Marilyn Langlois

Marilyn Langlois "is a co-founder and steering committee member of TRANSCEND USA, based in Berkeley California, which is part of the international TRANSCEND Peace and Development Network for Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means.

"Professionally, Ms. Langlois coordinates a community mediation program in Contra Costa County, California, which provides local mediation and training services.

"She volunteers weekly as a telephone counselor on the GI Rights Hotline, which assists U.S. soldiers who are trying to get out of the military as conscientious objectors. As a board member of World Wall for Peace and the METTA Center for Nonviolence Education she promotes peace and nonviolence education. She has done nonviolent accompaniment in Haiti and is an active member of the Berkeley based Haiti Action Committee.

"In her home town of Richmond California, Ms. Langlois works with community groups on violence prevention and public education advocacy to reduce the structural violence resulting from persistent institutionalized racism and economic inequities in the U.S.

"Her earlier professional career included foreign language teaching in middle and high schools in Austria; secretarial work in educational, arts, and private sector settings in both Austria and the US; and administration of graduate student services at the University of California.

"Ms. Langlois lived in Vienna, Austria for 11 years, and prior to that resided briefly in Rapperswil, Switzerland, and Degania Aleph, Israel.

"She was educated at public schools in the vicinity of Berkeley, California, where as a teenager she awoke to the civil rights and peace movements of the 1960's. In 1972 she received a BA degree in German from Pomona College in Claremont, California.

"Ms. Langlois is fluent in English and German, and speaks some French, Italian and Spanish."