Team

The Nuclear Truth Project benefits from the expertise of people across the world, particularly those with direct or intergenerational experience of nuclear harms.

We welcome new members to join our regular online meetings and events. Please inquire about upcoming meetings here.

We have a Steering Committee which is comprised of at least sixty percent First Nations Peoples, people of colour, affected community members, LGBTQ, and women. In December 2022 the Steering Committee elected Bedi Racule and Kathleen Sullivan to Co-Chair the Nuclear Truth Project. Molly McGinty and Mitchie Takeuchi are also Board members.

We have two co-Coordinators, Pam Kingfisher (based in the United States) and Dimity Hawkins (based in Australia). 

Introducing BEDI RACULE

Bedi Racule hails from the Marshall Islands and Pohnpei in the Federated States of Micronesia, with roots in Hawaii and Fiji. 

She has completed her postgraduate degree in Development Studies at the University of the South Pacific where she was serving as the former president of MISA4thePacific – a grassroots youth organization raising awareness for nuclear justice in the Pacific.

Bedi is now engaged as an Interning Ecumenical Enabler for Climate Justice at the Pacific Conference of Churches, where she aims to link the climate crisis to nuclear issues.

She attended the First Meeting of State Parties to the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Vienna, Austria in 2022 where she met nuclear bomb and tests survivors from many parts of the world and shared truths about the ongoing impacts of nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands.

Bedi’s beautiful poem, “See you Soon, Lagoon” was launched in August 2023, produced by Asia Pacific Leaders Network and Lumen films. It was part of APLN’s project on Nuclear Disarmament and the Anthropocene: Voices from Pacific Island Countries

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THE NUCLEAR TRUTH PROJECT

“The nuclear truth project is about bringing together people from all over the world with different backgrounds, different cultures, and different interests – who are all so incredibly passionate about seeking justice through truth telling and through the collective collaboration of indigenous peoples.

This space is very valuable to me because of the way it is centered on indigenous experiences and values which often get lost in conversations about nuclear issues which mainly focus on the unemotional language of laws or science.

It is also very valuable to me because of the network and connections that I have been able to make with people from all around the globe.

I am here and look forward to working with the nuclear truth project because the truth about nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands is still being censored or even worse, erased, which prevents my people from seeing the long-awaited justice they so rightfully deserve.”

Introducing KATHLEEN SULLIVAN

Dr. Kathleen Sullivan has been engaged in the nuclear issue for more than 30 years. Director of Hibakusha Stories, an education initiative that has brought atomic bomb survivors (hibakusha) to some 50,000 students, she produces nuclear themed films and projects that focus on art for disarmament. With the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, she developed the disarmament education web portal for the UN’s Cyberschoolbus website and co-wrote Action for Disarmament: 10 Things You Can Do!. In 2007, Kathleen was commissioned by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons to produce the campaign’s first education material for high school and early college students.  She has supported hibakusha inclusion in international conferences and UN fora that preceded the adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Kathleen is a Nagasaki Peace Correspondent and Hiroshima Peace Ambassador.  

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THE NUCLEAR TRUTH PROJECT

“I have had the honor and privilege to work with atomic bomb survivors over decades. Hearing their stories of struggle and survival and seeing how others react when listening has helped me to understand the gap between lived experience and a more or less abstract appreciation of the real risks of the nuclear age.

I love the Nuclear Truth Project because it is truly unique in the abolitionist field as it uplifts lived experience as a necessary counterbalance to scientific and medical evidence of the unspeakable suffering caused by radioactive violence. We need both for us to truly comprehend the risks we live with: some 13,000 nuclear weapons and the related processes necessary for their deployment: from uranium mining to nuclear waste.

Every nuclear armed state is modernizing their arsenals and diverting money desperately needed to address climate chaos and the destabilizing conditions of social and economic injustice. Every moment of every day nuclear weapons threaten everyone we love and everything we hold dear. Hearing, documenting and sharing the nuclear truths of hibakusha, of Indigenous Peoples and other affected communities can help us remember what we are fighting for: a livable world for future generations and the responsible guardianship of radioactive materials borne of the twin technologies of nuclear weapons and nuclear power.”