Transforming the Process:
Women at the Peace Table

Moderator

Steve Curwood, President, World Media Foundation; Executive Producer and Host, NPR Living On Earth

Steve Curwood is president of the World Media Foundation and executive producer and host of National Public Radio's award-winning weekly environmental news program Living on Earth. He created the first pilot of Living on Earth in 1990 and the show has run continuously since April, 1991. Today, Living on Earth with Steve Curwood is aired on more than 300 National Public Radio affiliates in the USA. Steve's relationship with National Public Radio goes back to 1979 when he began as a reporter and host of Weekend All Things Considered.

A journalist for more than 20 years, Steve Curwood shared the 1975 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service as part of the Boston Globe's education team. He is the recipient of the 1992 New England Environmental Leadership Award for his work on promoting environmental awareness.

Global Citizens Circle is pleased to welcome longtime circle member Steve Curwood as this evening's moderator.

Discussion Leaders

Swanee Hunt Initiative ChHair, Women Waging Peace; former American Ambassador to Austria; Director, Woman and Public Policy Program, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; President, Hunt Alternatives Fund

Swanee Hunt has a long and distinguised history of working to improve the opportunities of women world-wide. She is the director of the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, where she also teaches. She chairs Women Waging Peace, a program of Hunt Alternatives Fund, which brings together women from diverse areas of conflict to share peace-building strategies, sharpen skills, and shape public policy.

Swanee Hunt's past accomplishements include extensive work in domestic and foreign policy. As the U.S. Ambassador to Austria for four years, she focused her energies both on peace projects concerning the conflict in the neighboring Balkan states and work with women leaders throughout Eastern Europe. In recognition of her dedication and efforts, she was named Woman of Peace by the Together for Peace Foundation in Rome.

We are privileged to have Swanee Hunt with us this evening as we examine the role of women peacebuilders around the world and their significant contribution towards sustainable peace.

Luz Méndez President, Advisory Council to National Union of Guatemalan Women; Mason Fellow, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Luz Méndez is a member of Guatemala's policy community. She is the president of the Advisory Council to the National Union of Guatemalan Women, an association that promotes women's leadership, equitable political participation, and the dissemination of the peace accords.

Between 1991 and 1996, Luz Méndez participated in the Guatemalan peace negotiations as the only female member of the delegation from Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity. She contributed to the incorporation of women-specific commitments for gender equity into the Guatemalan Peace Accords. She also participated in the Burundi peace process as part of the UN team of gender experts whose mission was to advise on the incorporation of women's rights into the process.

Luz Méndez is currently a Mason Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

We are most pleased to have Luz Méndez as discussion leader this evening. Her vision of building bridges in the pursuit of peace serves to inspire us all to make a difference in our own communities.