Glenys  Babcock first became involved with the

peace movement more than 25 years ago in the early 1980s.

After her first year as a physics major at Queen’s University, Glenys took time off school to spend three months in Calcutta as a volunteer for Mother Teresa’s charity.

It was an extraordinary and powerful experience for, what she describes as, a very, very young 20 year old.

One of the lessons Glenys learned through her simple day-to-day interactions with people was that each and every life is profoundly precious, irreplaceable, extraordinary, and remarkable.

Life changed. Upon returning to Queen’s University, she became committed to the peace movement.  Glennys immersed herself in the campus anti-nuclear arms race protests. She also switched her major and eventually went on to graduate studies in international relations, international security, and Russian affairs. 

Over the past 20 years, Glenys has served as a Consultant to preeminent organisations like the World Bank, the RAND Corporation, the US Army and the Intelligence Secretariat of the Privy Council Office in Canada .

Today, Glenys is the Founder and Executive Director of Pragmora, a new international peace organisation.

Pragmora is unique – it bridges the gap between policy experts and grassroots peace activists. Pragmora engages international experts in a systematic process to develop pragmatic non-violent measures to help resolve specific conflicts, prevent conflicts from arising, and stabilize the peace in post-conflict areas.  It then puts these realistic solutions into the hands of grassroots activists around the world.

Pragmora will launch its very first advocacy campaign in March – on the conflict in Sri Lanka , where civil war has been ongoing since 1983.

Glenys was in Sri Lanka  recently conducting intensive on-the-ground research.  While there, she was able to meet one-on one for 40 minutes with the Secretary of Defense, Gotabaya Rajapaksa (brother of the President) and and discuss his plans for bringing an end to the war with the LTTE Tamil Tigers in the north. She also met with International and Local non-profit groups, senior academics, policy analysts at think tanks, and senior directors at Sri Lanka’s largest media outlet (whose offices were bombed a couple of weeks ago). These meetings were the first step in the Pragmora process for developing realistic and effective advocacy measures to foster peace.

When the final set of advocacy positions have been vetted, they will be posted on the Pragmora website with all the information and tools an individual needs to take action. The website will also have Briefing Papers on various conflicts with a straight-forward, non-biased history, highlights of the key issues at stake, and a description of the key players. The briefing papers will be a kind of a ‘cheat sheet’ on a conflict – but one that’s been vetted with experts to ensure it’s accurate and non-biased.

For more information, please visit  www.pragmora.org

Dr Glenys Babcock