Betty Burkes

Cambridge Peace Comm, 2005 Nobel Peace Prize

Betty Burkes is a life-long educator and activist. Her work as an educator has included the Peace Corps in Africa, public schools in California and private schools in England. She founded and coordinated the Montessori Paradise pre-school on Cape Cod for 12 years offering young children an environment in which peace-making and social justice mingled with the affirmation of childhood. Betty co-founded and ran a Summer Arts and Music program from 1986-1999. Her activism and grassroots organizing has taken place internationally and nationally with the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) where she was president of the US Section of WILPF for 3 years and served on the National Board from 1989-2002, conducting workshops on educating and organizing for action around oppression issues. From 2002-2006, Betty worked with a joint project of the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs and The Hague Appeal for Peace. The HAP/DDA project involved supporting the local initiation of peace education projects in 4 communities internationally (in Cambodia, Albania, Peru and Niger) in which weapons reduction projects were launched. Those projects have been sustained beyond the end of the project due to the full integration and leadership within the local communities.