As Global Exchange’s Fair Trade Cocoa Campaigner, Adrienne reaches out to chocolate lovers and chocolate makers alike to help create a world in which we are all free to enjoy guilt-free chocolate. Adrienne also campaigns for conflict-free diamonds and was part of the Global Exchange-coordinated coalition for Sweatfree legislation in San Francisco. Adrienne has engaged in advocacy toward both corporations and government to create a flourishing international economy at home and abroad that is truly the catalyst for promoting democracy and human rights, protecting the environment, securing peace, and ending poverty. Adrienne has worked for diverse human rights and environmental advocacy organizations, as well as leaders in the field of green business such as Co-op America and Calvert Group. Her area of expertise is the impact of commodities, both extractive and agricultural, on local communities, particularly indigenous people. Adrienne has studied at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Programme, UC Davis Martin Luther King Hall School of Law, and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where her Fields of Study were Development Economics and Environmental Policy. Adrienne is also the co-host of Terra Verde, the weekly environmental radio program on KPFA in Northern California

Ariel Clay

Ariel Clay is a senior International Relations student at San Francisco State University who has a passion for human rights. She began her internship at Global Exchange this year working on the Fair Trade Chocolate campaign. Ariel is combining her retail experience she has had at high end boutiques to her Fair Trade experience here at Global Exchange to create a new cache for Fair Trade products and encourage ethical consumerism.

• Fair Trade

Believing in the power of business enterprise as a tool for social change, in 2002 Tex’s passion for socially conscious business drew her to the Fair Trade movement and Global Exchange where she works as the Manager of the Global Exchange Online Fair Trade Store. Since her start at Global Exchange, Tex helped to launch the new and improved Online Store website, she created the successful Fair Trade Corporate Gift Program, and has traveled to various parts of the world on direct buying trips and delegations. Speaking regularly with artisans and students, vendors and producers from around the world has allowed Tex a unique perspective on the needs of various individuals within the expanding Fair Trade movement. Tex is currently working on a book entitled This Little Piggy Went to Market: Bringing Products from the Village Market to the Global Marketplace.

• Fair Trade
• business enterprise as a tool for social change

Carmencita "Chie" Abad speaks from personal experience about the hardships endured by millions of workers in sweatshops around the world. Chie spent six years as a garment worker on the Pacific island of Saipan, a U.S. territory. She endured wretched conditions, frequently working 14-hour shifts in order to meet arbitrary production quotas for her employer, the Sako Corporation, which made clothes for the Gap and other retailers. When she tried to organize a union, Chie was met by fierce resistance from management and eventually lost her job. She now lives in the U.S., where she educates Americans about the inhumane factory conditions occurring worldwide, including on U.S. soil. Chie was instrumental in forcing 26 major retailers to settle a lawsuit in September 2002 to improve conditions in Saipan. Her story is an inspiring example of how people can win if they stand up for their rights and the leadership she offers from her years as of organizing within the anti-sweatshop is empowering.

• Sweatshops and the Global Economy
• Sweatshop Labor in the Garment Industry
• Tour of Sweatshops in San Francisco's Mission District

Deborah Schwartz is the coordinator of the Portland Sweatfree Campaign with Global Exchange. She built a broad base coalition of labor, faith, student, political, and community organizations to win a sweatshop-free resolution for the city of Portland. She is on the Board of Directors of Sweatfree Communities, a national network of anti-sweatshop organizations. She graduated from Lewis & Clark College where she co-founded Student Labor Action Movement (SLAM) and organized for janitors' rights on her campus.

• Running Successful SweatFree Campaigns!

16 year-old Afnan Al-Hashimi, of Iraqi decent, began speaking publicly at the age of 12. She has been speaking out against the U.S. neoconservative administration's illegal occupation of Iraq and has also denounced the biased American foreign policies in the Middle East. In October 2006, she received the prestigious CIC Community service Award in recognition of her ongoing efforts in speaking up against the atrocities committed against Muslim nations.

• Inside Iraq: Accounts from an Iraqi Refugee
• Iraq & US Foreign Policy

Military recruiters have unprecedented access to our public school campuses and a $3.7 billion dollar budget to convince young people to sign up. So what can parents and concerned community members do to balance the equation, expose the myths that recruiters tell, and give young people more options for their future? Aimee Allison offers a number of effective strategies that communities have used to counter recruitment in her new book Army of None: Strategies to Counter Recruitment, End War, and Build a Better World (Seven Stories Press, 2007). After serving four years as a combat medic in the Army Reserves, Aimee Allison earned an honorable discharge as a Conscientious Objector during the Persian Gulf War. Today, she writes and speaks about the experience and role of GI resistance in ending war, supports soldiers applying for CO discharges, and advocates for military women's issues with the Service Women's Action Network that she co-founded this year.

• Counter-recruitment
• Veteran perspective
• Woman's military perspective

Mary Ann Wright has been a career military woman, a State Department diplomat, and for the past few years, an influential spokesperson in the anti-war movement. She remained in the Army for 13 years in active duty, with another 16 years in the Army reserves, retiring as a Colonel. On March 13, 2003, the eve of the US invasion of Iraq, Col.. Ann Wright sent a letter of resignation to then Secretary of State Colin Powell believing that without the authorization of the UN Security Council it would be a disaster. Since resigning, patriotism for Ann Wright has been as an anti-war activist. She helped organize Camp Casey, she has been arrested five times in the past year for protesting Bush’s policies, and has referred to herself cheerfully as a “felon for peace”. This retired Army Colonel has also recently been temporarily banned not only from two military bases for placing postcards there about a showing of the documentary “Sir, No Sir”, but from the US Capitol area and the National Press Club, for voicing opinions and questions concerning Bush’s policies and the Iraq war. Her upcoming book coauthored with Susan Dixon, "Dissent: Voices of Conscience", highlights the stories of those in the Bush administration and other governments who have had the courage to speak out. It will be published in November, 2007 by Koa Books.

• Anti-War in Iraq

In May 2004, Iraq combat veteran Camilo Mejia was sentenced to a year in prison for refusing to return to the war in Iraq. "By putting my weapon down, I chose to reassert myself as a human being," he said. He is the first Iraq war veteran to file for discharge from the army as a conscientious objector. He was released in February 2005, and has been speaking out with help of organizations like Global Exchange, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), and Military Families Speak Out (MFSO).

• Counter-military recruitment

Carlos Arredondo learned his son Lcpl. Alexander Arredondo, was killed in action in An Najaf, Iraq on August 25, 2004. It was Alex' second tour of duty. When advised of his son's death, Carlos, due to anguish and grief, set afire a USMC van and burned himself in the process. These images were broadcast worldwide and resonated for many as the ultimate anguish of a father having lost his son in war. Carlos has appeared on Spanish and English speaking radio and television throughout the US and internationally. Mélida Arredondo is Carlos' wife and Alexander step-mom. She has supported her family through the tragedies of Alexander's death as well as Carlos' burn related injuries. She has been active in reaching out to the USMC on the details of Alex' death as well as finding both economic and professional support for her family and herself. She recently has had several articles printed in Boston local papers on the impacts of the war on military families.

Dahlia Wasfi, MD

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi was born in 1971 and spent her early childhood in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, until she returned with her family to the United States in 1977. Dr. Wasfi graduated from Swarthmore College in 1993 with a B.A. in Biology, and in 1997 graduated from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. In February/March of 2004, after years of separation, Wasfi visited Iraq to see her family in Basrah and Baghdad. She journeyed to Iraq again for a 3-month visit in 2006. Based on her experiences, she is speaking out against the negative impact of the U.S. invasion on the Iraqi people and the need to end the occupation.

• The Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq & Need for Withdrawal of U.S. Troops
• The Sanctions' Impacts on Iraq's Medical System
• The Human Toll of the Invasion and Occupation of Iraq
• Depleted Uranium: Iraqi & U.S. Victims
• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Iraqi & U.S. Victims
• Blind Patriotism: A Thin Veil for Racism
• Status of Healthcare in Iraq Today

Joining the ARmy at the age of 17, Diana Morrison served on active duty at Ft. Hood, Texas as an MP for three years. After leaving active duty, Diana remained in the reserves until 1994, completing her eight-year commitment with the military. She joined the California Army National Guard in 1996 as an MP and was deployed three times, each for the duration of one year: Operation Joint Endeavor (in the Bosnia conflict), Operation Noble Eagle (post 9/11 homeland defense), and Operation Iraqi Freedom (in Iraq). In Iraq, Diana ratated from escorting convoys that patrolled roads, looking for improvised explosive devices, to providing security for logisitics sites and the Baghdad airport. She is now studying art at CalState East Bay.

• Counter-recruitment
• Women in the military

Elaine's son, Spc. Darius Jennings, age 22, was killed in action in Iraq on November 2, 2003, when his Chinook helicopter was shot down, taking his life and the lives of fifteen other soldiers. "I forced the president to meet with us," she said. "I asked him why soldiers like my son were still dying in Iraq, and he said 'to finish the mission'. I asked what the mission was, but he was already leaving the room." Ever since then, she has been a mother on a mission, who is not only a Gold Star Mother, but also a member of Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families Speak Out, and the founder of Spc. Darius T. Jennings organization

• A Gold Star Mothers Perspective: Why we need to end the War!
• Speaking Truth to Power

On March 27, 2003, Fernando lost his son Jesus when he stepped on a US cluster bomb while fighting in Iraq. Since then, Fernando has been traveling around the country speaking out against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In December he traveled to Iraq with Global Exchange and a group of military families to listen to the needs and desires of the Iraqi people, and returned home to meet with congress people, UN officials and the media to call for the withdrawal of US troops. Fernando is also an active member of Military Families Speak Out www.mfso.org. “Mr. Suarez himself is a new kind of American hero,” says UC San Diego professor Jorge Mariscal. “He considers himself an ordinary citizen compelled to expose—without bitterness—the lies and injustices perpetrated by the Bush administration in its war in Iraq. His most immediate goals are to assist immigrant families who have children returning from war and to educate Latino youth about how they can create a better world. Undaunted by the pain of his loss and the obstacles that confront him, Fernando Suarez del Solar continues his journey for peace. He has no doubt that his son Jesus would be proud of him.” Fernando founded his own counter-recruitment organization, Proyecto Guerrero Azteca, http://www.guerreroazteca.org/, which aims to bring a message of peace and justice to sectors of the population which have historically lacked information about vital social issues in our society.

• Countering Military Recruitment of Youth
• Iraq Under U.S. Occupation
• Voice of Peace

Iraq Veterans have first-hand knowledge of the occupation of Iraq. Their voices are unique, poignant and bridge divides across the political spectrum. The actions the Iraq Veterans are taking to end the occupation are inspiring and the leadership, strength and courage they offer to the peace movement invaluable. Youth throughout the country, especially low-income youth and youth of color, are being targeted by recruiters and they deserve to hear the truth from Iraq Veterans before they make a decision about joining the military.

• The Occupation of Iraq: A Veterans Perspective
• Lies My Recruiters Told Me Before I Joined
• Counter-Recruitment

When Jane’s son, SGT Evan Ashcraft was killed in an ambush near Al Hawd, Mosul, Iraq on July 24, 2003, she and her husband Jim founded the Evan Ashcraft Memorial Foundation in his memory. The reasons for setting up the Foundation were twofold. Evan was the 249th soldier killed in the Iraq conflict, but Jane did not want her son to be just a number. An equally compelling reason for establishing the Foundation was that, in letters and phone calls home Evan said, “When I come home from Iraq I just want to help people.” The mission of the Foundation is to provide medical and psychological treatment, scholarship funds, and other necessities to returning Iraq conflict veterans and their dependents, thereby fulfilling Evan’s wish to help others.

• Gold Star Mom
• The Human Cost of the Iraq War

Jodie Evans has worked on behalf of community, social-justice, environmental, and political causes for more than thirty years. In October 2002, Jodie co-founded CODEPINK with Medea Benjamin. CODEPINK is a women's peace group that has been organizing creative actions against the war and occupation of Iraq. Jodie co-edited CODEPINK's new book, "Stop the Next War Now: Effective Responses to Violence and Terrorism" -- a powerful and diverse collection of essays from the peace movement's most dynamic voices. In June 2000, Jodie co-created the first Dubrovnik Peace Conference. From 1973 to 1982, Jodie worked on the campaigns of California governor Jerry Brown, served as his director of administration and ran his campaign for president in 1991. She also oversaw the Office of Appropriate Technology, ushering in breakthroughs in wind and solar energy. In the early 1990s Jodie opened the first environmental department store, Terra Verde. A mother of three, Jodie serves on the boards of numerous non-profits and is a harpist, gardener, and potter when not working to end war.

• CODEPINK: Women for Peace

Medea Benjamin, Founding Director of the human rights group Global Exchange, has struggled for social justice and human rights in Asia, the Americas, and Africa for over 25 years. She helped shine the national spotlight on US sweatshops overseas, derail the plans of the World Trade Organization and promote “fair trade” over “free trade.” Ever since the tragic events of 9/11, Medea has been organizing against a violent response. She traveled several times to Afghanistan, including with a delegation of 9/11 families, to highlight civilian casualties caused by the US invasion. She is a leading activist in the peace movement and helped bring together the groups forming the coalition United for Peace and Justice. In October 2002, Medea made national news for interrupting Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld as he pitched his plans for war against Iraq to Congress. After the invasion, Medea traveled several times to Iraq to organize the Occupation Watch International Center in Baghdad. Medea also co-founded Code Pink, a women's peace group that has been organizing creative actions against the occupation of Iraq. In 2005, Medea organized a delegation of US military families who lost loved ones in Iraq to the Iraqi/Jordanian border to bring a shipment of humanitarian aid for the people of Falluja. In 2005 Medea was nominated as one of 1,000 exceptional women from around the world to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. She is also the author/editor of several books, including Stop the Next War Now.

• Ending the War in Iraq
• Stop the Next War Now
• CODEPINK: Women for Peace
• Building a Global Movement for Peace and Justice

Monica Benderman stands by her husband Sergeant Kevin Benderman, who was sentenced to 15 months' imprisonment on July 28 after he refused to return for a second tour of duty with the US army in Iraq. He had been a US soldier for ten years and served in Iraq from March to September 2003, but he refused to deploy to Iraq a second time, citing his moral and religious objections to the war in Iraq, which developed in response to his experiences as a soldier in Iraq.

• Supporting Our Soldiers
• Non-violence: There is Another Way
• Conscientious Objection & the Military Justice System

Nadia McCaffrey is the founder of Angelstaff.org, a group of volunteers who bring a caring presence to terminally ill patients and their families. When her son, Sergeant Patrick McCaffrey, died on June 22, 2004 in Iraq, Nadia began to focus much of her work on promoting peace and justice and reaching out to parents that have lost loved ones in the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. Nadia received international attention as the “mother who defied the Bush Administration” when she asked the media to be present at the airport to photograph her son’s flag-draped coffin. In addition, Nadia McCaffrey went on Global Exchange's trip to the Jordan and Iraq border at the start of 2005 with the Families for Peace delegation which delivered over $650,000 of medical and humanitarian aid for the thousands of refugees, mostly women and children, made homeless by the U.S. attack on Falluja.

• Military Families Against the War

Nancy L. Mancias works for the Global Exchange Peace Campaign and is the assistant to the cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK Women for Peace, Medea Benjamin. She is a key organizer in the San Francisco anti-war community and supports Iraq war resisters in the US and Canada. Nancy is a theatre arts professional and is on the Board of Directors for Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco's oldest alternative art space.

• CODEPINK Women for Peace
• Supporting Iraq War Resisters

Nooshin Razani’s nineteen-year-old brother Omead Razani, died while serving as a medic for the US Army in Habbaniyah, Iraq. He had completed two years of military service in Korea and was supposed to come home at the end of July, when he was to begin training as a paramedic in LA. In June, however, he received notice that his service was being extended for one to three years, and that he was being sent to Iraq. He was the first Iranian-American to die in the war. Omead was a Muslim, and Nooshin hopes to show that her brother's story serves as a bridge between Middle Easterners and Americans, Muslims and Christians. “It is painful to my family that we continue to be portrayed only as the enemy and as terrorists, when we are as invested in this country as anyone could be,” Nooshin said. Nooshin, a member of Military Families Speak Out, www.mfso.org, also incorporates in her talks opinions on the Middle East, and solutions to the conflict there. Having done many medical missions and travel to Iran, she also helps explain the culture of the region to interested people.

• Military Families Response to the Iraq War
• Culture & Life in the Middle East

Pablo Paredes is an Iraq war resistor and Naval veteran who in 2004 refused to deploy to Iraq. His subsequent court martial sentenced him to three months of hard labor. Since his actions in 2004, Paredes has been a strong voice in the anti-war movement, especially among Latino resistors.

• Counter-recruitment
• Stop the war in Iraq

Rae Abileah is a national organizer with CODEPINK Women for Peace. She connects CODEPINK's national campaigns with the grassroots women's movement for peace, and brings organizing resources to local activists who work creatively to stop the war in Iraq from over 200 small towns and cities around the country, and many places around the world. Rae has also organized actions and workshops about deceptive tactics used by military recruiters and how to inform students and parents of their rights and the realities of joining the military today.

• US Occupation of Iraq
• Women and Activism
• Linking Domestic and Global Violence
• Counter Military Recruitment

Sean O'Neill is a decorated Marine who served in Iraq twice, first during the 2003 invasion, and the second from March to July 2004. On his second mission, he was wounded in a firefight, when his right eardrum was blown out. Sean received the Purple Heart, Navy Achievement Medal (with Combat "V") and Combat Action Ribbon. Sean’s speaks powerfully to the realities of the US Occupation of Iraq from first-hand experience serving on the ground there during the last two years. His view that the war was mishandled and should be ended began towards the end of his first trip to Iraq. “We had a lot of contact with Iraqi civilians in the Ad Diwaniyah area,” Sean explained. “In talking to them, it became evident that they were glad that Saddam was gone but that the US forces needed to leave as well.”

• Iraq War Veteran Speaks Out

Stephen Funk is a veteran who was the first public conscientious objector to the war in Iraq and served six months in military prison. At the time, he stated: "I refuse to surrender my dignity, I refuse to kill... the military demands obedience, but I will not obey". He spoke out to provoke others in service to rethink their moral duty, and to encourage young people to think twice before enlisting in the military. Now that Stephen has been discharged from the Marine Corps he continues his peace work. He is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War since 2004, and Vets4Vets, a non-partisan veterans peer support organization dedicated to helping Iraq and Afghanistan era veterans. He is currently an undergraduate student at Stanford University, majoring in International Relations, and interning with Global Exchange.

• Truth in Recruiting
• Discrimination in the military

Tim Goodrich enlisted in the Air Force at the age of 18. He joined wanting to serve his country and because of his family military tradition. While in the Air Force, he was stationed at Tinker AFB, OK as part of the 552 AMXS squadron where he maintained communication, navigation, and cryptological systems on the E-3 AWACS command and control aircraft. Tim deployed to the Middle East three times during his enlistment. The first deployment was in support of Operation Southern Watch (patrolling of southern no-fly zone over Iraq). During his second deployment, Tim provided direct combat support for Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan) shortly after the attacks on September 11, 2001. His final deployment was again in support of Operation Southern Watch. During this time, he participated in the intensified bombing of Iraq during the fall of 2002, while President Bush was stating that diplomacy would be used first and before the U.S. Congress or the United Nations had been approached. Tim completed his enlistment and was honorably discharged in April of 2003. Wanting to see the other side of the bombing, Tim joined a Global Exchange fact finding delegation to Iraq in January of 2004, where he witnessed the devastation of the war and occupation firsthand. Upon his return from Iraq, Tim began speaking out against the occupation of Iraq and co-founded Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Global Economy

Antonia Juhasz is a policy-analyst, author and activist living in San Francisco. She is a Fellow at Oil Change International and Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies. Juhasz is author of The Bu$h Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time. Juhasz's new book, The Tyranny of Oil: the World's Most Powerful Industry, and What we Must do to Stop It, will be released by HarperCollins Publishers in September 2008. Juhasz is an expert on all aspects of international trade and finance policy with a Masters Degree in Public Policy from Georgetown University, a Bachelors Degree in Public Policy from Brown University, experience as a Legislative Assistant to two United States Members of Congress, and over ten years of work in the field. She is a passionate writer and speaker who conveys complex information in a manner that is both accessible and motivational to others.

• The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time
• Corporate Globalization and the War on Iraq
• Global water privatization and commodification
• The San Francisco Anti-War/Peace Movement
• Challenging corporate globalization in all its evil forms

David Bacon is a writer and photojournalist on issues of labor, immigration and international trade. He is an associate editor at Pacific News Service, and writes for TruthOut, The Nation, The American Prospect, The Progressive, LA Weekly, and the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. He hosts a half-hour weekly radio show on labor, immigration and the global economy on KPFA-FM. He recently completed a photodocumentary project sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, Communities Without Borders. In his latest project, Living Under the Trees, Bacon is photographing and interviewing indigenous Mexican migrants working in California’s fields. He is currently also documenting popular resistance to war and attacks on immigrant labor and civil rights.

• Immigration and Free Trade
• Photojournalism
• Guest-Worker Programs

Deborah James is the is the Director of International Programs of Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, an independent, nonpartisan think tank that was established to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people's lives. Deborah was most recently the Director of the WTO Program at Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, where she organized global campaigns to stop the expansion of the WTO with the global network Our World Is Not for Sale. Deborah was previously the Global Economy Director at Global Exchange, where she worked for over a decade to democratize the global economy. There she played a key role in the hemispheric movement to stop the expansion of NAFTA to the rest of Latin America through the Free Trade Area of the Americas. At Global Exchange, Deborah successfully improved the lives of coffee farmers in developing countries by organizing consumer pressure that led Starbucks and Procter & Gamble to purchase Fair Trade Certified coffee. This work grew out of her advocacy for a living wage and better working conditions for Nike and GAP workers and her promotion of Fair Trade chocolate to end child slavery in the Ivory Coast. Her outstanding public education efforts have distinguished Deborah as an exceptional leader who can strategically attack high-level corporate giants and multilateral trade agreements while inspiring the public by effectively promoting the visionary alternatives of Fair Trade. In 2004, Deborah served as the first Executive Director of the Venezuela Information Office in Washington, DC, an organization that reframed public debate of the exciting progressive social transformation happening under Hugo Chávez's leadership and successfully shifted US foreign policy towards Venezuela. In 2000, Deborah was part of the largest foreign elections monitoring team in Mexico, and has also observed elections in Venezuela and Florida in 2004. She has led over 20 human rights, democracy, Fair Trade, and women's delegations to Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Haiti, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela since 1994. Deborah was a representative to the United Nations World Conference on Women in 1995 in China; part of the first American delegation to Afghanistan after the US bombing in November of 2001; and a representative to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in South Africa in 2002.

• Global Resistance to the World Trade Organization
• Venezuelan Democracy, Development, and Latin American Regional Integration
• Challenging Corporate Globalization

Maria Luisa Mendonça is a journalist and co-director of the Network for Social Justice and Human Rights (Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos) in Brazil. She was one of the founders of the World Social Forum and is the editor of the annual report Human Rights in Brazil. She has produced several captivating and highly-acclaimed video documentaries.

• Human Rights in Brazil
• Sugarcane Workers
• Global Economy & Democracy

Wondering what's going on in the rest of the world? Invite a speaker who recently returned from traveling with Global Exchange to tell you about the reality on the ground in a different country. Global Exchange Reality Tours organizes trips to over 30 countries in Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Our tours provide individuals the opportunity to understand issues beyond what is communicated by the mass media and gain a new vantage point from which to view and affect US foreign policy. Travelers are linked with activists and organizations from around the globe who are working toward positive change. The participants from these tours return with a new body of knowledge and a desire to share it with people here in the United States. Invite one to your community!

• What's going on in the rest of the world!

Alex is an international education & training consultant. He served in the Peace Corps in Iran, has been an advisor to Iranians for International Cooperation and was a co-founder of the National Iranian American Council and of the Campaign against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran (US affiliate), and a member of the Orthodox [Christian] Peace Fellowship. He holds a master’s degree in cross-cultural training and has worked for thirty years on international exchanges and training. He lives near Washington, DC.

• Iran
• US/Iran Relations

Fatemeh Keshavarz is a professor of Persian & Comparative Literature at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Fatemeh is a published poet in her native language (Persian), writes poetry in English, and is the author of several books and journal articles, which provide a medium for her interest in the broader implications of cultural education for world peace.

• Art and Activism
• Persian Language & Literature
• Iranian Studies

Foaad Khosmood is an anti-war organizer, a writer and editor concentrating on Iran related issues. Foaad has delivered lectures and conducted information sessions on Iranian politics, history, US/Iran relations and Iranian nuclear situation. He's currently a board member and secretary of CASMII US.

• Iranian Politics
• US/Iran Relations
• Iranian Nuclear Situation

For the past 25 years, Dr. Ritterman has worked to put a human face on tragedies across the globe through his work in the medical community. He has delivered medical supplies to El Salvador during the civil war in the 1980s and Zambia, prior to the end of the apartheid. Most recently, Dr. Ritterman has travelled to Iraq and Iran, bringing his experiences to audiences through presentations on medical and human rights consequences of the War in Iraq and improving US and Iranian relations.

• US & Iranian Relations
• Human Rights in Iraq
• Medical Aid

Moji Agha (Mojtaba Aghamohammadi) is a respected Iranian-American community leader, peace and human rights activist, and advocate of genuine interfaith and intercultural dialogue, whose diverse activities in the past 2-3 decades, namely teaching and research (cultural psychology and culture-analysis), art (bilingual poet, essayist, translator, and writer), and peace-building (cross-cultural dialogue and conflict resolution) are among the accomplishments noted in the first edition of "Who is Who of Iranians in America," published by the Persian Cultural Foundation.

• - Peace-building and Conflict Resolution
• - Iran
• - Political and Spiritual Islam
• - Culture-analysis and Interfaith Dialogue
• - Cross-cultural Communication
• - Climate Change and Culture

Reese Erlich is an investigative reporter with a critical eye, which has won him awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Project Censored, and shared a prestigious Peabody Award. He writes regularly for National Public Radio, Dallas Morning News, CBC Radio (Canada) and Mother Jones magazine.

• U.S. Policy & the Middle East Crisis
• Iraq Exit Plans
• Iran & US-Iran Relations

Sanaz Meshkinpour speaks out against military intervention and sanctions in Iran. She is a Iranian American activist of Jewish and Muslim parents, working in San Francisco as Global Exchange’s Middle East Program Coordinator. Sanaz has family in Iran, Israel and the US - she regularly visits friends and family in Iran. In her dynamic presentation, Sanaz weaves her critical analysis of the situation, with personal stories of her family and their travels.

• Preventing a US Invasion of Iran
• No Sanctions! No War!

Stephen Zunes, a long time peace and human rights activist, has emerged as one of the most forceful and articulate critics of U.S. policy in the Middle East. He is an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco and a senior policy analyst and Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project. He is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press) and scores of articles regarding the Persian Gulf, Israel/Palestine, Western Sahara, terrorism and Islamic movements. Dr. Zunes has made frequent visits to the Middle East, where he has met with top government officials, academics, journalists and opposition leaders.

• Iran: No Invasion!

Vivien Feyer is a psychologist, educator, mediator and peace activist. Vivien trains and coaches community mediators and promotes direct person-to-person, heart-to-heart communication between adversaries and across borders. In 1981, she founded the fair trade import company, PARADISO: JEWELS OF BALI. Most recently, Vivien has traveled to Iraq and Iran as a citizen diplomat. Through photography and drawing, Vivien has collected a visual representation of her travels and has been presenting her experience throughout the US.

• US & Iranian Relations
• Alternative Conflict Resolution
• Medical Aid
• Women and War

Andrea Buffa is nationally recognized anti-war and media activist. Currently she works as the Campaigns Director at Global Exchange and does anti-war activism with the women's peace group CODEPINK. As the executive director of Media Alliance from 1997 to 2001, she was a leader in the campaign to take back the Pacifica Radio Network from corporate hijackers. In 2002, while at Global Exchange, she helped found United for Peace and Justice, the largest peace coalition in the United States, was its co-chair for one year, and also served on its steering committee. In January 2004, she led a fact-finding delegation to Iraq to understand the impact of the US war and occupation on the Iraqi people.

• What’s wrong with the US media system and what you can do to change it
• Organizing and activism 101
• How to get media attention for the issues you care about
• Fair Trade chocolate and coffee
• The Iraq war and strategies for the peace movement

Mike moved to the US a year ago and works for Global Exchange as their Independence from Oil campaign director. Since coming down to the states Mike has co-organized 4 national days of action, launched a campaign to “Save Hockey – Fight Climate Change” and co-created the Oil Addicts Anonymous and the Oil Enforcement Agency. He works to end America’s addiction to oil, stop the runaway global climate crisis, separate oil from state Separate Oil from State and put a complete moratorium on Alberta tar sands development.

• Corporate Campaigning: How to Take on the Big Boys and Win
• Oil Addiction: How to Admit the Addiction and Get Some Help
• Sustainable Transportation
• Creative Activism: Big Wins with Small Resources.
• Youth Initiatives and Climate Change
• Non-Violent Direct Action, Action Climbing and Blockades
• Tarsands: the Blackhole of North America.

Walter Turner brings a comprehensive knowledge of African history and current events to his talks on South Africa and U.S.-Africa foreign relations. Mr. Turner is a Professor of History and Ethnic Studies at the College of Marin and Chair of the Department. He is the President of the Board of Directors for several San Francisco Bay Area nonprofits, including Sound Vision, Global Exchange, and the Institute for a New South Africa, which provides local government skills training for South African citizens. He also produces and hosts the popular Pacifica Radio program "Africa Today," which airs weekly on KPFA in Berkeley, California. He has assisted human rights projects around the world, working closely with political prisoners and sustainable community development.

• Africa and the African Diaspora
• South African History and Current Events
• U.S.-Africa Foreign Relations

Alicia Raquel is a 17 year-old mixed heritage west coast boricua, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She has been involved in performing arts and activism since her first anti-war protest at age 4, and her first performance at age 6. These days she is combining her passions through guerilla theater, spoken word, music, dance and anti-oppression and empowerment workshops for young people. She is a graduate of California State Summer School for the Arts and Art in Action and has written and performed with Destiny Arts, Youth Speaks and independent performance projects around the Bay Area. Right now her biggest projects are working on a independently written, produced and performed piece with a group of other high school aged youth, developing her skills in dance, capoeira and singing, and trying to make it through her last year of high school.

• How Personal Experience Links to Global Change
• Art as a Tool of Activism
• Theater/Writing Workshops
• Anti-Opression - Homophobia, Classism, Sexism, Racism

Alli Chagi-Starr is the Art and Events Director for Reclaim the Future at Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland. She is a founder of Art in Action Youth Leadership Program, Dancers Without Borders, Another World is Possible Road Shows and the twelve-year-old Radical Performance Fest. Chagi-Starr was the co-founder of Art and Revolution, a national movement of artist-activists that helped revitalize social movements from 1996-2001. Her essays appear in Democratizing the Global Economy, Global Uprising, Voices from the WTO, The Political Edge and How to Stop the Next War Now. She offers workshops and consultation on arts activism, cultural organizing and anti-racist strategies for movement-building, and has presented at Bioneers, the Esalen Institute, and at dozens of conferences and educational institutions across the United States and Canada. She is currently writing, "Movements for Mass Movements: Creative Tools for Changemakers."

• Challenging Racism and Oppression in our Communities
• Making Dances that Matter: Movement Theater for the Streets
• Arts Activism: The Power of Images and Creativity in our Movements for Social Justice

Dawn Fraser is an avid Caribbean-American educator, activist, spoken word artist, speaker and cultural agent. Dawn has worked on an array of political and social issues which primarily affect low-income and minority communities. Dawn explores creative ways to utilize music and dance to transform democracy and generate collective action. By focusing on concepts of innovation, entrepreneurship, political race and leadership, Dawn explores both the formal and informal means to harness the power of culture.

• Cultural Arts, Community Building and Strategies that Inspire Action
• New Media Strategies to Promote Arts Activism

The latest initiative of the Women of Color Resource Center, Runway Peace Project (RPP), organizes pro-peace, anti-war fashion shows across the nation. Looking for a way to raise awareness about militarism, gender, occupation and what we can do about it? Host a fashion show & educate your community ...with style! RPP is a multimedia toolkit that examines the powerful influence of U.S. militarism on popular culture. RPP brings together designers, performers and activists in a powerful expression of resistance and hope.

• Militarization and Gender

Xiomara Castro is a Salvadoran-American who has been involved in the social change movement from a very young age, initially fighting to end the U.S. military intervention in El Salvador and later working for immigrant and farmworkers' rights in the U.S. She has worked as a farmworker union organizer in the Northwest, aiding refugees in gaining healthcare and legal services in the Southwest, and most recently engaging youth around the country as a grassroots educator in California and along the US/Mexico Border. Xiomara is currently involved in coordinating Art in Action, a youth leadership training program that incorporates Arts and Social Justice activism. At the camp she facilitates the "Linking the Issues", Anti-Oppression, and Street Art/Giant Puppet making workshops. In "Linking the Issues," Xiomara touches on methods of connecting global justice issues to domestic civil and human rights issues in the United States. By linking the roots of global injustice and talking about issues such as Racism, Environmental Injustice, Militarism and Corporate Globalization, youth are able to connect and relate problems they face and struggles they are involved in with people's struggles for justice around the world.

• US/Mexico Border: Militarization, Free Trade, Immigration and Human Rights
• How Corporate Globalization Affects Local Communities
• Environmental Justice
• Student and Youth Activism
• Anti-Oppression

Luis Gilberto Murillo is the former governor of Chocó, the poorest state in Colombia. His hard fought victory as one of the youngest Colombians to win a gubernatorial election was the result of his tireless organizing efforts around the environment and issues related to the ancestral lands of the Afro-Colombian and indigenous populations of Colombia. During his tenure as governor, Sr. Murillo became one of the most recognizable Afro-Colombian figures in the country, and won praises from the national media for his creative proposals to protect the environment and fight poverty. His outspoken advocacy for his people and similar voiceless groups led to his kidnapping, repeated death threats and his eventual exile to the U.S. He continues to speak out against human rights abuses by the Colombian military and rightwing paramilitary groups, and against U.S. military funding that only exacerbates the conflict and could mire the U.S. in Colombia's tragic civil war. Sr. Murillo speaks in favor of peace, reconciliation, full democracy and social inclusion in Colombia.

• Plan Colombia
• Afro-Colombian and Indigenous Struggles in Colombia
• Human Rights in Colombia
• Colombian Alternatives to US Militarism

Noah Dillard, a native of Maine, has been working internationally for economic and ecological justice and human rights since 2003, in support of local grassroots struggles in Palestine and Colombia. In 2003, after the US bombing campaign in Iraq intensified, he traveled to the Gaza Strip, Palestine, volunteering as a non-violence trainer and coordinator for the International Solidarity Movement for 6 months. In January 2005, Noah entered Christian Peacemaker Teams and joined their Colombia team full time, working in solidarity with campesino and indigenous land rights struggles, and against US foreign policy and military aid to Colombia. Noah returns to the US, now, to continue his solidarity activism, outreach, and education, from the trigger end of US foreign policy.

• Colombia and Non-violent Resistence
• Palestine and Non-violent Resistence
• Campesino and Indigenous Land Rights Struggles
• The Devastating Effects of Free Trade and US Foreign Policy, i.e. Plan Colombia, Military Aid to Colombia, Fumigations, and the so called Drug War

Delvis Fernández-Levy, president and founder of the Cuba American Alliance Education Fund, Inc., will discuss the debilitating effects that the U.S. embargo has had on Cuban citizens from a humanitarian and ethical perspective. His presentation will assess the embargo from a moral standpoint and will emphasize how this perspective succeeds in de-politicizing thedebate. He will also address the Cuba Food and Medicine Security Act of 1999, which would enable Cuba to effectively receive medicine and food supplies.

• Realities of the Embargo of Cuba

Leslie Balog has lived the past 20 years in Cuba and worked at the island’s international radio station. She has been arranging Cuba tours for Global Exchange since l993. She has also worked in the San Francisco Bay Area as an immigration and tenant’s rights attorney. .

Environmental Justice, Oil & Climate Change

Ben Namakin, born in 1980, grew up on the Pacific islands of Kiribati and Micronesia. Since 2002, he has worked as an Environmental Educator with the Conservation Society of Pohnpei where his work includes taking on the issue of climate change and initiatives such as the Youth-to-Youth in Environmental Education and Awareness Program, and an array of other successful outreach initiatives. Namakin has taught a summer course on climate change and its implications for island systems at the College of Micronesia. He has produced footage showing sea level rise, coastal erosion and other changes on island systems. His footage of the split of Deketik Island from sea flooding was shown during the United Nations 2005 Climate Change Conference COP11/MOP1 in Montreal, Canada. Namakin was selected as the only Pacific Islander to join the Beyond Kyoto/It’s Us! International Youths at the Youth Summit and Youth Delegation to the United Nations 2005 Climate Change Conference. He participated in making the International Youth Declaration "Our Climate, Our Challenge, Our Future" and was one of five youth speakers who addressed the 10,000 delegates in a plenary at the COP11/MOP1. Namakin continues to collaborate with the Beyond Kyoto youths to share information on possible actions to stop climate change, research climate change impacts in the Pacific, and raise awareness about the issue.

Brandon Knight

Brandon Knight is the Mid-West Independence from Oil Campus Organizer at Global Exchange. Brandon has studied Transportation Economics and Environmental Economics and Policy at Michigan State University. He has worked in the energy efficiency and renewable energy field for over 2 years with non-profits and with MSU Campus Office of Sustainability. Brandon is now using his experience to help students organize to improve the fuel-efficiency of university vehicles and to develop transportation alternatives as part of the Campus Climate Challenge.

• Climate Change and Environmental Justice
• Transportation Policy
• Student Activism/Campus Organizing

Earl Kingik is a member of the Native Village of Point Hope, Alaska. Earl is an Inupiat subsistence hunter and whaler, and has extensive historical contributions promoting Inupiat subsistence rights as a former board member of the Beluga Whaling Commission, Western Arctic Caribou Herd board member, Pt. Hope city council member, field archeologist and Wildlife and Parks Director. Earl is concerned with climate change, offshore and onshore oil development, and their effects on Indigenous land and subsistence rights.

• Climate Change
• Environmental Consequences of Oil Drilling
• Indigenous Peoples and the Environment
• Offshore oil and gas

Enrique Salmón (pronounced sahl-móhn), is a Rarámuri (Tarahumara). He feels indigenous cultural concepts of the natural world are only part of a complex and sophisticated understanding of landscapes and biocultural diversity, and he has dedicated his studies to Ethnobiology and Traditional Ecological Knowledge in order to better understand his own and other cultural perceptions of culture, landscapes, and place. Dr. Salmon’s recent studies have led him to seriously consider the connections between Climate Change and Indigenous traditional foodways. In order to maintain the sustainable food producing capacities of many landscapes to produce wild and cultivated foods and livestock is to secure a future for the land and people. Increasingly, the scientific majority agrees that Global Warming will negatively impact the planet’s ability to feed exponential human population growth. As a result, we need to look to places of hope and resilience for solutions to how to adapt to these Earth Changes and continue to feed human populations. Indigenous homelands are regions noticing the effects of Global Warming, but also able to possibly offer solutions.

• Cultivating Resilience: Indigenous Solutions to Climate Change
• Ethnobiology of Native North America
• Ethnobotany of the Greater Southwest
• Poisonous Plants that Heal
• Bioculturally Diverse Regions as Refuges of Hope and Resilience
• The Language and Library of Indigenous Ecological Knowledge

Faith Gemmill, a Pit River/ Wintu and Neets’aii Gwich’in Athabascan from Arctic Village, Alaska, is the current outreach coordinator for REDOIL (Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands). Faith previously worked on behalf of the Gwich’in Nation for over ten years as a representative, public spokesperson and Gwich’in Steering Committee staff to address the potential human health and cultural impacts of proposed oil development and production of the birthplace and nursery of the Porcupine Caribou Herd which is located within the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Faith continues as a public spokesperson, press and tribal liaison and human rights advocate. Faith is a current field representative of the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC). In this capacity Faith has represented the Gwich’in Nation within appropriate mechanisms of the United Nations to advocate for the recognition of Gwich’in human rights as well as work for the rights and recognition of Indigenous Peoples. Faith also serves on the advisory board of Honor the Earth.

• The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
• Human Rights and Oil
• Indigenous Peoples and the Environment

Gopal Dayaneni, a leading activist in the struggle for social, economic and environmental justice, is an impassioned speaker and organizer. He is the former Oil Campaign Coordinator for Project Underground, a human rights and environmental rights organization. Since October, 2002, Gopal has been organizing and training in non-violent civil disobedience in opposition to the War on Terrorism at home and abroad. Gopal is an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign and domestic policies, corporate-led globalization, the 'War on Terrorism", war profiteering and the systemic links between war and racism. Since the late 80's, Gopal has been involved in fighting for social, economic and racial justice through organizing, teaching, writing, speaking and non-violent direct action.

• Oil and War: From the Arctic to Iraq
• Axis of Evil or Access to Oil?-- Motivations of the Bush Regime
• Human Rights, Environmental Justice and Oil
• War and Racism: who decides who dies?
• The Real Price of Oil: from militarization to catastrophic climate change.

Malik Rahim, born and raised in New Orleans’ Algiers neighborhood, has worked as an organizer for decades around housing and prison issues. During Hurricane Katrina, Malik stayed to assist the community and has been speaking out about racism and the failures of government exposed by the Katrina disaster. To counter the powerful corporate forces trying to control the rebuilding, Malik has founded Rebuild Green to work with community-based organizations efforts to advance social justice and environmental sustainability. Malik states that “By focusing on green building technology, renewable energy, mass transit systems, and green community development that empowers local people to take control of their local resources, the rebuilding of New Orleans can take our city from being a symbol of disaster to being a prototype sustainable city of the future. “

Mary Anne Hitt

Mary Anne Hitt is the executive director of Appalachian Voices, a nonprofit organization that brings people together to solve the environmental problems having the greatest impact on the central and southern Appalachian Mountains. The organization works with communities across Appalachia to tackle two major causes of climate change: mountaintop removal coal mining and the construction of new coal-fired power plants. She grew up in the mountains of east Tennessee, just outside Gatlinburg and the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

• Climate Change
• Mountain Top Removal and Coal-fired Fuel Plants in the Appalachian Mountains

Narcisa Gualinga is a Kichwa leader from the Autonomous Territory of the Original Kichwa Nation of Sarayaku (TAYJA-SARUTA) in the Ecuadorian Amazon, which has opposed oil extraction and the Argentine oil company CGC since they entered Sarayaku territory in 1996. Narcisa was one of the original presidents and coordinators of the Sarayaku Organization of Women, and currently forms an integral part of the organizational process of the community through her roles as a political representative, and both mother and wife to subsequent presidents of the Nation of Sarayaku. In 1992, she participated in the historic March for Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, for the recognition of territorial rights of the indigenous peoples of Pastaza province. Narcisa has never had the opportunity to learn to read nor write, and she has never studied. Yet her conviction and experience have been fundamental to providing understanding and political orientation to her community. She has a long history of defending the environment in the Amazon and of shaping her people’s role in the proper development of the planet.

Nick Magel

Nick Magel is Director of Global Exchange’s Freedom From Oil Campaign, using his organizing, leadership and communication skills to build an ever larger movement to end US oil addiction and stop global climate change. His expertise is using corporate campaigns to pressure the auto industry to produce zero-emission vehicles and stop new oil infrastructure, while inspiring and empowering youth to create sustainable transportation and renewable energy policies on their campuses. Prior to joining Global Exchange Nick worked on campaigns to stop new liquefied natural gas infrastructure on the west coast, and developed climate based curricula for classrooms across the country. He received his MA in education from Lesley University, where he worked to radicalize environmental education norms and to explore participatory education as a catalyst for action.

Nina Rizzo

Nina Rizzo is the California Freedom from Oil Campus Organizer at Global Exchange. She studied Geography as well as Conservation and Resource Studies at UC Berkeley. She organized for the recent sweatfree and climate campaigns for the University of California; uses these experiences to work with students and other organizations to get climate and sustainable transportation policies and programs in order to address the climate crisis.

• Global Warming and Sustainable Transportation
• Student Activism/Campus Organizing
• Oil and Human Rights

Omoyele Sowore is a Nigerian who has spent the last 15 years working to promote human rights and democracy in Nigeria, and to stop the militarization and violence that multinational oil companies have brought to his country. In 1989, he took part in student demonstrations protesting the conditions of an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan of $120 million to be used for a Nigerian oil pipeline – the IMF loan conditions were to reduce the number of universities in the country from 28 to just 5. In 1992 at University of Lagos, Sowore led 2,000 students in protest against Nigeria’s notorious kleptocracy. Police opened fire, killing seven. Sowore was arrested, interrogated and beaten, but he refused to back down in his struggle for decent education in his country. He’s been imprisoned eight times and tortured, but he remains committed. “We've had supposed democracy for six and a half years and people still can't eat,’ he says. ‘Who has benefited? There's no basic health care. We don't have running water. We don't have electricity, no basic education…Shell and Chevron are among the biggest corporations in the world and they have benefited only a few people, the clique that runs the country. The Niger Delta area is polluted, occupied and heavily militarized. People get killed on behalf of the major oil companies everyday, that cannot be right.”

• Oil Exploration, Human Rights & Global Governance
• Youth empowerment & Student Activism
• A Call for Peace: The Non-Violent Struggle for Human Rights and Justice in Nigeria
• Oil & Human Rights in Nigeria: A Voice from the Frontlines

Rosina Philippe is a lifetime resident of coastal Louisiana, and an advocate for preservation of traditional cultural and heritage practices. A grassroots activist, she has partnered with leaders from other communities along with faith-based and non-profit organizations to work for sustainability of marginalized traditional family fishers. Rosina has traveled to both the East and West coast to study and build network partnerships to address issues of Fair Trade Marketing, Racial Injustice, Economic Instability, and Coastal Restoration. She is vocal on the issue of recognizing accountability, and identifying contributing factors and entities in relation to these issues. A firm believer that people, facing similar problems, through informed education and information sharing have the power to affect positive long-term changes, and retake charge of their own destinies.

Van Jones

Eco-visionary, human rights attorney, and powerhouse speaker, Van Jones is one of the most creative and unifying progressive leaders in the United States. Jones is the founder of one of the most innovative racial justice organizations in the United States: the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (EBC). Based in Oakland, California, EBC works for positive alternatives to incarceration and violence in urban America. Van is also a passionate advocate for the environment and for responsible business. He has served on numerous governing boards, including: Rainforest Action Network, WITNESS, Bioneers, the New Apollo Project and the Social Venture Network. Van’s efforts have earned him many honors, including the Reebok International Human Rights Award, the Ashoka Fellowship, and the Rockefeller Foundation “Next Generation Leadership” Fellowship.

• The New Dream: Updating MLK’s Vision To Meet Today’s Ecological & Social Challenges
• All Together For Energy Action: Bridging The Black/Green Divide To Reverse Climate Change NOW
• “Green-Collar Jobs, Not Jails”: Moving From Jail Cells to Solar Cells In Urban America
• The Soul of Activism: Healing Our Movements For Social Change
• “Books, Not Bars”: Smart Alternatives To The U.S. Incarceration Industry
• Politics Of Hope: The New Path To Green Growth, Shared Prosperity & MLK’s Beloved Community

This speaking tour explores Israeli and Palestinian experiences of 1948, the creation of the Palestinian refugee crisis and the role of the right of return in any just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• Israel, Palestine and the Right of Return

Amir Terkel, 35, grew up in Israel and graduated from Tel Aviv University. He served in the Israeli military for three years as a conscript soldier and eight years in the army reserves. In 2002, he joined “Courage to Refuse,” an organization of Israeli reserve officers and soldiers who publicly refuse to serve in the Occupied Territories. Amir currently lives in the San Francisco bay area with his wife and son. A filmmaker, he has participated in several documentaries about Israelis and Palestinians, including "Other Voices from Israel and Palestine," "Holy Land Common Ground", and "Occupied Minds". Amir remains involved in the Israeli peace movement as well as the Jewish peace movement in the U.S. and stays current with developments in Israel and Palestine.

• Israeli Peace Movement

Anna Baltzer is a 28-year-old Jewish American Columbia graduate, Fulbright scholar, and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. She is a three-time volunteer with the International Women's Peace Service, where she documented human rights abuses in the West Bank and supported the nonviolent movement against the Occupation. She has spent most of the past few years in Palestine or on tour with her book, Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories.

• Palestine Occupation
• Israeli Activism
• Censorship
• 1948 Nakba
• Nonviolent Resistance

Bassam Haddad is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at St. Joseph’s University and Visiting Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. He is also a Scholar in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania. Bassam serves as Editor of the Arab Studies Journal, a peer-reviewed research publication and is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad. He is currently working on his first book on Syria’s political economy and directing a film series on “Arabs and Terrorism".

Huwaida Arraf

Huwaida Arraf is a first generation Palestinian-American born and raised in Detroit, MI. In Spring 2000, Huwaida served as Program Coordinator in Jerusalem with Seeds of Peace. With other Palestinian and international activists, she co-founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in April, 2001, a Palestinian-led movement of Palestinian and international activists and community organizations working to raise awareness of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and an end to Israeli occupation. Last summer, Huwaida traveled to Lebanon and helped coordinate civilian relief efforts and accompaniment for returning refugees to South Lebanon, directly challenging Israel's attack against the people of Lebanon.

• Civil Resistance in Lebanon
• International Solidarity Movement
• Palestine and International Law

Josh Ruebner is the Grassroots Advocacy Coordinator with the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, a nonsectarian coalition of more than 75 grassroots organizations working to promote a US foreign policy supportive of a just resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After graduate school, Ruebner worked on Capitol Hill as an Analyst in Middle East Affairs for Congressional Research Service (CRS), a nonpartisan government agency providing Members of Congress with information and analysis. Since leaving government service, Ruebner has focused on providing peace activists with access to and influence on Capital Hill.

• How to Influence Your Members of Congress: An Interactive Training Workshop

Laila El-Haddad is a freelance Palestinian journalist and writer based between the United States and the Gaza Strip. She spent the past three years in Gaza reporting for the Aljazeera Satellite Channel's english language website (now known as Aljazeera International) and Pacifica Radio's Free Speech Radio news. Her work is also frequently found in the Guardian Unlimited, the BBC World Service, the Electronic Intifada, Le Monde Diplomatique, and the New Statesman. Laila is also the author of the blog Raising Yousuf (www.a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com), where she writes about the trials and tribulations of motherhood under occupation.

Lisa Nessan

Lisa Nessan is a Jewish American activist and photographer from the San Francisco Bay Area. Lisa lived and worked in the West Bank from September 2002 to August 2005, participating with and supporting Palestinians in their struggle against Israeli occupation. Lisa has led a number of fact-finding delegations for the Fellowship of Reconciliation and Global Exchange and has conducted nonviolence trainings for hundreds of international volunteers working with the International Solidarity Movement. She has coordinated extensively with Israeli, Palestinian and international organizations to facilitate the support for Palestinian communities threatened by Israeli military and settler violence. In May 2006, Lisa held her first photography exhibit “Hope Under Siege” in San Francisco, CA. The exhibit exposes resistance to Israeli occupation and life under occupation in the West Bank. Lisa’s photography has appeared in independent publications and advocacy materials for Palestinian civil society organizations and have been part of photography exhibits in London, Amman, New York and Austin. Lisa dedicates much of her time while in the United States to organizing advocacy efforts and sharing her experiences in Palestine and Israel on radio programs, in high schools, with faith based organizations, community organizations and university campuses.

• Joint Struggle against Israeli Occupation
• Daily Life for Palestinians Under Military Occupation
• Photographic Exhibit: Hope Under Siege

Mohammed is a second generation Palestinian exile from the city of Jaffa and is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. As an activist, Mohammed has worked with the Palestine Right to Return Coalition and Alternative Palestinian Agenda. Mohammed's research focuses on political violence, as well as normative and applied ethics.

Ora Wise

Ora Wise, daughter of a rabbi and born in Jerusalem, is getting her masters in Jewish Education at the Jewish Theological Seminary while developing curricula for and teaching at a progressive synagogue in Brooklyn. For several years Ora served as a media spokesperson for the national student divestment movement and organized with Jews Against the Occupation in New York City. She then co-founded the Palestine/Israel Education Project, which facilitates multi-media workshops in high schools and youth groups connecting the history of Palestine to struggles against racism and colonialism in the US. Within the context of PEP, Ora is working with Break the Silence in the Bay Area, Lajee Center in Aida Refugee Camp, and other youth organizations in Palestine and the US on developing a US-Palestine youth institute focusing on art and media skills.

Susan Greene

Susan Greene of Break the Silence Mural Project traveled to the West Bank of Occupied Palestine to create a four-story mural in coordination with Palestinian youth and artists. Susan lived and painted at the Ibdaa Guest House in Dheisheh Refugee Camp in Bethlehem. The mural was designed and painted by Palestinian youth and artists, Americans and American Jews. Susan is available to present slides and video of the powerful art created and speak about what daily life is like living in the Occupied Territories. The focus of each presentation is determined by the context of the event however the general themes are daily life for Palestinians under the military occupation, its relationship to the community mural project, history of the region and implications for art and activism.

• Break the Silence Mural and Arts Project in Palestine
• Daily Life for Palestinians Under Military Occupation
• Art and Activism

Zein El-Amine is a longtime DC community activist and regular contributor to Left Turn magazine (www.leftturn.org). Zein was born and raised in Lebanon and most of his immediate family was recently evacuated from there. He is now a member the newly formed Coalition for Justice and Accountability—a DC based group of Arab Americans, African Americans and Jewish American activists who are focusing on grassroots education and action to deal with the most current attack on Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territories. He has recently launched an effort to hold regional town hall meetings on this crisis in DC, Maryland and Virginia.

Mexico

Beth Bird is a documentary filmmaker, whose work engages vital contemporary social-issues such as globalization, popular resistance, and local community empowerment, drawing attention to and putting a human face on struggles for social justice. Her first feature-length film, "Everyone Their Grain Of Sand" (2005), won the 2005 Jury Award for Best Documentary at its U.S. premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival and many other awards. In her film "Everyone Their Grain of Sand", Bird documents the struggle that border-town Maclovio Rojas has been facing in its relentless efforts to have access to basic human rights, like water and education.

• USA-Mexico Border
• Global Economy and Fair Trade
• Water Privatization

John Gibler is a Global Exchange human rights fellow in Mexico who has been covering social movements since January 1st, 2006. He has reported on the ground from the Zapatistas Other Campaign, the massive protests against electoral fraud in Mexico City, and the civil disobedience uprising in Oaxaca. His writing and photographs have appeared in Z Magazine, ZNet, In These Times, Left Turn, The Indypendent, New Politics, Narco News, UpsideDownWorld.com, and other independent media. He has reported for Flashpoints on KPFA, Democracy Now!, KPFK, and WBAI. He has also reported from Oaxaca for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the international edition of the Miami Herald. Before moving to Mexico, Gibler worked for various human rights and social justice organizations in Mexico, Peru, and California. He reported on environmental justice issues and water privatization in California for Public Citizen, Terrain Magazine, ColorLines, the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, the Journal on Race, Poverty and the Environment and other independent media.

• The May 4th massive police raid in San Salvador Atenco.
• The Uprising in Oaxaca
• The Zapatista Other Campaign
• THe Massive Protest Against Electoral Fraud

Born in Mexico City, Juan Manuel Sandoval is a leading social activist and academic in Mexico City who holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from UCLA. He is General Coordinator of the Permanent Seminar on Chicano and Border Studies in Mexico City, a member of the Coordinating Committee of the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade, and member of the Board of Directors of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (USA).

In April, he did a nation-wide tour with preeminent activist, writer and photojournalist, David Bacon on the issues of labor, immigration and international trade.

Read his report on Mexican Labor Migration and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA): 1994-2006

• Immigration and Free Trade

Ted Lewis directs the human rights programs of Global Exchange and is a long time democracy and antiwar activist. He recently organized Fair Election International (www.fairelection.us), which invited observers from all five continents to observe the November 2004 election in five key US states. Since 1994, Mr. Lewis has directed the Human Rights and the Mexico Programs of Global Exchange. He has supervised and coordinated multinational human rights teams in Nicaragua and some of the most conflictive states in Mexico and led the largest international team of delegates to observe the Mexican presidential elections in 2000. He visited Iraq in the summer of 2003, helping to launch the Iraq Occupation Watch.

• Militarization in Mexico and the U.S. Connection
• Why We Must Leave Iraq

Making money and supporting social justice are not mutually exclusive. With personal charisma and energy, John Harrington makes socially responsible investing fascinating and immediate. Mr.Harrington is President and CEO of a highly successful investment company whose clients are concerned with social as well as financial criteria. He is also Manager of Global Partners, LLC, a social venture fund. He has been President and Chair of the Board of Working Assets Management Company as well as Progressive Asset Management, has held several investment consulting positions for the State of California, and is a key figure in numerous San Francisco Bay Area nonprofits. He has been a leader in the socially responsible investment movement for over thirty years, and was a key architect of the divestment movement against the apartheid government in South Africa.

• Socially Responsible Investing