Anna Bachmann is a resident of Port Townsend, Washington. She is a founding member of the Cedar Island Center for Nonviolence and Peace and has worked in the labor or environmental movement for most of her life. She traveled to Iraq with the Iraq Peace Team from mid-Jan to mid-Feb of 2003 and has returned to Iraq for several months to volunteer with Voices in the Wilderness. She hopes to look at some of the environmental consequences of the War.

Age: 54, From: New York, NY
Health and human rights worker Cathy has lived in many places, including Panama, Puerto Rico, and Germany. She later studied Geriatric nursing and worked as a nurse in Hamburg, Germany, as well as obtaining an R.N. degree in the United States. She spent 10 years in Bolivia, working in the area of health and human rights. She was a founding member of Andean Information Network, a grassroots non-governmental organization, where her work focused largely on documenting and publicizing the negative effects of U.S.”War on Drugs” in Bolivia and the human rights abuses (arbitrary detentions, wounded, deaths) that were/are a direct effect of those policies. This work took her to Washington, DC, to the U.S. State Department and Senators’ offices.

With the Iraq Peace Team, Cathy remained in Iraq throughout the most recent invasion and during the first ten days of US Coalition Force occupation. While in Iraq, she remain in correspondence with a wide network of people through the assistance of companions with whom she lives and works at the Maryhouse Catholic Worker community in New York City.

Caoimhe was born in 1978 in Dublin. She spent most of her childhood in Canada and Southern Africa (Mauritius and Zimbabwe). While growing up she travelled extensively around Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe with her parents who were working with developmental aid and social justice projects. She left Zimbabwe in 1997 and moved to New York, where she spent a year working with The Catholic Worker and other groups. While living at the Worker she participated in a 21-day fast outside the U.N. with Voices in the Wilderness which was her first direct contact with the group. In 1998 she spent a year working in Guatemala with returned refugees, and then spent two years in Chiapas accompianing a community of resistance. The Chiapans’ struggle, and the collective and inclusive nature of it both inspired and educated her as to the power of non-violent resistance. Caoimhe then returned to Ireland for 6 months before joining a Voices delegation to Iraq January 2002. She then travelled to occupied Palestine where she spent a year, almost exclusively in Balata and Jenin Refugee Camps. Present in Palestine for the massive military invasions of Febuary and April of that year, she volunteered with the Red Crescent, U.P.M.R.C., and I.S.M. Having lost a number of close friends in the Jenin massacre, Caoimhe lived on in the camp until she was shot and shortly after deported by the Israeli army late last year. She spent the four months after her deportation giving over 80 talks, public meetings, and interviews across Ireland, London, and Wales. Having participated in the Shannon Peace Camp, set up to oppose the Irish government’s decision to allow U.S. warplanes to refuel in Ireland in the lead-up to the war, she was arrested on a number of occasions. Caoimhe travelled to Iraq in mid-April to join Voices in the Wilderness in Baghdad. She has spent the past five months meeting and working with Iraqi grassroots groups and individuals who are attempting to mobilise Iraqi civil society in exploring non-violent means of resistance. She is also working to help initiate a campaign seeking justice for the relatives of Iraqis killed by Occupation forces.

John, 30, grew up on a farm in rural Iowa and has worked as a teacher, prison chaplain, campus minister and a coordinating member of Voices in the Wilderness. He is living on the South Side of Chicago with his spouse, Megan, and he is currently teaching 8th grade. John is interested in connecting with other radical teachers in the Midwest! Since his travel to Iraq in August of 2003, where he developed friendships with ordinary Iraqis and did grassroots advocacy for human rights, John has spoken at rallies, conferences and retreats to convey in some small way the experiences of ordinary Iraqis today under US military and economic occupation. As a peace educator, John believes in the power of nonviolence as a way of life and as a tactic for promoting social justice in local communities and in the world.

Angela Garcia is a queer, Latina, organizer and student who focuses her work and studies on race and militarism. She relocated from Texas in 2002 and has worked in the Chicago area as a peace network community organizer, against gentrification, has created large scale puppets for street theater performances and served on several outreach committees to turn out activist for anti-war rallies. Angela is a member of Chicago Incite! Women of Color Against Violence and a newly formed collective of anti-authoritarian people of color. She is currently working on counter recruitment education and is a coordinating member of Voices in the Wilderness.