After graduation, lots of college students go backpacking through Europe or head to the beach. Ali Koch is not one of them. Later this month Koch, a former University student spending her senior year at home in Portland, is going on a trip to Afghanistan.
Three weeks ago, Koch attended a Wholistic Peace Institute-sponsored talk with former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland. Kim spoke about the Sunshine Policy, the doctrine emphasizing peace between North and South Korea that helped him win a Nobel Peace Prize in 2000.

“It was amazing,” Koch said. “For me to sit in the presence of someone who has done so much change on an international level was so humbling.”
Before she went home that night, Koch met WPI Director Gary Spanovich and got a new job as WPI’s press secretary.
With a mission to “stop the killing in the world,” Portland-based WPI was formed in 1999 to enlist Nobel Peace laureates in helping stop violence in some of the world’s most dangerous areas, such as the Middle East and the Korean Peninsula. The organization also organizes lectures at Oregon colleges and promotes its message abroad.
In the fall, WPI will organize a “peace through trade and education” exchange for Portland business leaders and professors in the Afghan capital of Kabul. WPI was invited to Afghanistan by the nation’s president and vice president; the purpose of Koch’s trip is to facilitate those connections before the exchange.
“I can’t complain; it’s an amazing job,” said Koch, who also has upcoming trips to Seoul, South Korea and Istanbul, Turkey. “For me, the biggest thing is that I’m getting to (travel) in the name of peace.”
Koch has always been committed to the message of peace. In high school, she did humanitarian work at Kenyan orphanages. She’s interned with the Pachamama Alliance, a San Francisco group dedicated to helping the world’s rainforests and their indigenous residents. And at the University, she was involved with the Student Alliance For Progression.
“Eugene is more of an activist community. I wanted to get involved on a diplomatic level,” Koch said. “I think peace is relevant to our world and every individual plays a crucial role in it.”
Spanovich said, “I recognized Ali right off the bat and we just bonded around world peace, basically. She’s a great fit (for WPI). She’s perfect, actually.”
WPI brings lecturers to colleges, and Spanovich hopes Koch’s connection will help the group get involved with the University.
University architecture professor Howard Davis, though not familiar with WPI, thinks it sounds like a perfect fit for Eugene and the University. Last term, Davis was the person responsible for the Department of Architecture’s six-lecture series on “Cities in War, Struggle and Peace,” which was part of the Savage Endowment for International Relations and Peace.
“What was really gratifying to me was to see how much interest there was in the whole subject of peace and what we do after war,” said Davis of the surprisingly high number of people who attended the lectures. “Certainly the whole topic of peace is one that’s really very foremost in people’s thinking.”
Spanovich said college students are the best people to get involved with WPI.
“The way the world works today, it’s so fast paced,” he said. “College students are not 20 to 40 years from positions of leadership; they’re five years away, so it’s a hop, skip and a jump for them to have their hands on the leaders of world societies.”
Koch is excited to be a part of WPI, a group dedicated to “how we can change the course that humanity is on. We can shift away from the devastating things we do to our world.
“Peace can be achieved through education, through trade, through all sorts of different venues,” she said. “It’s about bringing people from all walks of life together to do this.”
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