WRI announces Hannah Brock as new staff person

As you may already know, Andreas Speck, who has been the Right to Refuse to Kill programme worker at the WRI office since 2001, has decided to move on, and will be leaving the post at the end of this year. In his time in the WRI office, Andreas has shaped the programme, and to a great extent - WRI as a whole, and has done an outstanding job. But we'll have the opportunity to thank Andreas for all that he's done properly at a later occasion. For now we would like to introduce to you the new Right to Refuse to Kill programme worker, who will join the WRI office staff in September.

After we advertised the vacancy earlier in the year, we received an unprecedented number of applications - over 80 - many of them from excellent candidates. However, one candidate impressed us more than all the others, with her intelligence, personality and deep understanding of the many complex issues that are at stake in WRI's work. Her name is Hannah Brock, and let her now briefly present herself to you.

My name is Hannah, I’m looking forward to joining WRI in September when I take up the post as Right to Refuse to Kill programme worker. I grew up on the Isle of Wight, an island off the south coast of England, and am moving to London to start work with WRI. Having studied social sciences at university (Sociology and an MSc in Anthropology), I learnt about and have been motivated by Marxist and feminist analyses of power. These approaches led me to get more deeply involved in activism on ecology, equality and peace issues.

In my paid jobs I’ve worked to engage young people in issues of global justice for an international development agency, written papers on long-term drivers of insecurity for the peace and security think tank the Oxford Research Group, and been a support worker for people with disabilities. Most recently, I have been living and working in Bethlehem as a human rights observer in the occupied Palestinian territories, with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI).

Outside my paid work I’m involved in environmental campaigning, a young Quaker community in the UK, and occasionally write for a variety of blogs and journals.

I applied for the position with WRI because I wish to bring my commitment to nonviolence, a willingness to work hard and learn quickly, and a delight in working with activists around the world, to the RtRK programme.

I am thrilled to have been offered the post and to be given the privilege of working to support both conscientious objectors and the movements for conscientious objection around the world.