chief: From the Anishnabe Nation of the Ottawa River Watershed (Algonquin), Wolf clans are known for good memory in carrying indigenous knowledge. Shannon has been involved with the people’s intent to protect the land, animals and traditional way of life with the land, from land defending, to restoring Indigenous Governance, to building a Land Based Curriculum, to Anishnabe Odinewin Camps and taking part in Climate Change discussions in her homelands. Shannon also led and guided a unified written Women’s Declaration at Indigenous Women Against Extractivisim in 2018. Shannon remains loyal to work with the traditional Elders of the Land and offers guidance in shaping PowerShift: Young and Rising.
Pablo Domínguez is an Eco-Anthropologist (BSc in Environmental Biology, Madrid, and PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology, Paris) specialized on pastoral mountain commons. Pablo’s work focuses on how these community-based governance systems holistically work bio-ecologically and socio-culturally, at the same time as he researches ‘about’ and ‘for’ action in favor of the natural and cultural values of these commonal systems. Since he is especially interested on possible paths to support and promote these rural commons and is mostly focused on Mediterranean mountains such as the High Atlas (Morocco), the Andalusian Baetic mountains (Spain), the Pyrenees (France) and the Dinaric Alps (Montenegro), he happened to bump into an outrageous military training ground plan while doing ethnographic research in Sinjajevina, Montenegro, and worked to bring it into international light. In 2019, the government of Montenegro decided to inaugurate a military ground in Sinjajevina with the support of important NATO allies (e.g. USA, Italy, Austria, Slovenia and North Macedonia), apparently unconcerned about the immeasurable damage that this would bring upon its people and ecosystems, and since then Pablo has worked in close collaboration with the Save Sinjajevina association (https://sinjajevina.org/ & https://www.facebook.com/savesinjajevina).
Jodie Evans has been a peace, environmental, women’s rights and social justice activist for over forty-five years. She is the co-founder of CODEPINK that works to stop US Military interventions overseas and promotes diplomatic solutions and Peace. She served in the administration of Governor Jerry Brown and ran his presidential campaigns. She published two books, “Stop the Next War Now” and “Twilight of Empire,” and produced several documentary films, including the Oscar and Emmy-nominated “The Most Dangerous Man in America,” “The Square,” and Naomi Klein’s “This Changes Everything.” She sits on many boards, including 826LA, Rainforest Action Network, Institute for Policy Studies and the California Arts Council.
Anthony Fenton is a PhD candidate in political science at Toronto’s York University who is studying the political economy of Canada’s relations with Gulf Cooperation Council countries, 1945-2021.
Bruce Gagnon is Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. Gagnon has worked on space issues for more than 30 years, first as state coordinator of the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice. Gagnon speaks internationally and has written for publications such as Earth Island Journal, CounterPunch, Z Magazine, Space News, National Catholic Reporter, Asia Times, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Canadian Dimension. He is host of This Issue, a cable TV program that airs in 17 communities in Maine, his home state.
Kelsey Gallagher is a researcher with Project Ploughshares, analyzing Canadian military exports and the broader Canadian arms trade. He is also manager of Project Ploughshares’ database on Canadian military production and exports, the most comprehensive of its kind. He has a MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo, and a BA in Political Science from Western University.
William Geimer is an author, peace activist, a veteran of the U.S. 82d Airborne Division and Professor of Law Emeritus, Washington and Lee University. After resigning his commission in opposition to the war on Vietnam, he represented conscientious objectors and advised peace groups near Ft. Bragg NC, once representing Jane Fonda, Dick Gregory and Donald Sutherland in negotiations with police. A Canadian citizen, he lives with his wife, Elizabeth Bennett, near Victoria, British Columbia where he is chapter coordinator for World BEYOND War Victoria. He is the author of Canada: The Case for Staying Out of Other People’s Wars and served as advisor on policy issues of peace and war to Elizabeth May, Member of Parliament and Leader of the Green Party of Canada. Bill has a special interest in outreach to faith communities on these issues.
Sam Gindin was Research Director for the Canadian Autoworkers (now part of Unifor). He is the co-author with Leo Panitch of The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of the American Empire.
Phill Gittins, PhD, is World BEYOND War’s Education Director. He has 15+ years of programming, analysis, and leadership experience in the areas of peace, education, and youth. He has particular expertise in context-specific approaches to peace programming; peacebuilding education; and youth inclusion in research and action. He holds a PhD in International Conflict Analysis, MA in Education, and BA in Youth and Community Studies. Phill has received multiple awards for his contributions to peace and conflict work, including the Rotary Peace Fellowship.
Petar Glomazić is a graduated aeronautical engineer and aviation consultant, documentary film maker, translator, alpinist and ecological and civic rights activist. He has been working in aviation business for 24 years. In 1996, he also finished RTS School for documentary authors in Belgrade and worked in RTS Educational Program Department. Since 2018 Petar has been working as co-director and associated producer of feature length documentary film “The Last Nomads” which is still in production. The film takes place in Sinjajevina Mountain, the second largest pastureland in Europe and a part of UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. In 2019, the Government of Montenegro has made a stunning decision to inaugurate a military training ground in Sinjajevina. The film follows the shepherd’s community which is struggling to defend the mountain and natural and cultural values of their pastoral common system with the help of activists and various international organizations. The film (project) has been selected for Hot Docs Forum 2021. Petar is a Steering Committee Member of Save Sinjajevina Association. (https://sinjajevina.org/ & https://www.facebook.com/savesinjajevina).
Zelda Grimshaw has been a grassroots activist for earth rights and human rights since her teens. Zelda was an observer at the UN administered ballot on independence in East Timor in 1999 and later worked on the Truth, Acceptance and Reconciliation Commission there. Back in Australia, Zelda has worked with First Nations sovereignty and climate justice campaigns, advocating for Indigenous custodianship and protection of the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest. Zelda was a central figure in establishing the Stop Adani campaign in North Queensland, working to prevent a massive new coal mine on Wangan and Jagalingou country. Currently Zelda is a weapons campaigner with Wage Peace, focussed on the companies supplying arms to Indonesia, and collaborates closely with West Papuan human rights defenders. Zelda is one of the key organisers of Disrupt Land Forces, a mass mobilisation to hinder, hamper and eventually halt Australia’s biennial weapons expo. Land Forces will be held 1-3 June 2021 in Brisbane. Email info@disruptlandforces.org to participate or offer support.
Doug Hewitt-White is the president of Conscience Canada, and is retired from a public service career in creative and communications services. Conscience Canada is a national military tax resistance group that has worked for over 35 years to promote a change in law to allow Canadians the right to conscientiously object to military taxation as a right of conscience guaranteed in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Conscience Canada maintains a Peace Tax Fund where Conscientious Objectors to military taxation can deposit the military portion of their taxes.
Dr. Foad Izadi is a member of the World BEYOND War Board of Directors. Izadi’s research and teaching interests are inter-disciplinary 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. He 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.
El Jones is a spoken word poet, an educator, journalist, and a community activist living in African Nova Scotia. She was the fifth Poet Laureate of Halifax. In 2016, El was a recipient of the Burnley “Rocky” Jones human rights award for her community work and work in prison justice. She is a co-founder of the Black Power Hour, a live radio show with incarcerated people. El served as the 15th Nancy’s Chair of Women’s Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University for the 2017-2019 term. Her book of spoken word poetry, Live from the Afrikan Resistance! was published in 2014. El writes a weekly column for the Halifax Examiner, and was an Atlantic Journalism Award winner in 2018. El would like to pay tribute to the many nameless and unrecognized women whose work makes it possible for her to be here today.
Kathy Kelly co-founded and helped coordinate Voices in the Wilderness and Voices for Creative Nonviolence (1996 – 2020). She has lived in active combat zones in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, Lebanon, and Gaza. Kathy and her companions organized 70 delegations to defy economic sanctions against Iraq and lived in Baghdad throughout the 2003 “Shock and Awe” bombing. During each of thirty trips to Afghanistan, Kathy learned from and helped support Afghan Peace Volunteer projects. For crossing lines at U.S. military bases, she was sentenced to U.S. federal prison three times; the longest sentence was one year for planting corn on nuclear missile silo sites at Whiteman AFB. As a war tax refuser, she has refused payment of all forms of federal income tax since 1980.
Daniel Kovalik graduated from Columbia University School of Law in 1993. He then served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers, AFL-CIO (USW) until 2019. While with the USW, he worked on Alien Tort Claims Act cases against The Coca-Cola Company, Drummond and Occidental Petroleum – cases arising out of egregious human rights abuses in Colombia. The Christian Science Monitor, referring to his work defending Colombian unionists under threat of assassination, described Mr. Kovalik as “one of the most prominent defenders of Colombian workers in the United States.” Mr. Kovalik received the David W. Mills Mentoring Fellowship from Stanford University School of Law and was the recipient of the Project Censored Award for his article exposing the unprecedented killing of trade unionists in Colombia. He has written extensively on the issue of international human rights and U.S. foreign policy for the Huffington Post and Counterpunch and has lectured throughout the world on these subjects. He is the author of several books, including his most recent, “The Plot To Overthrow Venezuela, How The US Is Orchestrating a Coup for Oil,” which includes a Foreword by Oliver Stone.
Amai Kuda is a Canadian-based singer-songwriter working to promote social justice through her self branded music of AfroSoul. As an activist, multi-instrumentalist, singer, and spiritual healer, Amai seamlessly blends all these talents into one melting pot of internationally-influenced musical style. Her current musical project – Amai Kuda et Les Bois – is a unique delve into various musical genres ranging from Folk to Blues to RnB, encapsulated by the umbrella branding of ‘African-rooted Sounds of Healing and Transformation.’ Much of Amai’s work focuses on themes such as decolonization, anti-racism, and equal rights for indigenous and black communities. Given the current situation regarding Black Lives Matter and the widespread activism demanding equal rights for black people and an end to police brutality, Amai Kuda’s music sensitively deals with these topics providing a space of reflection and learning for us all right now.
Vanessa Lanteigne is the current National Coordinator at the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace which is Canada’s longest-running national women’s peace organization. Vanessa has worked in a variety of roles in non-profits around the world. In Tanzania, she worked at an organization to end child marriage and promote the rights of children. In Ghana as a facilitator for youth livelihood skills, she facilitated training for over 1,000 youth and was a part of a team that rolled out the Innovation Fund for green entrepreneurs that was replicated in five other countries. In Canada, she mentored high school students on environmental action projects and greening large-scale events. She recently placed in the UN 75 words for disarmament youth challenge and launched a joint initiative called Project Bombs Away with Science for Peace. Vanessa can be reached at vanessa@vowpeace.org.
Tareq Layka is a dentist, activist, and peacebuilder. He is one of the founding members of the World BEYOND War Youth Network (WBWYN). His work focuses on the interdisciplinary nature of issues facing the world ranging from Global Health to peacebuilding and human rights activism. His interests originated from living through the conflict in Syria and witnessing the different dynamics of the war and its effects on all aspects of life. His work in the WBWYN is diverse as he prefers to work on different tasks he relates to according to his cross-sectoral knowledge and experience. He has made several appearances in many events and articles and was featured on the European Union’s website. Tareq values cross-cultural dialogue and communication as his interactions with his peers worldwide helped shape his understanding of local and global issues. He has a certificate in online cross-cultural dialogue facilitation from Soliya, the UN-Habitat, and the Sharing Perspectives Foundation. Tareq holds a Doctor of Dentistry (Bachelor) Degree and is currently working on securing funding to study the MSc in Global Health and Social Justice at King’s College London.
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.
Mohammed Salah Mahdi is a Kurdish human rights activist from Slumani, Iraqi Kurdistan. Mohammed has a background in developing creative direct action and solidarity campaigns. He currently works as a full-time member of CPT’s Iraqi Kurdistan field team. In addition to human rights work and advocacy, Mohammed is also an English teacher, husband, and a father to three sons.
Alison Sutherland began her working career as the PA to a Chairman in a multinational oil and petrochemical company. Life changed when her husband contracted leukaemia and died five years later. They had both decided to give up their work (he was the CEO of a multinational company) and do missionary work in East Africa. Whilst Alex was sick, Alison went to Durham University and obtained a degree in Theology and Ministry. It was not possible for Alex, he died after battling with the leukaemia, cancer and finally a brain tumour after five years. She went to East Africa alone, starting in Uganda, moving on to Tanzania and worked in Rwanda, Burundi and the Congo. In Uganda she helped build a vocational centre for orphans and trained teachers. In Tanzania she opened a Centre and set up an NGO caring for people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. The Centre offered counselling & Testing, Management and Treatment of Opportunistic Infections, Home Based Care, Mobile Testing, Mobile Seminars, Microfinance, Catch up School for Orphans and fed 183 people per week. She lived in a mud house with no water or electricity for some years. She spent eleven years living and working at grass roots in East Africa, during which time her life was often threatened. She joined Cardiff Bay Rotary some ten years ago and began working in the area of Peace. She has served on the Rotary Action Group for Peace for the past seven years. First as a Director and then later as Chair of Education. She went on to serve on the Executive and has been Chair of the RAGFP for the past twenty months. She is based in Cardiff, Wales and works (on behalf of Rotary) with prisoners, refugees and asylum seekers and youth. She is currently Peace Officer and District Governor for Southern Wales. In this role she works with the Home Office, Cardiff Council, multiple universities and other leading organisations.
Jen Moore is an activist, writer and researcher who works in close collaboration with the struggles of mining-affected communities and allied organizations in Latin America, Canada and other parts of the world. She is currently an Associate Fellow with the mining and trade project at the Institute for Policy Studies and is completing a Master’s degree in Adult Education and Community Development at the University of Saint Francis Xavier in Nova Scotia, Canada. Her studies focus on strengthening collaborations between allied organizations and mining affected people making use of participatory corporate research. From 2010 to 2018, she coordinated the Latin America Program at MiningWatch Canada, which supports processes of territorial defense and efforts to obtain justice for harms associated with the activities of Canadian mining companies and Canadian foreign affairs in the region. While at MiningWatch, she helped adapt a strategic corporate research tool for use in mining struggles.
Bruce Moncur served in the Canadian forces for ten years where he was injured in Operation Medusa having been shot in an American friendly fire incident. He spent another ten years advocating for his rightful pension and the pensions of his peers. After being released from the military Bruce met his partner Niki Ashton and they have twin boys.
Bianca Mugyenyi is an activist, author and journalist based in Montreal. She currently directs the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, which informs people about the country’s diplomatic, aid, intelligence and military policies abroad. Bianca is the former co-Executive Director of The Leap and helped launch the Leap Manifesto in 2015, a vision for a just transition away from fossil fuels that would create a more just, fair, and caring world. Bianca is also the former Campaigns and Programming Coordinator of Concordia University’s Centre for Gender advocacy. For more information about Bianca’s work check out www.foreignpolicy.ca.
Originally from the West Coast, Geneviève Nevin (she/her) is a white Ashkenazi settler based in Montréal (unceded and unsurrendered Kanien’kehà:ka territory) where she is a community organizer and JD/BCL candidate at McGill University. She holds an Honours French Immersion Bachelors degree in International Development and Globalization with a Minor in Aboriginal Studies from the University of Ottawa. Geneviève is passionate about politics and social justice and is actively involved in movements for migrant rights and Palestine solidarity, particularly within the Jewish community, as the former Membership & Fundraising Coordinator with Independent Jewish Voices Canada. Geneviève was also one of the organisers behind the successful Palestine resolution at the 2021 NDP Convention which called for a ban on illegal Israeli settlement products as well as an arms embargo against Israel until Palestinians are free.
Brent Patterson is the Executive Director of Peace Brigades International-Canada as well as an Extinction Rebellion activist, and Rabble.ca writer. Brent was active with Tools for Peace and the Canadian Light Brigade in support of revolutionary Nicaragua in the late 1980s and early 1990s, advocated for the rights of prisoners in jails and federal prisons as the Advocacy and Reform staff person with the John Howard Society of Metropolitan Toronto, participated in protests at the Battle of Seattle and at the UN climate summits in Copenhagen and Cancun, and has taken part in numerous non-violent civil disobedience actions. He previously organized community mobilizations at City Hall/Metro Hall and anti-corporate rule bus tours in Toronto through the Metro Network for Social Justice, then supported cross-country grassroots activism as the Political Director at The Council of Canadians for almost 20 years before joining Peace Brigades International-Canada. Brent has a BA in Political Science from the University of Saskatchewan and an MA in International Relations from York University. He lives in Ottawa on the traditional, unceded and unsurrendered territories of the Algonquin nation.
Katie Perfitt is a National Organizer with 350.org, supporting people-powered movements across Canada organizing to tackle the climate crisis. She first got involved with community organizing during her time living in Halifax, with Divest Dal, a campaign to get Dalhousie University to divest their endowment from the world’s top 200 oil and gas companies — companies bigging up and burning climate-destroying fossil fuels and perpetrating heinous human rights abuses around the globe. Since then she’s been involved in campaigns to keep fossil fuels in the ground, including training hundreds of people to take non-violent direct action at the gates of the Kinder Morgan facility on Burnaby Mountain. She has also supported leaders in hundreds of communities from coast to coast to mobilize in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of these projects, in order to bring national attention to the Indigenous rights violations and climate impacts these projects bring. She’s excited to now be supporting an emerging and powerful movement of young people from every corner of the country who are asserting a vision for a just future beyond fossil fuels through a Green New Deal for Canada. She believes that through community, art, and the practice of storytelling, we can build the kind of people-powered movements we need to take down the fossil fuel industry.
Dr. Sam Perlo-Freeman is a Research Coordinator at Campaign Against Arms Trade in the UK, where he has focused on UK military spending and procurement, UK arms sales to Saudi and the war in Yemen, and global arms trade to countries in conflict. Previously, Sam worked at the World Peace Foundation on corruption in the international arms trade, and before that at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, researching global military spending, arms trade, and arms production. He has been involved as both a researcher and an activist on arms trade and other peace issues for about 25 years.
Te Ao Pritchard is from Ngāti Kahu, Ngāpuhi (Aotearoa/New Zealand) and Vaigaga (Samoan). She is an indigenous rights activist, takatāpui (two spirit), movement capacity building facilitator and trainer, community engagement specialist, and practitioner consultant. She is currently completing a PGrad Dip in Arts – Psychology (Massey University) and Tāhuhu Ahunga Tikanga – Master of Māori Laws and Philosophy (Te Wānanga o Raukawa). Te Ao is a co-founder of Pacific Panthers – connecting with Pacific synergies, utilising indigenous knowledge and practices to strengthen communities in resistance against colonisation; a founding member of Auckland Peace Action and a lifelong community organiser. Te Ao designed specific Indigenous responses to New Zealand’s 2016 Weapons Expo, as well as working with the wider peace action groups across the country to train people in non-violent direct action and media messaging responding for the 2016-18 Weapons Expos in NZ.
Liz Remmerswaal is a World BEYOND War board member and the national chapter coordinator for WBW Aotearoa/New Zealand. She is a former vice-president of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom NZ and was part of the successful coalition of peace activists who instigated the cancellation of the national arms fair in 2019. Liz is a co-founder of the Pacific Peace Network and has close ties with the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network. She has spoken at and shown films at peace conferences and gatherings in NZ, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Prague and Vienna as well as a spoken at a rally outside the White House and been interviewed on Afghan TV. She has a background in journalism, politics and environmental activism and has four grownup children. Liz is inspired by the Quaker Grannies for Peace with their creative approach to peacemaking, and with others has enjoyed biking to the Pine Gap spy base in Alice Springs, planting an olive tree in the Hague Peace Palace and singing songs and making tea parties beside warships. In 2017 she was awarded the Sonia Davies Peace Award. Liz lives with her husband on the East Coast of the North Island.
Lincoln Rice is the Coordinator of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC). He possesses an undergraduate degree in Accounting and a PhD in Social Ethics. NWTRCC is a national war tax resistance group in the United States that has worked for nearly 40 years to provide support for individuals who refuse to pay for war with their tax dollars. War tax resisters put their values into action by reducing their taxable income (living simply) or through civil disobedience by refusing to pay some or all of their tax bill and redirecting that money to programs in their own communities. Lincoln can be reached at nwtrcc@nwtrcc.org.
Richard Sanders is a researcher/writer/activist who has engaged full-time in the peace movement since 1984 when he escaped academia with an MA in cultural anthropology. His efforts to debunk Canada’s peace mythology began when coordinating Ottawa’s Peace Resource Centre, producing a community anti-war radio program for almost 20 years, and being a local organizer with the Alliance for Nonviolent Action which culminated in the arrest of 150 at ARMX ’89, predecessor of CANSEC. In late 1988, he founded the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT.ncf.ca). Its initial disARMX campaign, which included a conference, public inquiry, and march/rally of several thousand, precipitated Ottawa’s 20-year ban on arms bazaars. COAT’s magazine, Press for Conversion!, which he has produced since 1990, continues to expose Canadian militarism. He has written on Canada’s arms exports, Canadian pension investments in weapons industries, Canadian military participation in the Iraq war, Canadian NGO support for the coup in Haiti, and the unassailable myth of Canada itself, a fiction based on genocide, xenophobia, land plunder and imperialism.
Milan Sekulović is a Montenegrin journalist and civic-environmental activist, the founder of the Save Sinjajevina movement, which has existed since 2018 and which began to develop from an informal group of citizens into an organization that is intensively fighting to protect the second largest pasture in Europe. Milan is the founder of the Civic Initiative Save Sinjajevina and one of the founders of the Montenegrin consortium Coalition for Sustainable Development (KOR), which is the first and currently the only activist platform in Montenegro, and which predominantly gathers small organizations and individuals who oppose projects harmful to nature. Follow Save Sinjajevina on Facebook.
Daniel Selwyn is an educator and researcher with the London Mining Network (LMN), an alliance of 21 organisations working to expose human rights abuses and environmental crimes committed by mining companies based in London, and campaigning for social justice and the ecological integrity of the planet. His research focuses on the links between resource extraction, militarism, and British imperialism, recently authoring Martial Mining: Resisting Extractivism and War Together for LMN.
Kasha Sequoia Slavner, a Gen-Z filmmaker, photographer, writer is a passionate advocate for climate justice and peace. At 15 she founded The Global Sunrise Project, a positive impact media organization. Her first feature documentary, The Sunrise Storyteller, screened at 60 film festivals and won 29 awards. Kasha is a Diana Award & Kim Phuc Youth Peace Award recipient, one of the Voices of SDG16+ and a 2021 Global Youth Climate Network Ambassador. She’s also an active alumnus of Global Changemakers, Yunus & Youth, and We Are Family Foundation. Kasha conducts educational outreach with screenings, exhibitions, social media campaigns, and workshops to empower students with skills to become engaged in SDG’s and taking action in their communities.
Hamza Shaiban is the President of the Yemeni Community of Canada. He moved to Canada in 2011 to complete his university degree and he now lives in Toronto. He has led many initiatives to raise awareness of the Saudi-led war against Yemen and to advocate for Canada to end its multi billion dollar arms deal with Saudi Arabia.
Rachel Small is a community organizer based in Toronto, Canada, on Dish with One Spoon and Treaty 13 Indigenous territory. 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 currently organizes 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 is World BEYOND War’s Canada Organizer and can be reached at rachel@worldbeyondwar.org.
Susi Snyder coordinates the Don’t Bank on the Bomb research and campaign. She is an expert on nuclear weapons, with over two decades experience working at the intersect between nuclear weapons and human rights. In addition to the annual Don’t Bank on the Bomb reports, Susi has also contributed to a number of recent books, including A World Free from Nuclear Weapons (2020),  Sleepwalking to Armageddon: The Threat of Nuclear Annihilation (2017) and War and Environment Reader (2018). She has been featured in 360 Magazine,  Quartz, the Intercept, Huffington Post, U.S. News and World Report, and on Democracy Now (among others). Susi is a 2016 Nuclear Free Future Award Laureate. Previously, she served as the Secretary General of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) at their Geneva secretariat. Susi currently lives in Utrecht, the Netherlands with her husband and son.
Mary Beth Sullivan lives in Brunswick, Maine, near the General Dynamics-owned Bath Iron Works, where naval destroyers, fitted with Aegis weapons systems, continue to be built. She is a social worker who attempts to serve the needs of a growing homeless population in a time of diminishing resources. She is also active with the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is executive director of World BEYOND War and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson’s books include War Is A Lie and When the World Outlawed War. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. He is a Nobel Peace Prize Nominee. Swanson was awarded the 2018 Peace Prize by the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation.
Barry Sweeney qualified as a primary school teacher in 2006 and subsequently taught in Ireland until he lost his post in the financial crisis of 2008-2009. He then moved to Sicily to teach English and while he was there he realised how important it was for him to become involved in sustainable education. In 2014 he stepped back from teaching so he could upskill. He is currently back in Sicily and is involved in English language teaching, and global citizenship education. Through his love for the planet and his desire to help to protect it, he came to realise how war, and all its aspects, were responsible for vast ecological degradation and so he joined World BEYOND War in 2016. He is a member of World BEYOND War’s Board of Directors. More recent work has seen him teaching on a number of World BEYOND War’s courses. In his role as country coordinator for World BEYOND War in Ireland he has organised a number of conferences and events in Ireland.
Carley Towne is the National Co-Director of CODEPINK, a women-led, grassroots anti-war organization. She helps manage the Divest from the War Machine campaign and the Defund the Pentagon campaign. She’s happy to live and work in Los Angeles.
Dave Webb is a past-member of the World BEYOND War Coordinating Committee and chair of the UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), and well as Vice President of the International Peace Bureau (IPB), and the Convenor of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. Webb is an Emeritus Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at Leeds Beckett University (previously Leeds Metropolitan University). Webb has been involved in the campaign to scrap the UK Trident nuclear weapons system and has also focused on campaigning to close two U.S. bases in Yorkshire (where he lives) – Fylingdales (a missile defence radar base) and Menwith Hill (the huge NSA spy base).
Lynda Williams is a physics professor who has been actively working with the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space for over two decades to prevent war in space. Her expertise is missile defense, nuclear power, weapons and space development. Most recently she has been organizing in Hawaii with indigenous communities to help prevent the expansion of missile defense and the construction of the Homeland Defense Radar on sacred Hawaiian lands. Lynda is also a singer songwriter and performance artist whose passion is to educate, entertain and empower with music and science. For more information check out her website: http://lyndalovon.blogspot.com/.
Ann Wright is a 29-year US Army/Army Reserves veteran who retired as a Colonel. One of her military assignments was with the NATO subcommand, Allied Forces Central Europe. She served 16 years as a US diplomat in US embassies in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She resigned in 2003 in opposition to the US war on Iraq and has been a activist for peace ever since. She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”