KEY POINTS:
Kate Dewes does not have to look far for motivation in a life spent campaigning for peace.
The Christchurch mother, and newly appointed adviser to the highest levels of the United Nations, has only to gaze upon her three daughters, and think of her first grandchild due in
May.
"Without that sense of doing something for creating a world that was going to be safe for my children, and now my grandchildren, to be born into, I wasn't doing a good job as a mother," the 55-year-old says, tears in her eyes.
"When you hear the stories of the survivors from Hiroshima, and the effects of nuclear testing in the Pacific, with women giving birth to 'jellyfish' babies and dying from cancer ... I thought I had to do something."
Dr Dewes' impressive record of achievements in opposition to nuclear weapons, and disarmament, on the world stage have propelled her to the prestigious position of advising UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"Immediately I felt 'am I up to it?' And felt very daunted by it. But it's been people ringing me saying 'Kate, you go there representing all of us, and you don't have to have it all in your head'."
She will be one of 19 from around the world offering advice as the Secretary-General's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters.
The appointment is believed to be a first for a New Zealander. She will attend her first board meeting next month, and has little idea what to expect. "I'm just going to have to play it by ear a little bit, and listen."
The product of a conservative family, Dr Dewes pinpoints a time while teaching at Auckland's Epsom Girls' Grammar in 1975 when the activist in her was sparked to life. She and her first husband became swept up into the newly formed Peace Squadron - a group protesting against visiting nuclear warships on the water. "Primarily answering the phone and making cups of tea for the male skippers."
At the same time, Dr Dewes was teaching her students about a piece of music on the Hiroshima bombing, and was heavily influenced by what she learned herself.
After studying in England, Dr Dewes helped secure the world's first national nuclear-free laws.
She was also instrumental in taking an anti-nuclear case to the International Court of Justice, which ruled in 1996 that "a threat or use of nuclear weapons would generally be contrary to the rules of international law".
Dr Dewes knows there will always be conflict. But she feels New Zealand as a nation can show the way of resolving conflict without guns or bombs. "I feel a lot of hope actually. I'm a great optimist."
