"How could it be that we could allow this to happen and at the same time not imagine how we would feel if it was done to us. What were we afraid of?"
- Phil Glendenning

Phil Glendenning is the Director of the Edmund Rice Centre, a Sydney-based social justice organisation that conducts research into the causes of poverty and inequity in Australia. In awarding Glendenning an honorary doctorate in March 2007 the National Vice-Chancellor of the Australian Catholic University Professor Peter Sheehan AO said Mr Glendenning had 'shaken the moral compass of Australian society' for his longstanding dedication to improving the lives of poor, Indigenous, politically dispossessed and suffering people both in Australia and worldwide.

Glendenning is also co-founder and former National President of Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation, and the author of the Australian Citizens Statement that is the basis for ANTaR Sea of Hands. With a background in education, Third World development and political science, today he is primarily involved in peace and reconciliation work - especially with youth - in Australia, Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine, Rwanda and Aboriginal Australia.