The International Governance Council, the decision-making body of Nonviolent Peaceforce (NP), is currently composed of members from 13 countries. These members are chosen at our International Assembly.

Yukio Aki was born in Tokyo. Presently, he is a lecturer at Seikei college and a part-time teacher at an alternative school for youth who have dropped out of school. He also works as a lecturer doing human-rights seminars for high school teachers in Kanagawa. He is a long-time peace activist. Yukio's main focus in the peace movement is non-violent training and peace education, a peace constitution, anti-nuclear issues with a nuclear-free Pacific, and education and support for poor children in Cambodia. He is involved in some NGOs; as a board member of NPJapan and a board member of the Japan Chernobyl Solidarity Foundation.

Outi Arajärvi International Governance Council Member, Germany

Outi Arajärvi, born in Finland, has lived and worked in Germany for 35 years. She currently works as scientific officer of Institute for Applied Cultural Research in Göttingen in projects dealing with migrant education, intercultural communication, conflict resolution and learning consultancy. She is experienced in finance and project management and consultancy after serving nine years in the Eastern European project department of Buntstift, later Heinrich-Böll-Foundation. Outi has been involved with NP since the beginning, through the two German Member Organisations. She is active in the environmental and peace movements of Germany, on the board of the Federation for Social Defence (BSV), and has one grown son.

Eric Bachman International Governance Council Member, Executive Committee, Treasurer, Germany

	Eric Bachman is a US citizen and transnational peace activist. He worked in Germany for 36 years as a conscientious objector, and recently returned to the USA. Since 1971 he has organised trainings and seminars in many countries on subjects including nonviolence and nonviolent action, civil disobedience, environmental issues, anti-nuclear movements, apartheid and racism, the conflict in Yugoslavia, peace work in a war zone, and civilian-based defense. He was one of the founders of the ZaMir Transnational Net, an electronic communication network that was set up in the Balkans during the wars in Yugoslavia to enable communication among peace and human rights groups. He also helps NGOs utilize information technologies, especially open source software, for social change and peace work. He has worked closely with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation, War Resisters International, German Federation for Social Defense, Balkan Peace Team - International, Peace Cottage Lippinghausen, and other peace groups in Europe and Germany. Recently he co-founded the project Bridges of Encouragement and a newsletter “Peace Across the Atlantic.”
Simonetta Costanzo Pittaluga International Governance Council Member Executive Committee, Spain
	Simonetta has over 35 years experience in nonviolent transformation in various small-scale, grassroots social issues. She is an accomplished Asthanga yoga teacher and applies those ahimsa principles to her professional public relations and education work. She has been researching nonviolence and peace education and training since 1992 and is part of the NP Member Organisation NOVA and the Center for Social Innovation in Barcelona. She is Italian, born in South Africa, now living in Barcelona, and the proud mother of two.
Omar Diop International Governance Council Member Executive Committee, Senegal
	Omar has worked as a high school teacher for 30 years and served as a board member of a teacher trade union for 12 years. He created or participated in the founding of many civil society organisations and is currently leading three of them: The Senegalese Civic League, The Senegalese Coalition of Human Rights Defenders, and the network “Citizenship, Democracy, Human Rights and Peace.” Omar is also a founding member and board member of Civil Society Organisations Coalition which works on the electoral process in Senegal. He is a former board member of NP Member Organisation West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). He led the development of a peace curriculum for primary and secondary schools and has served as the main trainer on nonviolence and peace education in Ivory Coast, Togo, Guinea, and Ghana. He is also an Executive Committee member of the West Africa Human Rights Defenders Network. He received his high school teacher certificate at École Normale Supérieure of Dakar and a master of art in geography at the University of Dakar. Omar currently lives in Dakar, Senegal and has three grown daughters.
Faith Edman International Governance Council Member, USA
	Faith has more than 20 years’ experience in financial management and currently is the assistant director of Arizona Student Media at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She also has experience in communications, media operations and fundraising. Faith is a founding member of the U.S. Nonviolent Peaceforce Chapters Association whose mission is to advocate for NP and for the practice of nonviolence. She also served on the board of the Zambian Children’s Fund, a school and orphanage in Zambia, and is an Alternatives to Violence facilitator. A longtime peace activist, Faith is currently involved in the anti-torture movement. She is the mother of a grown son, and proud grandma to one grandson.
Donna Howard International Governance Council Co-Chair, Executive Committee, USA
	A long-time peace activist in the U.S., Donna was pivotal in founding a Catholic Worker house in Duluth, Minnesota for resistance and hospitality and has served a prison sentence for disarming the U.S. Navy ELF trigger system for nuclear war. Her other work activities have been in human services: advocacy and counseling for low-income, addicted or mentally ill people. Donna joined the work of Nonviolent Peaceforce immediately after its founding, served on the original board and research team, and worked in Sri Lanka to lay the groundwork for the first project. She has two grown sons.
Ramu Manivannan International Governance Council Member, Executive Committee, India
	Ramu is an associate professor at the University of Madras, Chepauk Campus, and is the founder and chairperson of Buddha Smiles, a global initiative for peace, education, and development that works with rural and urban poor children in India. Ramu is an international teacher of the science and philosophy of yoga and meditation and is an active interfaith practitioner. Ramu and his wife Sheela have two children.
Israel Naor International Governance Council Member, Israel
	Israel was born in Vienna, Austria. His immediate family escaped to Hungary to avoid the German Anschluss; however much of his extended family did not survive the Holocaust. He continued schooling in Palestine and spent a year in National Service, then was drafted into the newly-created Israeli Army. He earned a Bachelor's degree in engineering and a Master's in irrigation at the University of California at Berkeley and worked as a civil engineer for U.S. and Israeli companies engaged in planning/design of water resources development and irrigation systems. Israel and his wife Dorothy have been involved in peace activities in Israel since 2000, participating in demonstrations against the occupation, the Separation Barrier/Wall, and the often brutal treatment of Palestinians. They are also engaged in humanitarian activities to save Palestinian lives. They reside in Nof Yam, Herzliah and have three children.
Lucy Nusseibeh International Governance Council Member, Palestine
Theo Roncken International Governance Council Member, Bolivia
	Theo Roncken, originally coming from the Netherlands, lives in Latin America since 1985 (based first in Nicaragua and now in Bolivia). He is married and a father to five children. He has university degrees in Chemistry and Psychology, but identifies himself as an activist for a dignifying life. In Bolivia, he works with Acción Andina, a network for analysis and the promotion of social change around policies and phenomena which create and re-create dependency, injustice, inequities and war. He teaches Japanese martial arts since 1975 and facilitates courses on learning through the body and discovering nonviolent options in dealing with conflict situations. He has participated in the preparation of Field Team Members of Nonviolent Peaceforce.
Farrukh Sohail Goindi International Governance Council Member Co-Chair, Executive Committee, Pakistan
	Mr. Farrukh Goindi has contributed dramatically to the cause of Democracy in Pakistan for the past twenty-nine years. He is one of the known peace activists of Indo-Pak, and is very much active in People’s Diplomacy, engaged in mainstream peace movements in Pakistan, and founder convener of Anti-War Committee-Pakistan. Mr. Goindi organizes seminars on vital national and international issues including women’s rights and the right to nonviolent means for a democratic political and social solution. He is the author of seven books and a regular writer for leading Urdu newspapers in Pakistan as well as other South Asian countries. Currently he’s anchoring a weekly TV program for PTV on socio-political and cultural issues. Mr. Goindi holds a Master in Political Science. He earned a Graduate Certificate in “Civil Society Initiatives in Peacebuilding” from SIT, Vermont USA.
Cuauhtémoc Romero Villagómez International Governance Council Member