Eva Armour supports communities in conflict to imagine, practice, and build a more just and peaceful world. For nearly 20 years, she has worked with Seeds of Peace to bring together courageous leaders from the Middle East, South Asia, and United States who work in solidarity across lines of difference to build more just and inclusive societies. As the Director of Impact, she gets to explore questions about what drives transformative social change. Eva believes that building community is the foundation for social justice and collective liberation and gets the chance to practice that through her involvement in Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) in Boston, where she organizes for police and prison abolition and helps move white folks into action as part of Black-led multi-racial coalitions. She serves on the Board of Directors of Rhize, Activate Labs, and Empathy for Peace.
Eva is a wonderful friend. She is endlessly imaginative and thoughtful. Her verve and groove are totally infectious. There is little “downtime” around her, in both meanings of any hint of sadness, or lassitude.
We are collaborating on her initiative to enhance the impact of our communities to ultimately make Convisero searchable and interactive, and both accessible and accountable to the community. Eva has suggested that we carefully merge the many notable alumni of Seeds of Peace with my roster of alumni from the institute, now positioned as mentors in Convisero.
I had the privilege of knowing John Wallach, the founder of Seeds of Peace, and its International Peace Camp, in Maine. I honored John, who I greatly miss with my Institute’s Dr. Jean Mayer Global Citizenship award. He would certainly be proud of Eva as the Seeds' director of impact.
I helped create the first curriculum of Seeds of Peace, and was given the responsibility to host and help integrate the first cadre of the Israeli and Palestinian students, who witnessed the 1993 Oslo handshake on the White House lawn, at Tufts, in the now far distant days of promising efforts at reconciliation. I also took the adult escorts - “minders,” of the Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, Tunisian and Moroccan student delegations, who accompanied their young students to Washington D.C. and on to Maine, for orientation activities at Boston Harbor's Thompson Island, in the Boston Harbor. They were skeptical of each other, and were far more difficult to contend with than their students. It was fascinating to see their initial suspicions begin to break down over the weekend in ropes courses and other team activities.