Britta Ellwanger
Ukraine Relief Project Director
Britta Ellwanger
Ukraine Relief Project Director
Until February 24, 2022, Britta was a graduate student at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy in their flagship Anticorruption Studies program. Originally planning to do her research in the use of environmental, social, and governance services (ESGs) as a mechanism of oligarchic legitimization. She has switched to full time humanitarian aid until the war is over. She has been living, working, and investing in Ukraine for ten years. She has a B.A. from Stanford University in Political Science.
Dear followers and supporters of forPEACE's work in supplying urgently needed supplies in Ukriane. A CRITICAL URGENT PLEA.
— Britta Ellwanger🇺🇦 (@diddabee) April 12, 2022
Dr. Aragon Ellwanger
Frontline Lead Surgeon & Medical Director
Dr. Aragon Ellwanger
Frontline Lead Surgeon & Medical Director
In August 2022, Major Dr. Aragon Ellwanger separated from the US Air Force after 13 years of service as an oral maxillofacial surgeon (OMFS). With more than a decade of surgical trauma experience including wartime injuries at a Level One trauma center in San Antonio, TX he has performed more than 13,000 procedures, many of them high-risk surgeries, and treated more than 2,000 patients. While being stationed in South Korea, he established an oral maxillofacial surgery clinic, earning a Commendation Medal from the Air Force. During his tour of duty in Japan, he performed the region’s first allogenic nerve transplant surgery.
Since 2021 Dr. Ellwanger has been stationed in Biloxi, MS where in addition to continued surgical practice he teaches oral and maxillofacial surgery to residents with a faculty appointment from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. He has published in academic journals and is an accomplished lecturer in a broad variety of topics including anesthesia, life support, surgical airway management, ballistic injuries, and infections.
In addition to his professional expertise and contributions, Dr. Ellwanger has extensive experience over the past decade with medical and dental missions to The Philippines and Cambodia.
Dr. Ellwanger graduated magna cum laude from Brigham Young University with a B.S. in biochemistry and a minor in psychology and from the University of California San Francisco School of Dentistry, earning his doctor of dental surgery. Upon joining the US Air Force, he completed advanced education in general dentistry (AEGD) at Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, DC and was accepted into the highly competitive four year oral and maxillofacial residency program at San Antonio’s Lackland Air Force Base.
This week in Ukraine, I evaluated a young man who’s partial jaw was blown off from artillery fire. He will wake up to a reality where he may never eat solid foods again because hospitals in Ukraine simply do not have the basic equipment needed to reconstruct it.
— Aragon Ellwanger (@AragonEllwanger) November 5, 2022
Fiona Givens
Advisory Board
Fiona Givens
Advisory Board
Fiona Givens graduated with degrees in German and French from the University of Richmond followed by a graduate degree in European History. Fiona taught French and German, worked in translation services, as a lobbyist, and as communications director for a non-profit.
Her work has been published with Routledge University Press, Exponent II, LDS Living and Journal of Mormon History and Dialogue. She has an article forthcoming with Illinois University Press on the subject of atonement theology and retributive justice.
Fiona is also a frequent speaker on podcasts and at conferences. A longtime collaborator in the books of her husband, Terryl Givens, she is the co-author of The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life; Crucible of Doubt: Reflections on the Quest for Faith; The Christ who Heals: How God Restored the Truth that Save us and All Things New: Rethinking Sin, Salvation and Everything in Between. Fiona and Terryl are the parents of six children and a growing number of delightful grandchildren.
Having done her graduate studies in European History, she was particularly attuned to the fragility of peace on the continent and the destructive power of evil. When the invasion of Ukraine was launched, she wanted to join forces with an organisation that was prompt to see the dangers, committed to the cause of the oppressed, and agile in being able to respond effectively. forPEACE met those criteria.
John Vsetecka
Academic Advisor
John Vsetecka
Academic Advisor
John Vsetecka is a PhD Candidate in the Department of History at Michigan State University where he is finishing a dissertation on the effects of famine in Soviet Ukraine. Until February 24th, 2022, John was conducting research in Kyiv, Ukraine on a Fulbright fellowship. After being evacuated out of the country, John moved to Warsaw, Poland where he began working with refugees who fled Ukraine due to the war. Additionally, John is the founder and editor of H-Ukraine, part of the larger H-Net platform, which promotes scholarly and intellectual content related to the study of Ukraine.
Erin Dial
Community Organizer
Erin Dial
Community Organizer
Originally from Tucson, Arizona, Erin studied in Virginia where she graduated from the University of Richmond with a B.S. in Psychology, a Concentration in Neuroscience and Minor in Chemistry. Upon graduation, she moved to Eastern Europe where she learned Russian and lived amongst its people for a year and a half. When she returned to the States she worked intimately with adults suffering from eating disorders as a Milieu Coordinator at the Eating Recovery Center in Denver, Colorado. Erin currently resides in Utah with her husband and three children. Her strengths lie in communication, public relations, and networking.
Margret Ellwanger
Founder and CEO
Margret Ellwanger
Founder and CEO
Margret’s commitment to community service traces back to her graduate studies in physics at the Technical University of Munich where along with a team based at IIT Madras she developed windmills in off grid rural India. Since 1997 she has partnered with Cambodian organizations to shape integrated development projects and programs in Cambodia. In 2005 her focus expanded to empower Bedouin women and create peace building projects rooted in education and nature in Israel.
Margret founded forPEACE in 2011 to work side-by-side with locals to build thriving communities in harmony with nature. forPEACE has been present in Ukraine since 2014 helping artisans and small business owner to generate income. With the invasion of Ukraine, forPEACE felt a moral obligation to provide integrated war relief responding to multifaceted needs of frontline communities.
Terryl Givens
Advisory Board
Terryl Givens
Advisory Board
Terryl Givens is Professor Emeritus of Literature and Religion at the University of Richmond, and the Neal A. Maxwell Senior Research Fellow at Brigham Young University. His numerous books include several studies in theology, biography and intellectual history. The New York Times has called his scholarship “provocative reading,” and he has been a commentator on PBS, CNN, and NPR.
He enthusiastically supports the guiding principles of forPEACE's targeted, integrated war relief which enables local capacity building through being fully embedded within communities along the active war zone.
Heather Willoughby
Director
Heather Willoughby
Director
Heather Willoughby originally hails from Colorado, where she honed her love of the great outdoors, but has spent more than a quarter of her life living abroad, primarily in South Korea. She has long sought to combine her interests in travel and anthropological studies with her desire to learn and serve wherever she goes.
She is trained in ethnomusicology (focused on Korean traditional music) and socio-cultural anthropology and currently works as an Associate Professor at Ewha Womans University in International Relations and Development & Cooperation. She is designated as the forPEACE Academic Advisor and Monitor & Evaluator, where she performs oversight duties and works closely with other team members to organize and promote Service-Leaning opportunities and to document the work in both social media and academic forums.
Kamie Robinson
Creative Technologist
Kamie Robinson
Creative Technologist
Kamie holds a Master of Fine Arts in Photographic and Electronic Media from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and studied geography, communications and multimedia during undergrad.
After meeting Margret Ellwanger in 2010 and discussing Tabitha's savings program and philosophies about philanthropic endeavors, Kamie raised funds for a Khmer house and attended a service learning trip to Cambodia. Feeling aligned with forPEACE's mission, programs and the spirit of facilitators, partners, and volunteers, she has remained involved.
Barbara Harper
Director and Treasurer
Barbara Harper
Director and Treasurer
Barbara Harper was born and raised in Utah and currently lives there. She has a Bachelors degree in Accounting from the University of Utah and has worked as a Controller for 32 years. During this time, she has learned a lot about running successful businesses.
She went on a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to South Korea in 1986, where she met Heather Willoughby. They have remained friends for 30+ years. Barbara joined Heather on a humanitarian trip to Kenya, and in 2019, she traveled to Cambodia with ForPEACE and loved it! Service-learning trips are her favorite!
She has three awesome children and enjoys traveling as well as going to Disneyland.
Dawn Boyd
Director
Dawn Boyd
Director
Dawn Boyd is originally from northern Nevada, but has had the opportunity to live in many other exciting places in the United States and abroad including Israel, where she was introduced to forPEACE.
Breaking down social, economic, and cultural barriers that divide people, and hinder progress and peace is her passion. She is grateful to be a part of the forPEACE team, an organization that truly makes a positive difference in the lives of others.
Her marketing career began 20 years ago as a Channel Marketing Manager in the high-tech industry. Since then, she has marketed products and services in a variety of industries in the U.S. and abroad including non-profit, real estate/VRM, education, and government. She currently directs marketing communications for a startup that provides learning, development, and training for financial and mortgage institutions. Dawn has a bachelor’s degree in marketing, and is currently pursuing a graduate degree from Georgetown University in Integrated Marketing Communications.
Pat Olsen
Pat grew up in rural Connecticut with two brother and two sisters, unaware until her first paycheck that women and men were not, at that time, considered equals. Her first trip abroad was a month long study tour in Mexico at age 16 paid for with her babysitting money. She spent her college junior year in Germany traveling extensively throughout Europe and behind the Iron Curtain.
Her husband joined the Foreign Service when their three children were preschoolers and they began 26 years of overseas adventures as a U.S. diplomatic family. After home-schooling in the Pacific and being active with private and public schools, Pat earned her teaching credentials and taught in international elementary and middle schools and was a middle school principal.
Pat connected with Margret while running the Model United Nations program at the American International school in Israel. The Olsens lived in Israel for two tours, and her husband Norm traveled frequently to Gaza.
Inspired by Margret, Pat brought her sisters and her mother on two housebuilding trips to Cambodia where they shared their sewing expertise with the seamstresses and designers at Tabitha, in addition to knowing how to wield construction hammers.
Pat has joined forPeace in order to support its efforts on behalf of Cambodians, Palestinians, and creating young scientists through GAIA.
Pat and her husband live in Maine, with a large collection of boats.