Ashleigh Bowers of Victoria, BC Canada

Ashleigh Bowers has been on stage since she was three, mostly in community theatre, festivals of the arts and dance competitions. She's won speech and drama competitions and last year received her teacher's certificate from Trinity College, London. Her family was working with Beyond War before she was born, so she grew up with those images and ideas around her.

In her first year of a liberal arts program at the University of Victoria (UVic) she watched a video about Clayoquot Sound's Sulphur Passage on Vancouver Island. It was the setting for the largest civil disobedience action in Canada's history.

As a 6 year old she had been there and watched as her older brothers were 2 of 932 people arrested for protesting BC's logging practices. In the intervening years she was not aware of many issues. But somehow this video clip moved her, crystallized the issues for her and she wanted to help raise the consciousness of other young people in her world ' people who seemed to be unaware of the seriousness of the issues facing our planet.

When her parents were leaving to attend the second annual meeting of the renewed BW, she decided to come and also invited her boyfriend and her roommate.

She met some wonderful people from across North America and left with a commitment to use her talents to further the cause of Beyond War. The materials and support they got from the head office were put to good use.

She and her ex-roommate, Paul Reimer now give Beyond War Introductions in Victoria, BC. They've also presented in West Vancouver to an all-ages group. Their peers in the audience felt encouraged to see some people their own age taking a leadership role. In the Fall they've been asked to present at Royal Roads University's Security and Peace Studies course. There's also interest from a professor in teaching Conflict Resolution at UVic. Feedback to the sessions, to-date, can be found at

http://meetingbuddy.com/bw/what_say.htm

She and the Victoria team are in the midst of their first study series. While her parents help with a lot of logistics around the Introductions and Study Series, Ashleigh and Paul's digging into the material and presenting the Introductions give guests a sense of hope that the next generation of Beyond War has a clear voice and fresh ideas and concerns about the steps we need to take.

It's a broader stage but all her years in the public eye enable her to approach these new audiences with confidence.