Invincible

"One of the most talented emcees I've ever heard black or white, male or female..." -Talib Kweli

"Invincible is one part emcee, three parts revolutionary, but the recipe is all Hip Hop." -Shook Magazine

Invincible, is a Detroit-based emcee and community activist who has been rapping and organizing for well over a decade. Her spitfire wordplay has gotten her acclaim from Hip Hop fans all across the world, while her active involvement in progressive social change organizing through her work with Detroit Summer's Live Arts Media Project, US Palestine Youth Solidarity Network, and many more, has taken her music beyond entertainment, and towards actualizing the change she wishes to see. Many are already familiar with her work with Waajeed and the Platinum Pied Pipers, Finale, the all-female ANOMOLIES crew, Black Star, and many others. Dubbed by XXL Magazine as "every A&Rs worst nightmare" for rejecting major label deals and general industry politricks, Invincible started her own cooperative economics based record label, EMERGENCE, self-releasing her long-awaited full length LP, ShapeShifters, in 2008. For more info: www.myspace.com/invincilana

Paula Galeano, Colombian Conscientious Objector

Paula Andrea Galeano Bermúdez is a 28 year-old conscientious objector from Colombia. She is an activist with the Red Juvenil (Medellin Youth Network), an organization that was started in 1990 by young people who had lost loved ones to the armed conflict. The heart of the Network's mission is to encourage young people's belief in the value of all human life, to work together to overcome fear, and to become empowered to live and espouse these values. The group trains youth in nonviolence and cooperative play, supports young men who refuse to serve with the police, military or illegal armed groups, and promotes respect for human rights and young people's ideas in Colombian society.

Paula was born and has lived her entire life in Medellín, Colombia's second largest city. She is the oldest of two daughters -- her sister has two children and another baby on the way and she likes to spend time with her family. She first became involved with the Red Juvenil through her neighborhood youth group. Later she graduated from university with a major in business administration and an emphasis in the economics of solidarity. She has worked with the Red Juvenil since 1999 as an administrator and is currently the legal representative, as well as being a member of a group that focuses on women's issues, including legalizing abortion in Colombia.

Paula encourages people in Colombia and the United States to take a bigger view when it comes to defining conscientious objection. She says, "a basic definition of conscientious objection is that which questions the involvement of young people in official military forces, but this definition does not question young people's involvement in insurgent or para-state armies (paramilitaries). An antimilitarist defintion of 'Objection for Conscience' questions the role of any army in a society, rejects youth recruitment no matter where it comes from, rejects militarism, the use of violence and armed confrontation as a tool which is used to impose social projects and to defend certain ideas or elite interests."

Paula is very excited to come to the United States and talk about the situation in Colombia from the Red Juvenil's perspective and to network and a build a collective definition of conscientious objection with other youth activists who are working on similar issues.

Shauen Pierce, FOR Youth & Militarism Co-director

Shauen Pearce is a national program director of the U.S. Fellowship of Reconciliation's Youth and Militarism program. The Fellowship of Reconciliation is an international, multi-faith justice and peace organization in its 93rd year (www.forusa.org). The Youth and Militarism program includes the Not Your Soldier and I Will Not Kill campaigns to support youth lead resistance to the poverty draft, the Peacemaker Training Institute, and the Nonviolent Youth Collective, a network of young adult artists, facilitators and organizers working for social justice, guided by principles of anti-oppression, art infused organizing, and spiritual self-care.

Shauen is a military Conscientious Objector, national youth justice organizer, graphic design artist and former big box manager among other experiences. Shauen is a self-identified androgynous femme and prefers to use the pronouns ze and per (rather than he/she or his/her). Ze got involved with the FOR through the summer 2007 intergenerational nonviolence gathering in MN, and has played an active role over the last year in developing FOR's work to support youth resistance to militarism through youth and militarism meet ups, the Kirkridge Peacemaker Training Institute, and currently through the Not Your Soldier project (www.notyoursoldier.org), FOR's collaboration with the Ruckus Society and War Resisters League.

Ze is an Chicago born Afro-Latin@ pen and paper artist, writer, and capoeirista from the Midwest and beyond. Often found reading speculative fiction or drawing, Shauen enjoys the intersections of life and encourages everyone to think critically about what makes us who we are.

Liza Smith, Fellowship of Reconciliation National Organizer

Liza is the national organizer for the FOR Colombia Program based out of Oakland, California and coordinates the campaign to end US military aid to Colombia. She first went to Colombia in 1997 for a year-long study abroad program; ever since she has been reading, writing, speaking and organizing around the human rights situation in Colombia and the US involvement in the conflict. She has led four delegations to Colombia and recently lived there for almost two years, accompanying threatened human rights leaders with Peace Brigades International.

Liza is from a bi-cultural family: with a dad who grew up in Puerto Rico and unlces, aunts and cousins who live there currently. She grew up in a community of Tibetan Buddhist practitioners and is part of a group that runs a Buddhist summer camp for kids 10-16. She is also a singer/songwriter. She began singing when she was 14 in Boulder, Colorado and over the years, she has brought her voice, lyrics and guitar to cafes, choirs, and an a capella group; her music has accompanied her in her activism in New Orleans, Colombia and now the Bay Area. Last year she recorded her first CD in Bogota, Colombia. You can check out her music at: www.myspace.com/lizamaytok

Maryrose Dolezal, FOR Youth & Militarism Co-director

Maryrose Dolezal is a national program director with the U.S. Fellowship of Reconciliation, an international, multi-faith justice and peace organization which started in 1914. She coordinates projects including Not Your Soldier, I Will Not Kill, the Peacemaker Training Institute, and the Nonviolent Youth Collective. In addition, Maryrose speaks and facilitates nationally on Mutual Mentorship, Story-based Strategy, War at Home/War Abroad, and assists nonprofits in internal change around generations, race and culture. She is a board member of smartMeme and Common Fire, and is the treasurer of the National Youth and Student Peace Coalition. As a 30 year old, White, Pagan/Catholic, and self identified queer woman, she attempts to align her daily decisions and relationships with her desire and vision for a healed world.

Maryrose also spends time in Minnesota dancing, swimming, working with her family and friends on two green building projects, and sometimes dealing with chronic Lymn’s Disease. She grew up unschooling, has a BA in Women’s Studies and Anthropology and MA in Nonprofit Management from Hamline University, and a certificate in Peace and International Development from Universidad de Jueme I. Her background includes refugee resettlement, campus-based service learning work, and teaching undergraduate courses in conflict resolution and anthropology.

Brie Phillips, FOR Youth & Militarism Staff

Brie Phillips is currently working with the Fellowship of Reconciliation's Nonviolent Youth Collective and Youth and Militarism program. She is a young, queer, Jewish woman who has been living in DC since the end of 2005. Brie has a background in workers' rights and farmworker solidarity organizing, having been staff and a steering committee member of the Student/Farmworker Alliance since 2003 and national co-coordinator of the Living Wage Action Coalition. Her work with the Fellowship of Reconciliation allows her to collaborate with youth across the country around issues of anti-oppression, organizing skills, and to educate and support organizing efforts that focus on the issues of counter-military recruitment and conscientious objection to the military. Brie believes in the power of art and culture as resistance, and loves to play guitar and mandolin and to sing and dance. She speaks Spanish and Portuguese and hopes to learn several other languages, including Hebrew and Arabic.