Tuesday marked Cowra’s annual World Peace Day celebrations, with a number of events being held throughout the day.
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More than 50 students from Cowra and Forbes took part in the World Peace Day Youth Forum.
Australian Chapter of the World Peace Bell Association, Ian Brown, said the students had the opportunity to learn about peace keeping efforts and policies on an international scale.
“To try and understand the challenging issues around human rights and to be become advocates for human rights and peace,” he said.
Workshops were led by Patricia Garcia AO, UN Regional Director of International Relations, Julia Dean and Regional Director of Amnesty International, Bede Carmody and three UN Peace Facilitators, Jonathan Liondis, Paul Mukhin and Aracelli Vinci-Cannava.
The annual Peace Bell ceremony took place during a break at the forum.
During the forum, six students had the opportunity to present a speech on the subject of My Path to Peace.
Three finalists, Kate Price, Jemma Pokoney and Lucy Jones were selected to go onto the Rotary World Peace Day dinner that evening at the Cowra Bowling Club to read their speeches once again.
All three students addressed the topic of achieving inner peace before addressing peace on a national or international scale.
Lucy and Jemma both addressed the highs and lows of being a Seikei exchange student.
“My path to peace wasn’t discovered in the classroom, at the dinner table or at the setting of a world peace forum, my path to peace was found in Tokyo, Japan,” Lucy said.
“There are seven billion people on the planet, that equates to seven billion pathways to peace,” Jemma said.
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Kate also used her speech to address peace on a number of levels, both personal and on a wider scale. Jemma was awarded first place.
“Peace within is the most important part of one’s self confidence and self-awareness,” she said.
The night also saw an address from Patricia Garcia and the presentation of the Cowra Rotary Peace Award to Jenny Friend.
“I’m really quite humbled and a bit gobsmacked that this has come about,” Jenny said.