Seabeck Conference — Keynote Speakers

Kazu Haga on “King’s Final Marching Orders: Institutionalizing Nonviolence”

Kazu Haga is a trainer in Kingian Nonviolence and currently serves as Operations Director & Bay Area Coordinator for the Positive Peace Warrior Network.  He also sits on the board of PeaceWorkers, the One Life Institute, and Communities United for Restorative Justice (CURYJ), of which he is a co-founder.  He has been active in various social change movements since he was 17, when he embarked on an 18-month journey with Nipponzan Myohoji, studying nonviolence and social change throughout the United States and South Asia.  He has 10+ years of experience working in progressive philanthropy, where he served as Program Director for the Peace Development Fund and a founding Steering Committee member of the Bay Area Justice Funders Network.

As a trainer in Kingian Nonviolence, the philosophies of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he has led trainings for thousands of individuals throughout the country: in high schools, detention centers, jails and prisons, community organizations, and in many different movements and campaigns including the Occupy movement.

He is committed to continuing to work with communities that have been most impacted by violence, to build a powerful nonviolent movement for social justice, and to honoring Dr. King’s final marching orders, to “institutionalize and internationalize nonviolence.”

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb & Kaeley Pruitt-Hamm on “How to Build Movements for Everyone”

This keynote dialogue will address multifaith, multicultural, and multigenerational movement building in the framework of FOR’s commitment to nonviolence, restorative justice, and reconciliation.

Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb is celebrating her 40th year as one of the world’s first women rabbis. She is a peace and justice activist, storyteller, percussionist, wilderness guide, ceremonialist, and community organizer. She has been a member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation for 35 years and currently co-facilitates FOR’s Interfaith Peacewalks, Young Pacifist and Proud, and Mural Arts Delegations to Palestine. She is on the advisory board and rabbinic council of Jewish Voice for Peace and lives in Berkeley, CA.  Her recent books include “Peace Primer II” and “Trail Guide for the Torah of Nonviolence.” She is currently performing: “Peace Tales from Around the World and Pre-Occupied: A rabbi’s journey toward justice for Palestinians.” Lynn is co-founder of Shomer Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence, an RPF of the FOR, and mother of Nataniel.

Kaeley Pruitt-Hamm has been a part of the Fellowship of Reconciliation community since she was a toddler, as she grew up traveling from her conservative Kettle Falls, WA hometown to Seabeck. She later participated in Western Washington Fellowship of Reconciliation’s Peace Activist Trainee (PAT) program in 2005 as a high school student and returned to work for the last two summers as the assistant director of the PAT program. The 2005 PAT program inspired Kaeley to use media as a tool for social justice during her studies and research while gaining a Bachelor’s degree in International Conflict and Communications at Willamette University. As an undergraduate, she made a film in Rwanda on sustainable peace and persecuted journalists, studied peace and conflict resolution with American University in the Balkans, and wrote her thesis on the use of humor in nonviolent movements after working with members of the student group Otpor who helped nonviolently overthrow Serbian dictator Milosevic. She also worked with the producers of the film & videogame A Force More Powerful in Washington, D.C. Since 2011, Kaeley has been working with WWFOR on the Bring Our Billions Home campaign, with outreach tactics including a sing-in & die-in at the state capitol. She currently serves as the coordinator of Seattle CISPES, the Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.

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