The Staff
Cynthia Travis - Founder & Director
Cynthia Travis is Founder and President of everyday gandhis, a small non-profit peacebuilding organization working with traditional communities and former fighters in Liberia, West Africa. The work of everyday gandhis links traditional culture, reconciliation, ecological restoration and sustainable agriculture. Stories of peace and healing are shared through councils, newsletters, documentary films, and the internet.
Travis has studied conflict transformation with John Paul Lederach and at the Eastern Mennonite University Conflict Transformation Program. She is currently training with West African elder Malidoma Somé, PhD. and mentoring with writer and teacher Deena Metzger.
She is a graduate of the College of Creative Studies, UCSB (Writing Program), and holds a Master’s Degree in Human Development and a K-12 Teaching Credential from Pacific Oaks College in Pasadena, California. Prior to founding everyday gandhis, Travis spent 15 years as a private consultant offering bilingual mediation and conflict resolution training for schools and organizations in California and New Mexico. In 1994, she produced a series of award-winning educational videos with teacher’s guides on mediation with children ("The Breakthrough... choosing a new road", winner National Educational Media Network Silver Apple Award.)
Andre Lambertson - Photographer & Mentor
Andre Lambertson is an award winning photojournalist based in New York. His work ranges from the study of juvenile violence in America to sexual slavery in Sierra Leone. His photos have appeared in Time, US News and World Report, Life, The New York Times Magazine, The London Sunday Times, Fortune, The Baltimore Sun, where he was a staff photographer, The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Village Voice.
Christian Bethelson - Youth Coordinator
Christian Bethelson, born Mohammed Fofana, is of Mandingo heritage. He spent 27 years in the Liberian National Army. As a young man, he enlisted in the military and devoted his life to it because he was in search of initiation and a way to be of service to his country, just as many young people are drawn into the military today. During that time he received anti-terrorism training in Israel, Romania and Libya, and was chosen as one of President Samuel Doe's personal body guards. When Charles Taylor took over after Doe’s death, Bethelson was imprisoned and tortured. This was part of what pushed him to become active as a LURD (rebel faction) commanding officer, where he fought under the name of General Leopard.
Bethelson met the egp team in September, 2005, at a time when he was contemplating leaving Liberia to fight in neighboring countries. Through telling his story and learning of the work of egp, Bethelson discovered his own passion for peacemaking. After a year of volunteer peacebuilding and training, he joined the egp team. He is now egp’s Youth Director, and continues to mentor and encourage former child soldiers and war-affected youth to become future guardians of peace. We are in the process of forming a new nonprofit, Future Guardians of Peace, specifically to fund programs to help the youth of Liberia in their own healing and reintegration process to become contributing members of their community and role models for future generations.
Bethelson speaks English, French, and all 16 Liberian tribal dialects. He converted from the Muslim faith to Christianity at the request of his wife, whom he loves dearly. He has three children, ages 3-13. He is devoted to peacemaking, and has a deeply rooted understanding of traditional culture. Bethelson loves to sing and dance traditional dances, along with the youth that he is mentoring, and they have started a cultural heritage troupe.
William Jacobs - Liberia Coordinator
Hailing from Gbondoi, a small town in Bong County, Liberia, William G. Jacobs was born on August 14, 1963, on the traditional union of Gorma and Flomo Y. Jacobs. Eight years later, the family left their home to seek greener pastures in the Firestone Plantation Company. This was the “boom years” when many young uneducated men abandoned their rice farming works to flock to Firestone with high hopes and expectations. The third of five children, he was than the only boy child in the family. Though with great potential, he started school at age 10. Struggling throughout the years, he finally completed high school in 1984. Immediately after high school, he went right on to work in order to save for college. This dream was interrupted by a prolonged civil war, which forced him into exile in Ghana, West Africa in October 1990.
While in exile he won a scholarship to pursue further education and subsequently obtained a diploma in journalism with a minor in Public Relations. For four years he served as a newspaper reporter with the prestigious state-owned “Ghanaian Times” Newspaper until 1997 when he willingly left to serve the refugee community as an aid worker. Before joining the “Times” he had contributed to many other papers and magazines.
Beginning in 1998, he immersed himself in full time community service work voluntarily following refugee children in the bushes of Buduburam Refugee Camp to document the drudgery of their daily life. He was selected with three others to serve as monitors and evaluators of War Child’s “hot meal” program for 12 primary schools in Buduburam. That project ended in June 2000.
In 2001, the Liberian Dance Troupe (LDT), a Liberian traditional dance group formed by a group of former Liberian folk dancers and musicians in 1992 in Buduburam Camp, asked that I be a liaison person between the troupe and the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP). The LDT had entered an agreement with WAR child Canada which engaged WANEP to manage the dance troupe’s funds.
He became the executive director of the Liberian Dance Troupe (LDT) and transformed the LDT into a community-based organization and began running a “Trauma Recovery and Cultural Awareness” Program. The dances performed were therapy for the children who themselves were hugely traumatized as a result of the deplorable condition under which they were growing. The program became successful in attracting hundreds of youth and children. The main aim was to reconnect refugee children born or brought into exile to their Liberian cultural heritage as well as help youth reconfirm their identity, dignity and national pride. The peace education and health awareness components were especially essential as these were issues relevant to the community where the refugees resided.
In early February 2004, everyday gandhis began recruiting people for its collaborative peace media teams. His regular visits to the offices of the West Africa Network for Peacebuilding was an important factor in connecting him with everyday gandhis. He participated in the media training for nine days in Northern Ghana. Since that time, he has continued to work with everyday gandhis serving in various capacities such as, counseling and organizing youth reform workshops in junior and senior high schools.