PAST SPEAKERS, CHECK BACK SOON FOR 2007 SPEAKERS

The pair's success in raising awareness of the situation in Uganda was evident in the participation of 38 cities around the world in GuluWalk Day in October 2005. This year people in over 70 cities in 14 countries will walk in solidarity with the children of Uganda at GuluWalk on October 21.

For continuing the efforts of GuluWalk, Bradbury earned a 2005 Planet Africa award and was honoured in the "Heroes" section of Maclean's. In July, he was among the first of six Canadians to be awarded a Global Youth Fellowships by The Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation.

Bradbury is also the founder and executive director of Athletes for Africa, a charitable organization that uses the power and profile of sport to educate and engage Canadians in Africa's fight against poverty, famine and disease.

Snatam Kaur

Snatam Kaur was born and raised with yoga and meditation as taught by Yogi Bhajan a daily practice in her life. She received musical training all through school in violin, voice and percussion. Upon graduating high school, she lived in India and studied with masters of the Sikh traditional style of music called Gurbani Kirtan. With her meditative practice and musical training, she joined these two disciplines together in creating devotional music.

Snatam Kaur has shared her music through Gurbani Kirtan tours to Europe, southeast Asia and North America. In 2000, she signed a recording contract with Spirit Voyage Records. Her seventh album, Anand (Bliss) was just released in September.

Since 2005, Snatam Kaur has been sharing her vocal talents and love of peace in Celebrate Peace tours as a goodwill ambassador of Peace Cereals, where she used to work as a lab technician. Snatam Kaur is accompanied by guitarist Guru Ganesha Singh and percussionist Krishan Prakash.

GuruGanesha Singh

GuruGanesha Singh received his first guitar when he was eight years old, then went on to join a rock band that frequently opened for big bands like the Allman Brothers, ShaNaNa and Iron Butterfly. In 1972, he took his first life-changing class in Kundalini Yoga. Shortly after, he tucked his long hair under a turban and adopted the Sikh way of life, still singing and playing, but a different kind of tune.

GuruGanesha Singh has recorded two albums of meditation music that communicate his unmitigated joy and signature guitar work. He presently tours the world with Snatam Kaur and Krishan Prakash.

Krishan Prakash

Krishan Prakash was born and raised in an ashram community where music. At twelve years of age, he went to India and studied with a number of tabla masters. He has since toured India, the US and UK with various musical ensembles. Since 2004, he has been working with Spirit Voyage Music, first as engineer, then as tabla and vocal accompanist for Snatam Kaur and GuruGanesha Singh.

Her volunteer work also included successful campaigns to prevent approval of uranium mining in Nova Scotia, and extensive work on energy policy issues, primarily opposing nuclear energy. Elizabeth is a graduate of Dalhousie Law School and was admitted to the Bar in both Nova Scotia and Ontario. She has held the position of Associate General Council for the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, representing consumer, poverty and environment groups in her work.

In 1986, Elizabeth became Senior Policy Advisor to then federal Environment Minister, Tom McMillan. She was instrumental in the creation of several national parks, including South Moresby. She was involved in negotiating the Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer and new legislation and pollution control measures. In 1988, she resigned on principle when the Minister granted permits for the Rafferty-Alameda Dams in Saskatchewan as part of a political trade-off, with no environmental assessment. The permits were later quashed by a Federal Court decision that the permits were granted illegally.

She has served on numerous boards of environmental groups and advisory bodies to universities and governments in Canada, including the Earth Charter Commission, co-chaired by Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev. Elizabeth is the recipient of many awards including the Outstanding Achievement Award from the Sierra Club in 1989, the International Conservation Award from the Friends of Nature, and the United Nations Global 500 Award in 1990. In 1996, she was presented with the award for Outstanding Leadership in Environmental Education by the Ontario Society for Environmental Education. In 1998, she became the first chair-holder of the "Elizabeth May Chair in Women's Health and Environment" at Dalhousie University. She holds honourary doctorates from Mount Saint Vincent University and the University of New Brunswick. She is also the recipient of the 2002 Harkin Award from the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS).

Elizabeth May has been with the Sierra Club of Canada since 1989, an Officer of the Order of Canada since 2005, a member of the advisory board to the Commissioner for the Environment in the Office of the Auditor General of Canada, and, most importantly, is the mother of fourteen year old, Victoria Cate.

Guru Fatha Singh graduated from Trinity College in 1981. In 1987, he was ordained a Sikh minister. In 1998, Guru Fatha Singh joined the U of T Campus Chaplains Association.

Three years later, with support from many sectors of the university, Guru Fatha organized the first Peace Week at the University of Toronto. When it became apparent that the universal urge for peace would not stop the disaster of war, a growing team of campus activists resolved to make Peace Week a yearly event joined to Remembrance Day.

Guru Fatha Singh teaches Kundalini Yoga and meditation classes and workshops throughout Toronto and beyond. He continues to serve the Peace Week project and is the author of a book on our dawning holistic paradigm, to be published at year end.

View Website

That trip was Loney's third sojourn to Iraq with CPT. The group was documenting and protesting human rights abuses of Iraqi prisoners in detention centres such as Abu Ghraib. The respect given the work of CPT in Iraq and other places such as Israel/Palestine was reflected in messages urging the release of Loney and the others from peace activists in Toronto, groups like the Canadian Islamic Congress, Iraqi Sunni clerics, leaders of Hamas and Hizbollah.

Loney co-founded Zacchaeus House, a Catholic Worker community in Toronto committed to non-violence, voluntary poverty, prayer and hospitality for the homeless.

Since his release, Loney has spoken against Canada's system of detaining suspected foreign terrorists indefinitely without charge or trial. He has compared his own captivity to the imprisonment of five men currently being held under security certificates.

Loney and his partner Dan Hunt were recipients of Pride Toronto's Fearless Award in June 2006.

Jim was the CPT liaison with Peace Week last year for a panel discussion by groups using nonviolence in conflict zones. We are very pleased to welcome him to centre stage this year and look forward to what is sure to be a very powerful presentation.

View Website

Since inception in 2000, interrupcion* has been developing and managing projects and programs that establish efficient links between citizens, businesses, and productive action with the goal of constructing a new society geared towards the common good. The strategy is based on the belief that there is a lack of capacity among organizations, institutions and individuals to solve the inefficiencies and social exclusion that the current economic system has generated. By integrating organizations' interests with those of individuals', we have the ability to generate the incentives needed for these two spheres to share common goals that center on the creation of a win-win situation for all.

Recently, Calabrese began to direct the Responsible Consumption Campaign. Using free samples of interrupcion* socially responsible food products as educational tools, individuals are placed throughout grocery stores in the US, allowing them to speak with thousands of Americans about the benefits of Responsible Consumption. Calabrese also oversees the organizational membership model at interrupcion* US. Her work focuses on (1) the development of a model that enables organizational members to share experiences and socially responsible best practices and, (2) the communication of that added value to a growing consumer base. In an effort to further a culture of responsible consumerism and action, Calabrese's work involves community and coalition building.

Calabrese began with interrupcion* US in 2004 while pursuing a Masters of Science in International Affairs at the New School University in NYC. Her background in socio-economic development and empowerment strategies in India and Latin America has aided her work with interrupcion*. She graduated from William Smith College with a BA in Public Policy and Economics in 2002.

In 1992 at University of Lagos, Sowore led 2,000 students in protest against Nigeria's notorious kleptocracy where police opened fire, killing seven people. He was arrested, interrogated and beaten and his family was also put under pressure. Sowore didn't back down in his efforts and was

elected executive president of the university students union. He's been imprisoned eight times and tortured, but he remains committed. Sowore continues to be engaged in the non-violent struggle working for human rights, a de-militarized society and justice. He speaks first-hand about the destruction that US oil addiction is causing in Nigeria. Human rights groups estimate that in the last 10 years military factions acting on behalf of multinational oil companies have killed more than 2,000 people in the Niger Delta.

Todd is also working with Reporters Without Borders to establish its New York communications desk. He recently served as Katrina Relief Project Manager for FilmAid International for which he designed and implemented the organization's first domestic and natural disaster response intervention. Before that, Todd was Information & Advocacy Manager for the International Rescue Committee in Sudan. He holds a Masters of Public Administration from Rutgers University and is a candidate for a Doctorate of Public & Urban Policy at the New School for Social Research.

Franklin was born in Germany in 1921. While a young science student, she was imprisoned in a Nazi work camp because her mother was Jewish. She immigrated to Canada in 1949 with a lifelong commitment to peace activism. .

For the next 15 years, Franklin worked as a senior research scientist at the Ontario Research Foundation. A specialist in the study of metals and alloys, she pioneered the development of archaeometry, which applies the modern techniques used in materials analysis to archaeology. In the early 1960s, she used this expertise to help investigate the levels of strontium 90 -- a radioactive substance present in fallout from nuclear weapons testing -- in children's teeth. This work was instrumental in the U.S. government's discussions about stopping nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere.

In 1967, Dr. Franklin joined the University of Toronto's Department of Metallurgy and Materials Science, and in 1984 became the first woman there to be granted the title of University Professor, the highest honour given by the university.

In 1995 the Toronto School Board opened Ursula Franklin Academy. Franklin was involved in designing the high school's special curriculum that challenges students to develop a sense of social responsibility as well as skills in science and technology.

Ursula Franklin is one of the University of Toronto's "Great Minds", chosen to celebrate excellence during the university's 175th anniversary celebration in 2002.