| 2003 GTW Congress Story Tellers
 Eleanor
Mulloney LeCain, the Founding President of WOVA, is
the founder of New Way, USA, a strategic communications center
for the United States. Ms. LeCain has done strategic planning
for groups committed to positive social change including government,
non-profits, and philanthropy.
She has recently returned from a trip to Afghanistan as
part of a V-Day project where she facilitated a Women's Leadership
Program to over 30 women from different grassroots and community
based organizations within Afghanistan. Eleanor will lead
us toward a universal perspective based on her experiences
with the Mayan traditions and then also outline concrete things
we can do to create positive societal change.
 Janice
Mirikitani is a Multicultural visionary and poet. She
serves as the Executive Director of Glide Memorial's 52 programs
and President of the Glide Foundation. A third-generation
Japanese-American, Janice has developed groundbreaking multiracial,
multicultural programs which have transformed and empowered
the Tenderloin community in San Francisco, especially the
lives of women and children. Guided by Janice's leadership,
Glide's growth has been phenomenal, with an annual budget
of $11 million, a diverse staff of 230, and a volunteer cadre
that swelled in numbers to 35,000 in 1999.
As an author, Mirkitani has written and edited dozens of
landmark books, journals, and anthologies, and her own three
books of poetry. In 2000, her achievements as an author were
recognized with the prestigious appointment as San Francisco's
Poet Laureate. (www.glide.org)
 Joyce
Oneko, from Kenya, West Africa, is a founding member
of the Mama & Dada Management Project (MADAM), a community-based
initiative based in a small rural lakeside village on the
shores of Lake Victoria in the Nyanza Province of Kenya. The
project is geared toward HIV/AIDS prevention, awareness creation
and care and support interventions. It assists in empowering
girls and young women to gain mental and financial independence
through education. J
oyce holds a law degree from the University of Wolverhampton,
England, and a Diploma in Counseling.
 Rama
Joyti Vernon, WOVA's Founder and President Emeritus,
is the Founder and President of the American Yoga College,
and the Co-Founder and President of the Center for International
Dialogue. During the 1980's she traveled to the Soviet Union
forty-seven times in seven years organizing over two hundred
Soviet-American programs. Mikhail Gorbachev credited her citizen
diplomacy efforts as a major contribution to ending the cold
war. In 1991, she was invited to organize and design conflict
resolution dialogues for areas of regional conflict in Armenia,
Azerbiajan, Africa and the Middle East. In 1995, she led the
Women of Vision delegation to the United Nations Fourth World
Conference on Women in Beijing, China. (www.americanyogacollege.org)
 Barbara
Wolf is founder of Global Meditations Network,
a vast Internet peace organization, www.globalmeditations.com.
Her peace work includes:
2002 -- speaker at the US-China Women's
Issues Conference, Beijing, China.
2001 -- co-presenter of peace poles at
a World Peace Concert, Manchester, England, and at the World
Conference on Spirituality and Peace, The Hague.
2000 -- delegate at First Global Peoples
Assembly For Peace, Samoa, South Pacific; International
Election Supervisor, Kosovo; speaker at a World Peace Prayer
Society ceremony, Hiroshima, Japan.
1999 -- speaker at the 7th Annual International
Conference on Conflict Resolution, St. Petersburg, Russia;
speaker at The Hague Appeal for Peace, The Netherlands;
planted the conference peace pole in front of the Peace
Palace, The Hague, home of the International Court of Justice;
helped plant a peace pole with Israelis and Palestinians
at Gaza, The Middle East. Her latest book is Cancer Signals:
Take Charge and Win!
 Margaret
Wolff is a journalist, trainer, storyteller, and corporate
health care consultant -- the author of several books, including
the best-selling "In Sweet Company, Conversations With
Extraordinary Women About Living A Spiritual Life." She
holds degrees in Art Therapy, Psychosynthesis, and Leadership
and Human Behavior. Five years ago, she was in a serious car
accident that induced a head injury that robbed her of 80%
of her peripheral vision, a large part of her memory, and
her ability to process and communicate information in a linear
fashion.
Today, Margaret leads women's retreats around the country
-- including the highly-praised "Women As Peacemakers,"
"Inner-Conflict Resolution," and "Listening
to Your Inner Voice" -- and is a popular speaker on the
healing power of creativity and brain injury recovery. Margaret
was a recent delegate to the United Nations conference in
Geneva, The Global Peace Initiative of Women Religious and
Spiritual Leaders. www.InSweetCompany.com
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