Trainers

John Lindsay-Poland

Southwestern Regional Coordinator / Research Director Fellowship of Reconciliation-USA

US Phone: 510-282-8983

Skype: johnlindsay-poland

John Lindsay-Poland has written about, researched and organized action for human rights and demilitarization of US policy in Latin America for 30 years. He serves as research director and southwestern regional coordinator of the interfaith pacifist organization Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). He participated in last year’s US-Mexico Caravan for Peace, and has

visited Ciudad Juarez four times as part of FOR’s work to address gun trafficking and the US role in violence in Mexico. He edits FOR's monthly Latin America Update; founded the FOR's Colombia peace team; and is author of articles, reports and books on U.S. military bases, policy, and history in Latin America, including: Military Assistance and Human Rights: Colombia, U.S. Accountability, and Global Implications and Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the U.S. in Panama (Duke University Press). He served with Peace Brigades International (PBI) in Guatemala and El Salvador, and co-founded PBI's Colombia Project. He is currently working on a study of the impacts of US military assistance on Army killings of civilians in Colombia. He lives and works in Oakland, California.

Liliane Kshensky Baxter, Ph.D.

Member, International Committee, IFOR Director, Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education, Atlanta, Georgia

Email: lbaxter@earthlink.net

US Phone : 404.964.4322

Lili Baxter was born in a Displaced Persons Camp in Sweden to Holocaust survivors from Poland. She grew up in Paris and New York, and now lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

A writer, teacher and activist, Lili served on the FOR-USA National Council from 1990 to 2002, where she worked on various committees and task forces, including Nonviolence Training, Affirmative Action and Middle East. She served as Vice Chair 1998-2000 and Chair 2000-2002, becoming FOR-USA’s first Jewish chair.

Lili represented FOR-USA at the 2000 IFOR Council in Mennerode, the Netherlands, the 2002 IFOR Council in New York City, the 2006 IFOR Council in Tokyo, Japan, and the 2010 IFOR Council in Baarlo, the Netherlands. Lili has served on the International Committee (governing body) of IFOR from 2002 to 2006 and 2010 to 2014, when IFOR will celebrate its centennial. She has also served in various oversight capacities for IFOR’s Women’s Peacemakers Program.

Lili received a BA from Hunter College (New York). In the 1970s, at the University of Pittsburgh and Emory University, she taught some of the earliest Women’s Studies courses in academia, coming full circle in 2002 when she received her Ph.D. in Human Development from Emory’s Women’s Studies Institute. A multi-disciplinary field that spans psychology, ethics and pedagogy, human development values the earliest years of life as foundational for altruism, and each evolving stage of life as providing opportunities for personal and social transformation.

From 1980 to 1993 Lili was Director of Nonviolence Research and Studies at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta, Georgia, where she was responsible for leadership development programs, and worked closely with Coretta Scott King on a range of women’s issues. Coming again full circle, for the last 10 years, Lili has been the Director of the Weinberg Center for Holocaust Education at the Breman Jewish Museum in Atlanta. Over the years, she has worked on many anti-genocide and interfaith initiatives, including co-founding the Save Darfur Coalition of Georgia and serving as delegate with the World Pilgrims.

Lili is married to Tom Baxter, a political journalist. Together, they have three children and seven grandchildren.

Mark C. Johnson, Ph.D.

Former Executive Director of FOR-USA (now retired)

ECOSOC Representative to the United Nations of IFOR

Programming Volunteer to the Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice (http://clbsj.org/)

Phone: 312-520-6404 (US cell)

Email: mjohnson@forusa.org

Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/mcjohnson307

Personal blog site: http://www.circusofwords.blogspot.com/ (mostly poetry)

Mark C. Johnson, Ph.D., became the executive director of the Fellowship of Reconciliation-USA on March 1, 2007. A 1969 graduate of The College of Wooster in Ohio, and with a 1981 doctorate in sociology from Columbia University in the City of New York. Mark has spent most of his professional career in the YMCA and as a volunteer in environmental, arts, and peace and social justice organizations. His longest tenure was as the executive director of the Silver Bay Association, a YMCA conference and training center on Lake George in the Adirondacks.

Mark was president of the Lake George Land Conservancy for eight years and a trustee with the Adirondack Nature Conservancy and Adirondack Land Trust for nine years. He did his alternative service as a conscientious objector in Lebanon, living and teaching in Beirut for six years. From 2002-2006 he was active with the emergent Alliance for Middle East Peace and supported the development of leadership and training programs for young adults at the Jerusalem International YMCA as a member of the staff of the YMCA of the USA.

Currently Mark serves on the non-profit boards of Interfaith Peace Builders, Associated Solo Artists/Creative Leaps International, Schools That Can (a national alliance of public, private independent and parochial charter schools), and the Stony Point Center including its Transition Team.

He is married and has three adult children. He lives in Stony Point, New York near the Nyack, New York headquarters of FOR. He contributes regularly to publications and blogs of the Fellowship of Reconciliation and this material can be found at www.forusa.org. In the spirit of Parker Palmer, Mark sees himself as a poet doing the work of a peacemaker.

Susana Pimiento Chamorro
Western Hemispheric Regional Liaison/Coordinator/Organizer

Fellowship of Reconciliation-USA
US Phone: 512-542-1769 (cell)

Email: spimiento@forusa.org

Susana serves as liaison with FOR’s campaign to transform U.S. militarism in the Americas, undertaking grassroots outreach and raising awareness on the impact of militarization. She is the U.S. representative at the Continental Campaign Against Military Bases coordinating committee, which works throughout the western hemisphere. Susana also supports regional coordination and organizing in the Southwest United States, where she is based.

A Colombian attorney with a M.A. in public policy from the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague, Susana’s previous experience includes advocacy work in the fields of environmental justice, arms control, and indigenous peoples’ rights. Before joining FOR, she led successful civil society efforts to bring changes in policy. As a co-founder of the Sunshine Project, she was involved in the design and implementation of the Agent Green campaign, which halted U.S.-led plans to use biological agents in the eradication of illicit crops in South America and Asia. Susana also worked at the Colombian 1991 constitutional assembly and has contributed to several publications on human rights. She resides in Austin, Texas, with her husband, Edward Hammond, and daughter, Amelia.

Isaac Beachy

FOR National Council Member

Former FOR Colombia Accompaniment Volunteer

Email: isaac.beachy@gmail.com

US Phone: 540.209.0064

Isaac worked with FOR doing accompaniment work in the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community and Bogota in Colombia from 2010-2012. He is still involved with accompaniment program by helping it transition to a new organization and is on FOR-USA's national council. He lives in Pittsburgh and works at Conflict Kitchen.

Kazu Haga

Founder & Coordinator, East Point Peace Academy

Email: emailkazu@gmail.com

US Phone: 510-967-4710

Kazu Haga is a trainer in Kingian Nonviolence, a philosophy developed out of the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, and conducts work in prisons and jails, schools and with youth groups, and for community leaders across the country. He most recently served as Operations Director & Bay Area Coordinator for the Positive Peace Warrior Network. He is currently working to start a new organization, the EastPoint Peace Academy. He also sits on the board of PeaceWorkers, the OneLife Institute, and Communities United for Restorative Justice (CURYJ), of which he is a co-founder, and is also a member of the Metta Center for Nonviolence’s Strategic Advisory Council.

Kazu has been active in various movements and campaigns for social chance since he was 17 years old, when he embarked on an 18-month journey with Nipponzan Myohoji, studying nonviolence and social change throughout the United States and South Asia.

He began his work at the Peace Development Fund in 2002, and would eventually become Program Director. In his 10+ years working in progressive philanthropy, he managed PDF’s grant-making portfolio, as well as coordinating two capacity-building initiatives working with formerly incarcerated communities and communities impacted by the nuclear cycle. He also served on the founding Steering Committee of the Bay Area Justice Funders Network.

He was introduced to the theory of Kingian Nonviolence in 2008, and has been an active trainer since the summer of 2009. He has conducted trainings and workshops throughout the country; in high–schools, detention schools, county jails, community organizations, and for many other diverse communities including training over 350 activists in the Occupy movement.

He has also had roles with many other organizations, including having served as the National Convention Coordinator and later Executive Committee member of Harry Belafonte’s The Gathering for Justice, Program Committee Clerk of the Western Massachusetts AFSC, a co-founder of the Western MA Nonviolence Trainers Network, development committee member of the Intertribal Friendship House, and coordinator for the Prison Book Project. He currently resides in Oakland, CA.

Lee A. McKenna

Executive Director, Partera International

Mobile: 1 416 436 3257

Email: lee@partera.ca

Lee is a Toronto-based activist and trainer, working for 25 years with communities around the world to discern and discover novel ways of building peace – that run from interior self-awareness/consciousness to socio-political-economic analysis, planning campaigns and

carrying out non-violent direct actions for change using theatre, music and humour. Lee’s methods are popular, elicitive, experiential, committed to a ‘midwifery’ approach to being and learning with people of diverse cultures and stories. Work in economic literacy training, human rights and health policy preceded nine years of work with the Association of Ontario Health Centres where Lee played a lead role in the expansion of the CHC model and the envisioning and implementation of the community-governed model of Family Health Teams. She continues to consult with health care organisations doing training, planning, mediation, conflict transformation and team-building, as well as schools in designing holistic concepts for anti-bullying. Lee has done training with the Women’s Peacemaking Programme in Thailand and the Netherlands; she is currently serving on the Regional Consultative Committee of the International Committee of IFOR.

Rev. Lucas Johnson

Southeast & Mid-Atlantic Regional Coordinator/Organizer

ljohnson@forusa.org

lucasjohnson1@me.com

Lucas was born in Erlangen, Germany, and grew up in Coastal Georgia with family roots in Live Oak, Florida.

He has studied at Mercer University, Emory University, and the University of Goettingen (Germany), and was ordained to ministry by Oakhurst Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia. Lucas identifies strongly with the tradition of freedom fighters who engaged in what is often known as the American Civil Rights Movement. In that spirit, he has worked with such organizations as the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change, The Veterans of Hope Project, and the National Council of Elders. He was a member of the historic delegation of veterans of the U.S. civil and human rights struggles lead by the Dorothy Cotton Institute to meet with Palestinian nonviolent activists and their Israeli allies.

Lucas serves on the International Committee of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) and the board of the Baptist Peace Fellowship of North America. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Kristin Stoneking

Executive Director

kstoneking@forusa.org

In August 2013 Kristin joined FOR as the organization’s 24th executive leader and its first to be based outside of New York State. Deeply rooted in Northern California, Kristin lives and works in Davis, California, where she previously served for 14 years as executive director of the Cal Aggie Christian Association at the University of California, Davis. During her tenure at “CA House,” the historic organization gained renown for launching a Multifaith Living Community, clarified and focused its mission, and grew multifold in staff and budget. Kristin’s diverse gifts in strategic planning and moving organizations through change, as well as her deep experience in working side-by-side with youth and young adults, will be critical assets as FOR approaches our centennial celebration (2014-2015).

A vocal advocate for the Occupy/Decolonize movement, Kristin achieved national attention in November 2011 for her role in a situation with violent overtones. Police officers pepper-sprayed activists who had joined a large Occupy Davis protest. Kristin successfully mediated between the parties and, when video footage of the dramatic incident “went viral” via social media, promoted the disciplined, principled use of nonviolent action.

Kristin is an ordained United Methodist minister and coordinates a social justice network in the California-Nevada Conference of her denomination. Her previous service includes pastoral work on gang and gun violence, and research and advocacy for immigrant rights. Kristin is also nearing completion of a Ph.D. in interreligious studies and nonviolence education at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. She and her spouse, Elizabeth Campi, have two children.