Peace education project
Eric Sirotkin - Executive Director
Executive Director Eric Sirotkin, mixes his experience as a human rights lawyer, film producer, author and peacemaker, to contribute to the movement from the age of separation toward the era of ubuntu. He also serves as secretary of the UWPEP Board of Directors.
Over the years his peacemaking activities have taken him around the world, includin
g India, Peru, Cuba, South Africa, Japan, Vietnam, North and South Korea, France, Canada Netherlands,
and China. In 1991 he assisted with the new Constitution in South Africa, was a UN sponsored election observer at President Mandela’s election and coordinated an international monitoring Project of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. It was through this experience that he learned about the wisdom of ubuntu.
City of Albuquerque
Human Rights Award
to
Eric Sirotkin
“In recognition of his long standing commitment, contribution and concern as an advocate and moving force for human rights and human dignity, and promoting human rights and equality to the community at large.”
In the United States he has defended protesters arrested for their political expression, sanctuary workers helping families flee US sponsored violence in Central America, DJ’s struggling to keep community radio free, and workers who have lost their jobs or been harassed due to discrimination and retaliation for race, age, sex, disability or whistleblowing. He has served as an adjunct professor of law at the University of New Mexico School of Law and taught dozens of continuing legal education programs.
Mr. Sirotkin helped found the New Mexico Human Rights Coalition, the NLG Korean Peace Project and is the Executive Producer of the award winning film Committing Poetry in Times of War. He is a regular guest lecturer on campuses around the United States and has spoken about ubuntu and peace in more than a dozen countries.
Eric was raised in Michigan, USA, and received his Bachelor of Arts, Phi Beta Kappa, from Michigan State James Madison College in Justice, Morality and Constitutional Democracy in 1978. His Juris Doctorate came from the University of Detroit School of Law in 1981.
Board of Directors
Jeff Golden - President of the Board
Jeff Golden attended Harvard University as a National Scholar during the height of the Vietnam War. He decided to swap the Ivy Halls for 20 acres in the backwoods of Oregon and a used chainsaw. He chronicled that journey in the book Watermelon Summer(Lippincott & Co, 1971). Through the 1970s he built and remodeled homes, co-founded a small construction company, managed timber and guided whitewater river trips on the Rogue and other rivers. He was the founding president of the Oregon Guides Association.
Jeff then earned a Masters Degree in Broadcast Communications from Stanford University in 1982 aand then became the Production and Operations Manager for PBS station KSYS-TV. There he created the Downstate Gazette, a monthly television series on controversial environmental issues. He moved with his family to Ashland Oregon in 1984 and was elected Jackson County Commissioner in 1986. 
The Rogue Valley, with some of the country’s worst air quality, was ordered to reduce woodstove pollution. Jeff led a two-year effort to solve the problem, building on ideas from woodstove users, negotiating with state officials, and securing grant money from the federal government for lower-income households to buy cleaner woodstoves. He led innovations to deliver county services more efficiently, including a self-insurance program that has saved taxpayers hundreds of thousands of premium dollars. When old- growth logging came to an end, Jeff was at the forefront of efforts to rebuild the region’s economy, train workers in new skills and encourage the wood-products industry to adapt to changing times. 
His insistence on looking forward instead of back triggered an attempt by elements of the timber industry to recall him from office in 1989. After the recall effort was rejected by county citizens, Jeff became the first Oregonian ever nominated for the JFK Profile in Courage Award.
Jeff went on to establish Golden Communications, providing mediation, team-building and planning services for a wide variety of agencies and companies. In 1993 he became Chief of Staff to the Oregon Senate President, and worked for several years on regional water policy for the City of Portland. He went on to host a daily talk show on Jefferson Public Radio for ten years while analyzing local issues in local and regional newspaper columns. His books include Forest Blood, a novel on the timber wars, and two explorations of what’s possible in politics and government: As If We Were Grownups and Unafraid: A Novel of the Possible.
Jeff has been involved with dozens of community projects over the years. He created the Abundance Swap that takes place in Ashland every holiday season, and has served on the Boards of the Job Council, the Rogue Valley Council of Governments. the Rogue Valley Family YMCA, CASA, Pacific Nonprofit Network, Mediation Works, and two Oregon State Commissions. He has recently received the Democratic nomination for County Commissioner in Jackson County. http://www.goldenforjacksoncounty.org/
Peter Hwosch - Vice President of the Board
“I am dedicated to expressing the beauty, heart, joy, suffering, and creativity that bind us all together, to connect who we all are, what we may feel and believe, and what we do and produce in the world.” - Peter Hwosch
Peter Hwosch is the founder and owner/producer of Hwosch Productions, Make It Real Films and True Wealth Trainings.
He is a documentary producer, recording and performing songwriter/composer, trained mediator and a certified facilitator for The Compassionate Listening Project (TCLP). 
His work includes producing documentary films, original music, co-directing non-profit projects and various efforts for transformational change around the world.
Peter’s documentary video work includes co-production of two films, Children of Abraham and Crossing the Lines, both shot in Israel and Palestine for TCLP. His third film, Beyond These Narrow Borders, follows youth from all three sides of the war in former Yugoslavia as they participate in the Seedlings of Peace Summer Camp, located in Croatia. Peter has made numerous short promotional films for The Toolbox Project, a social/emotional literacy curriculum for grades; K-5. He has also served as primary documentarian for Reuniting America and the Transpartisan Alliance building bridges of understanding across the political divide in the U.S. and sits on the board of the Changing The Game Foundation.
Peter has produced three CD’s, And I Trust, Exposed, and What If?, of original songs, many influenced by his reconciliation work around the world. As a songwriter and producer, he has also collaborated on many projects, including scores for video, film, theater, and dance. Peter also owned and operated a recording studio in the San Francisco Bay Area for ten years in the 90’s.
Peter’s creative work has been deeply affected by his activities in war and post war areas where everyone is suffering, giving him a unique view on the nature of conflict, and what people engulfed in struggle face in common.
Peter now lives and works in Portland Oregon and Central Europe and is producing documentaries, performing concerts and facilitating Compassionate Listening and other trainings.
Michael G. Katz - Treasurer
Michael G. Katz of Whitefish Bay Wisconsin graduated as an engineer from the University of Michigan and has a MBA from Harvard. He is the owner of Molded Dimensions Inc., a small rubber and urethane products manufacturer in Port Washington Wisconsin. The company has 64 employees, about $10 million in annual sales and runs a 31,000-square-foot plant.
Molded Dimensions designs and manufactures custom molded natural synthetic rubber and liquid cast polyurethane products for more than 300 customers worldwide serving 30 different industries, ranging from medical to marine. He was instrumental in setting up a progressive profit sharing plan for his employees where employees will own one-third of the company. He was recently appointed to a three year term on the District Board of the Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC).
