“If you act in a trustworthy manner, people will trust you; If you listen more than you talk, people will communicate with you,” Anne Batzer, Beyond War advocate since 1985 adds, “If you respect other people, they will open up to your creativity.”

After consulting in child development services for a few years, Anne Batzer returned her focus to Beyond War. “I don't feel I ever left Beyond War,” Batzer said, “Those principles are so beautifully simple, I've drawn from them in the work I've done over the years.”

Batzer first came to Beyond War in the mid 1980's after attending an introduction meeting led by Gayle Landt. “I was looking for a better, more effective way to be an activist in the world,” Batzer recalled. After the meeting, she got involved with Beyond War because their principles were “congruent with my personal values,” she said.

In 1988, Batzer traveled with the Beyond War National Task Force to the Soviet Union on a book tour promoting “Breakthrough,” co-authored by American and Soviet scientists. The Soviet people were curious about their organization. Batzer recalled, “One thing they were very interested in was that Beyond War was a grassroots organization. They are a top down culture and so they had a lot of questions like, 'how do you operate?' and 'What kinds of actions do people take?'’”

Now, she is creating a series of recorded interviews for Beyond War with non-violent advocates around the world. She wants to explore effective strategies that strong-minded individuals have used to evolve their thinking.

One interviewee, Greg Mortenson, co-founder and Executive Director of Central Asia Institute, began fundraising in 1992 for a bridge over the Braldu River in northern Pakistan so that children could walk to school. He has since been involved in building over thirty schools in the remote mountain areas of Central Asia.

In Batzer's interview with Mortenson she asked how they conducted the project in order for “the people in the culture to be a part of the decision making” to which he replied: “I think it's by listening and I find the more I know the less I know and it's about cross-cultural sensitivity -- most of my successes have been rooted in failure. For example,” he said, “In the west we focus on the end product, the destination -- buying a house, retirement, graduation -- but over there what's important is the process or the journey, not the destination, and what's integral to that is the relationships.”

It's these jewels of wisdom that keep Batzer thriving on her work. When asked why she is pursuing this project she said, “I'm looking for an experience of hope for myself. I'm figuring out for myself, what's the most important thing for me to be doing right now. By talking with more people ... I hope it will shed more light on that for me.”

She recognizes the challenges faced by the general public in sifting through the mass media. As a skilled journalist, she hopes to draw out some of the effective ways people are expressing non-violent global action. This will in turn “give some sense of possibility and hope and clarity” by identifying common principles guiding the non-violent movement. She asks, “How do we take these lessons people have learned internationally and use them in our own personal relationships?”

Anne Batzer attends lunch meetings once a month with other Beyond War advocates in southern Oregon and is also on the board at Mediation Works, the local community dispute resolution center.