Dr John Reuwer will present the vision of World BEYOND War for creating a just and sustainable global peace through abandoning war as national policy. This will open a discussion about the myths surrounding the belief in war, examining past efforts at peace to review what participants think has worked and what has not, and proposing what may be the most fruitful way forward.

About the speaker

John Reuwer is a retired emergency physician whose practice convinced him of a crying need for alternatives to violence for resolving tough conflicts. This led him to the informal study and teaching of nonviolence for the last 35 years, with peace team field experience in Haiti, Colombia, Central America, Palestine/Israel, and several US inner cities. He has also studied and lectured in peace studies at Virginia Tech, Radford University, St. Michaels College, Elizabethtown College, The University of Vermont, and the US Army War College at Carlisle, PA.

He served for four months as an International Protection Officer with the Nonviolent Peaceforce in South Sudan and most recently worked tirelessly with our Ukrainian board member Yuri Sheliazhenko in Kyiv to create an unarmed civilian protection team to mitigate the danger around the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, making trips to the front line to do so.

Most recently since John relocated to Washington DC with his wife Laurie from Vermont he has been involved in protests and campaigns with other organisations against the war in Gaza.