Peace Education Day Conference Speakers

Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhury

Founder of the Global Movement for the Culture of Peace and former Under Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Kehkeshan Basu

Founder/President, Green Hope Foundation, Climate Reality Mentor, Former Global Coordinator for Children and Youth, UNEP MGFC, and a UN Human Rights Champion.

Federico Mayor Zaragoza

Chairman of the Foundation for a Culture of Peace and former UNESCO Director-General.

Dr. Kozue Akibayashi

Professor at Doshisha University Graduate School of Global Studies, in Kyoto, Japan, and a member of the WILPF.

Ambassador Prof. Dr. Karim Errouaki

President Emeritus of AUE-FON University, Former Special Advisor to the UN SG Prof. Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Ambassador of OLA-DSCC to The African Union and CAFRAD

Dot Maver

Founder of the National Peace Academy, of the Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures of Peace and of the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding.

Dr. Stéphane Monney Mouandjo

Director-General of the African Training and Research Centre in Administration for Development (CAFRAD)

Prem Rawat

Founder of The Prem Rawat Foundation, and the Peace Education Program. His global efforts in peace education span over 100 countries.

Tony Jenkins, PhD

Managing Director of the International Institute of Peace Education (IIPE), Coordinator of the Global Campaign for Peace Education (GCPE), and a full-time lecturer in the  Justice and Peace program at Georgetown University.

Ramu Damodaran

Recently retired as Chief of the United Nations Academic Impact Initiative and Secretary of the United Nations Committee on Information.

Guy Djoken

Executive Director of Washington, DC based UNESCO Center for Peace and Chairman of the U.S. National Commissions for UNESCO Clubs, Centers and Associations.

Elena López Valcárcel

General Manager, Málaga Club of UNESCO, and Vice-President, Spanish Federation of UNESCO Associations and Clubs.

Chic Dambach

Adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins and American University a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow,  President Emeritus of the National Peace Corps Association, former President of the Alliance for Peacebuilding.

Dr Kozue Akibayashi

Feminist Researcher/activist and has worked on issues of gender and peace, professor at Doshisha University Graduate School of Global Studies, in Kyoto, Japan, and a member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

Willow Baker

Program Director of The Prem Rawat Foundation’s Peace Education Program, Ambassador for Institute for Economics and Peace, Chairperson, Rotary International Peacebuilder Club and former Professor of specialized English in Paris at CELSA, the Sorbonne University’s communication and journalism school.

Dr Beena Chintalapuri

Developer, Unnati Program, Telengana Prisons, India,  Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Osmania University, Hyderabad.

Alberto Ovando Martinez

Legal Advisor, Private Secretary, Executive Secretary of the State Public Security System, Quintana Roo, Mexico.

Reverend Canon Petero Sabune

An immigrant and refugee advocate, former Chaplain at Sing Sing Correctional Facility and former African Partnership Officer for the Episcopal Church.

Jake Groshong

Executive Director of the Playing for Change Foundation, an international non-profit operating 15 music education programs across 11 countries.

Mira Binzen

Founder of Global Family Yoga. She holds a degree in Child Psychology from The University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, with specialized study in Communication Disorders, She uses yoga as a tool for transformation.

Kehkeshan Basu

Founder/President, Green Hope Foundation, Climate Reality Mentor, Former Global Coordinator for Children and Youth, UNEP MGFC, and a UN Human Rights Champion.

Alexander Laszlo, PhD

President of the Bertalanffy Center for the Study of Systems Science (BCSSS), Director of Research at the Laszlo Institute of New Paradigm Research (LINPR), Co-Founder and Global Collaborator at Global Education Futures (GEF), Vice-President for Education of Unity Foundation and Chief Edunaut of the Evolutionary Learning Ecosystems program in Argentina.

Monica Willard

Monica Willard, United Religions Initiative, is the main URI representative to the United Nations and works with the UN Department of Public Information (DPI) on the Student Observance for Peace Day.

Suzanne Midori Hanna, PhD, MFT

Marriage and family therapist and prolific author focusing on underserved groups, evidence-based practice, integrative behavioral health, relational neuroscience, and media development for core competencies in family therapy.

María Francisca Cortés Solari

a Chilean businesswoman, philanthropist, conservationist. She founded Filantropía Cortés Solari (FCS), a philanthropic project that promotes the Sustainable Development Goals through science, education and conservation, in a context of climate crisis.

Bill Miller

Founder/CEO/moderator of “Global Connections Television,” which does most of its tapings at the United Nations in New York and reaches over 70-million potential viewers each week worldwide to help people better understand international issues and how they impact their lives.

Judge Denny Chin

A Senior Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, New York City, President, Re-entry through Intensive Supervision and Employment (RISE) Court, a voluntary program assisting in the successful re-entry of certain at-risk individuals on supervised release and produced a series of trial reenactments to educate audiences about human rights.

Justice Lamberto Cisneras Rocha

A lawyer, university professor, former Minister of the Supreme Court and the Qualifying Court of Elections in Chile. His most recent book is: Electoral Processes and Electoral Justice in Chile.

Avon Mattison

Avon Mattison is Co-founder and President/Steward of Pathways To Peace, an UN-designated Peace Messenger Organization, with UN Consultative Status (ECOSOC). She was an advisor to the UN on the International Day of Peace.

Dot Maver, PhD

Board/Trustee founder of the National Peace Academy, a founder of the Global Alliance for Ministries and Infrastructures of Peace and Founding Executive Director of the River Phoenix Center for Peacebuilding.

Tucker Robbins

Tucker Robbins’ created thriving artisan workshops in Guatemala, Philippines, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Cameroon. Supporting indigenous cultures, he partners with tribal chiefs, Arabian sheikhs, and village artisans to make sustainable furniture with its own life and spirit

Zolaykha Sherzad

Founder and creative designer of Zarif Design collaborating with Afghan women to adapt traditional Afghan cuts and textiles to modern design, founding member of the School of Hope (SoH), which enables children to receive an education in Afghanistan and recently escaped from Kabul.

Melissa Jun Rowley

Writer, television producer and entrepreneur, featured in Forbes, Fast Company, CBS News, NBC, MTV, TechCrunch, The Guardian and BBC News, and a journalist who covers frontier tech, gender issues, and international development.

Jim Chu

Jim Chu, Founder, and CEO of Untapped Global. Based in San Francisco with teams in East Africa, West Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe, Untapped Global is reshaping profitable investing in frontier markets.