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We are delighted to introduce Vanessa Lawrow as the new office manager for Women Against Military Madness. Vanessa is a 2001 graduate of the College of St. Catherine with a BA in Justice and Peace Studies, having taken many of her courses in that department at the University of St. Thomas. Vanessa spent her junior year of college abroad at the Queen's University of Belfast in Northern Ireland where she pursued politics, philosophy, and women's studies. She began volunteering in the WAMM office in 2004, enthusiastically embracing a variety of tasks, including many administrative office tasks. Vanessa also completed the "Refusing to Fight" Conscientious Objector Training Workshop. In January of 2005, Vanessa became the Interim Office Manager. She was hired as a full-time staff member in March. Vanessa was born in Minneapolis and has lived here most of her life, close to a large, extended family that she sees on a weekly basis when her grandmother cooks dinner for all of the children and grandchildren.
WAMM is also very pleased to be currently hosting interns who are engaged in a variety of projects. Sarah Dunne is a political science major who will graduate soon from Hamline University and plans to attend law school immediately after graduation. Sarah is employed as our Intern Coordinator on WAMM's Conscientious Objection program. The other WAMM interns are service-learning students who are performing work for WAMM to earn college credit. WAMM received a grant from the Sisters of St. Joseph Carondolet Social Justice Fund, which allows several interns to bring CO materials and discuss CO status with area high schools. To orient interns, WAMM conducted a day-long training and information session so that they might learn about conscientious objection, why it is important, related legalities and more. Four of the WAMM interns were able to go to Jefferson High School in Bloomington when the student group, Youth Against War and Racism, under attack for presenting their fellow students with an alternative view to that which recruiters presented, asked for support.
Interns are writing reports about recruitment efforts targeting minorities, environmental effects of war, women in the military, support groups for military families opposed to war, and how the medical systems in Iraq were affected by war. Interns are participating and assisting with WAMM events, forming connections between peace groups in area colleges, assisting with the Women of the World and War series-including making it more accessible to the hearing disabled, updating the WAMM display, working in the office, and with WAMM committees. The interns are: Jessica Snider, Tony Shader, Augsburg College; Katie Clarkson, Maxine McDonald, Laura Wilhoite, Hamline University; Jesse Engebretson, Ayana Weekley, University of Minnesota; Antonia Auger, Anna Anderson, Elizabeth Baumann, Rachel Oberg-Hauser, Amy Jo Heer, Heidi Rademacher, Heather Patton, Renee Knowlton, Sarah Curtner, Megan Gillard, College of St. Catherine.
Mary Beaudoin is the Director of WAMM.
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