Lorna Balie has a BA in Political Science, Philosophy and Economics with an additional major of Applied English Language Study from the University of Stellenbosch. She completed her Masters in Peace and Conflict Studies at the European Peace University in Austria. Her thesis focused on the impact of peace education on youth in South Africa. She completed two internships; one focused on research, monitoring and evaluation at Southern Hemisphere, and the other focused on coordinating a research project on developing Peace Indicators for high violence 

areas in South African at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation.

Lorna worked as a Research Officer and now as Research Fellow at the Centre for International Teacher Education, CPUT focusing on teacher and youth in building social cohesion and mainstreaming inclusive education in South Africa. Loran is also completing her doctoral research in education – her thesis focuses on the educational and social inclusion of children and youth at risk in South Africa.