Priscilla "Scilla" Elworthy (born 3 June 1943) is a peace builder, and the founder of the Oxford Research Group, a non-governmental organisation she set up in 1982 to develop effective dialogue between nuclear weapons policy-makers worldwide and their critics, for which she was nominated three times for the Nobel Peace Prize. She served as its executive director from 1982 until 2003, when she left that role to set up Peace Direct, a charity supporting local peace-builders in conflict areas. In 2003 she was awarded the Niwano Peace Prize. From 2005 she was adviser to Peter Gabriel, Desmond Tutu and Richard Branson in setting up The Elders. She is a member of the World Future Council and in 2012 co-founded Rising Women Rising World, a community of women on all continents who take responsibility for building a world that works for all. In 2017 she wrote The Business Plan for Peace: Building a World Without War (Peace Direct, 2017) and now leads an organisation of the same name which provides people and organisations with the skills and support to transform conflict. Early life and education Born in Galashiels, Scotland, Elworthy attended Berkhamsted School for Girls on a Herts County Scholarship, before moving to Ireland in 1962 to study social sciences at Trinity College, Dublin. During her vacations, she worked in refugee camps in France and Algiers. After graduating, she travelled round West Africa to South Africa and between 1966 and 1969 became involved in marketing for various boutiques, most notably introducing the Mary Quant range. In 1993, she gained her PhD in political science from Bradford University. Personal life In 1970, she married Murray McLean, a South African entrepreneur. She is mother of Polly Jess McLean (born 1974), step-mother of Leigh, Jay, Shirley, Sophie and Pippa, and grandmother of Pearl Mai Mary, Wolfetone and Rainer Jay. Career From 1970 to 1976 she chaired Kupugani, a South African nutrition education organisation, where she set up an initiative that involved the sale of nutritious Christmas hampers to industrial employees, thereby providing annual self-financing for the charity of R6million. In 1976 she helped organise the building and launch of the Market Theatre, South Africa's first multiracial theatre. Then in 1977 she established the Minority Rights Group in France and in 1978 she researched and delivered their report on female genital mutilation, leading to the World Health Organization campaign to eradicate the practice. From 1979