National Peace Foundation - Sarah Harder & Olga Bessolova

logo for National Peace Foundation

Sarah Harder is the President of the National Peace Foundation, and Olga Bessolova is a Russian-born, Soviet-raised activist with the organization. They "Build Foundations for Peace" through a number of programs in Russia, the Middle East, Africa, the USA and elsewhere.

Olga was secretly baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church - secretly because her father, as a member of the Communist Party, could not have anything to do with religion. She does not feel positive about the overall role that the Russian Orthodox Church plays in civic life, both because of the way they use people and because of the restricted roles which they attempt to assign to women. Sarah Harder has made the transition from Catholic to Episcopalian to Unitarian Universalist, which is her current religious home.

Sarah has a long history with activism among women's groups in the USA, and Olga provides an intriguing glimpse into life in Russia, before and after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Music featured on this program includes: 

May There Always Be Sunshine - Mary Knysh (read about the song here)
Peace Is - Fred Small
Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream - Pete Seeger

Leave a Comment!

Spirit in Action

Episode Number

SIA-000048

First Air Date

Listen & Download

National Peace Foundation - Sarah Harder and Olga Bessolova
About the organization
Started as a peace academy. Also started the U.S Institute of Peace that became too much of a think tank for them.
Dealing with problems with addictions in Russia
There wasn’t much of a drug problem there before the borders got opened. Then all the vices from our society came in. also includes a song clip. “May there always be sunshine”
Feminization of power
What transformed Sarah? Including her history as a feminist.
Reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union from a person that was there
People think that the reason Soviet Union collapsed was because of the arms race. It was actually because of the people getting knowledge of the way things are over here.
Catholic
Episcopalian
Russian Orthodox
Unitarian Universalist
Sarah Harder
Olga Bessolova
National Peace Foundation
Soviet Union

Broadcast Date(s)

Guest:

Sarah Harder
Olga Bessolova

Comments

Sarah Harder, … (not verified) Thu, 08/17/2006 - 13:28
Our oranization believes informed grassroots communities empower change. The diverse messages of Northern Spirit Radio inform and nourish such quests both globally and locally. Today's Democracy Now broadcast from the World AIDS conference in Canada carried voices from Africa and the Caribbean to inform my work in National Peace Foundation's Youth Addiction/HIV project in Russia. Here in Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley, an Israeli/Palestinian Dialogue of Jews, Muslims and Christians has expanded our shared understanding of routes to a just peace and resolution of that root conflict. Your archival record of Sami Rasouli [founder of Muslim Peacemaker Teams-3/19/06-SPIRIT IN ACTION]describes reconstruction work in Fallujah inspired by Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq from the U.S. (It echoes our group's email exchange today regretting that Iran rather than the U.S. reaps credit in Lebanon for reconstruction, as if lessons of the U.S. Marshall Plan in Europe have been forgotten.) Thank you for the resources of Northern Spirit Radio that build community by sharing current realities both through our local station and your internet reach around the world.

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
About text formats