Maryam Roberts is the Peace & Solidarity Program Director at the Women of Color Resource Center in Oakland, CA. She comes from years of experience organizing and educating on peace and social justice issues. She is currently working with a group of women of color veterans to help build their leadership and voices in the peace movement. She is passionate about engaging young communities of color on issues of militarism, race, gender and power, helping them to find alternatives to the military. Her current initiative is the Runway Peace Project, an organizing kit for pro-peace, anti-war fashion shows nationwide. The project looks at how militarism influences popular culture, through the lens of fashion, asking the question, "What's so hip about wearing camo?"

Formerly with Global Exchange, she produced speaking tours of military family members like Fernando Suarez del Solar, who lost his son in the Iraq occupation, and Iraq war veterans like Sean O'Neill, and resisters Camilo Mejia and Pablo Paredes. Maryam is also co-founder of Art in Action Youth Leadership Program (www.artinactioncamp.org). Utilizing her passion for photography and writing, she directed the Art in Action Digital Storytelling program in 2006, as a powerful way for young people to share their stories digitally through writing & photography.

Topics covered

• Linking the Issues for Youth - Recruitment & Alternatives
• Art in Action - Finding Our Voices Through Art
• Runway Peace Project
• Women of Color: Building Peace in a Militarized Society