Mary Ashford Obituary, Death – Mary-Wynne Ashford, MD, PhD, a retired family and palliative care physician in Victoria, British Columbia, and a retired Associate Professor at University of Victoria, became involved in the movement to abolish nuclear weapons after hearing Dr. Helen Caldicott speak about the dangers of nuclear war. Dr. Ashford is also a retired associate professor at University of Victoria. She has spent the last 37 years lecturing and writing about subjects that are connected to the promotion of peace and the elimination of weapons of mass destruction across the globe.
Between the years 1988 and 1990, she held the position of President of the Canadian Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and between 1998 and 2002, she served as Co-President of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). These two roles were performed concurrently by different people. She served as the leader of two IPPNW delegations that went to North Korea in 1999 and 2000. These trips took place in that country. Her book, Enough Blood Shed: 101 Solutions to Violence, Terror, and War, which she authored and which has been recognized with a number of accolades, has been localized into the Japanese and Korean languages.
She has been presented with a number of awards, including the Queen’s Medal on two separate occasions, the Award of Excellence from Doctors of BC in 2019, and the 2019 Distinguished Achievement Award from Canadians for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, which she shared with Dr. Jonathan Down. These are just a few of the accolades that she has received. It was a free zoom course that she taught for Next Gen U and IPPNW Canada called Global Solutions for Peace, Equality, and Sustainability.
Next Gen U was the organization that underwrote the class. In this lesson, we will discuss the different ways in which the United Nations could be restructured to give it a stronger capacity to cope with the existential crises that humanity is currently confronted with. Mary-Wynne, I would want to express my gratitude for the amazing example that you have set by devoting your life to the service of other people.