• Education

My activism started early with my dad going missing in the Korean War when I was a baby. My childhood was full of hope that he would return, and questions about whether war is really the way for us to solve problems. My mom modelled activism working in the League of Women Voters to register voters and inform them about issues and people running, and participating actively in parent teacher associations while she raised her five kids. I immigrated from the US to Canada when I was 20 in protest to the Vietnam War and with great admiration for Canada's peacekeeping leadership in the world, and have been a happy Canadian for fifty years now. My activism has taken many forms. I co-founded 20/20 Vision in 1990 and for twenty years worked with a team of people to choose a pressing peace or environmental topic each month and writing a 350 word postcard we mailed to our subscribers providing them the information they needed to write an informed letter to a policymaker about the issue. Since 1985, I have been active in Foundation for Global Community, previously known as Beyond War and currently known as Global Mindshift. This is an educational association whose mission is to discover, live and communicate what is needed to build a world that functions for the benefit of all life. We continue to meet for long weekends twice a year to immerse ourselves in learning and dialogue. This fall, our topic is "The Uncomfortable Truth", a documentary by L. Mulholland, about four hundred years of institutionalized racism and slavery in America. For thirty five years I taught in the School of Instructor Education at Vancouver Community College where my personal mission working with college teachers was to build world peace one classroom at a time. I have been a strong supporter of all the good work of the Visioneers - Geri, Des and the whole team - for 25 years or more. They share my belief that all social and political change begins with individual change.