At midday on Tuesday a small but important crowd of students and guests gathered around the Cowra Peace Bell outside council chambers.

Former councillor Ian Brown made a short speech before Councillor Bill West and a group of special guests from United Nations Youth Australia rang the bell. 

“This is the only one in Australia, there are 23 in the world and each one today will be ringing,” Mr Brown said.

“People like you and I and everybody in the world will be striking the bell for peace. 

“The most interesting thing about this bell is the sound, it’s a massive bell 450 pounds made out of melted coins and has this beautiful sounding solemn sound.

“Unlike a church bell that plays tunes this one has a deep meaningful sound and when you ring it you can hear it resonate and it makes you think about peace and understanding,” Mr Brown said.

Following the special guests ringing of the bell groups of students from various Cowra schools were invited up to ring the bell for themselves.

While the United Nations Youth Australia Guest’s were only in town for one day, they where excited to come to Cowra.

“We’re always excited when we get to come to new places our goal is to reach as many kids as we can, especially in regional areas where there may not be as many opportunities to learn about the UN,” they said.

While the guests were in town they also ran work shops with students on how they can support peace and the UN on a local level.

“We ran workshops on what they could do on a local level and what effect it would have on a global level.

“The students came up with some solutions for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the Year Six children came up with a lot of fundraising ideas, advertising campaigns, introducing more gender neutral sports to increase gender equality in schools a wide variety of issues and solutions.

“What came across realy clearly was that those little changes can make an impact on the global scale,” they said.