Peacemakers branch out in new decade
The West Midlands Quaker Peace Education Project celebrated its thirty year anniversary
Friends visiting the Quaker Meeting House in Bull Street, Birmingham, can enjoy seeing the creative results of a special anniversary day held last year: a ‘Peace Tree’.
2018 marks the beginning of a new decade of possibility and challenge for the West Midlands Quaker Peace Education Project, or Peacemakers as it is known in schools. It was set up in 1987.
Anne Ullathorne has been a member of the West Midlands Quaker Peace Education Project’s Management Committee for the last eight years.
She said she had seen things go ‘from strength to strength during that time, partly due to the enthusiasm and commitment of our director, Sara Hagel, but also due to the financial support given by various trusts and Quakers’.
She added: ‘The development in its work all came together for me when the project celebrated its thirtieth birthday with a children’s peace summit and a supporters’ birthday party, both, fittingly, on the 21 September 2017, the International Day of Peace.’
During the day children from eight primary schools in the West Midlands came together to explore various themes, including ‘Inner Peace’, ‘Peace on the Streets’, ‘Peace at School’ and ‘Peace in the World’.
Anne Ullathorne explained: ‘As a result of this they then wrote their own pledges for peace, which were hung on a Peace Tree.’
