170 women have now registered for the Creators of Peace (CoP) conference Creating a Culture of Peace - what will it take? (Sydney, 30 September - 4 October). 35 more have indicated their intention to be present. Others will come by day.

The conference will be a catalyst for deepening the connectedness of women from around the world,” says conference convenor Trish McDonald-Harrison. “It will enable peace builders, from seasoned to aspiring, to listen to each other and their own hearts and to find a deeper understanding of their own potential."

“The planning team are grateful to those who have generously given their funds, time, prayers and goodwill. Because the conference is in this region, it gives a chance for women from the Pacific nations and Indonesia especially to take part. A number are working hard at raising their funding. Any further contributions to assist them would be warmly welcomed.”

Sydney women who have heard about the conference have been helping in different ways:

• On Sydney’s North Shore two sisters organised a fund raising evening in a home. Twenty five came and $630 was collected.
• A Mosman Councillor and former Mayor sent out conference information in the ALGWA (Australian Local Government Women’s Association) Newsletter.
• In June, the Indonesian Australian Women’s Association of Sydney invited conference committee member Barbara Lawler to speak.
• Soroptimists International Sydney have invited Ann Njeri (Kenya), Joanita (Uganda) and Zhanna (Russia) who have joined the conference organising team, to speak at a dinner on the UN International Day of Peace, 21 September in North Sydney.

Jean Brown, author of the Creators of Peace Circles, writes:
“The reality is that few of us really know what Peace is, what it looks like, how it sounds. Rather like unconditional love, we have an intuitive sense of its existence without actually having fully experienced it. Or perhaps we have experienced it in some fleeting memory, enough of a glimpse to leave us hungry for more. In his enigmatic way Mahatma Gandhi said of Peace, ‘There is no way to Peace. Peace is the way’. And the same could be said of unconditional love.

“For the women gathering in Sydney at the end of September, even to envisage what a culture of peace would consist of will be a challenge, let alone ask ourselves what it will take to create it. We will discern threads from a variety of speakers and experiences, from those coming from cultures of violence and cultures of apathy, cultures of material prosperity and cultures of spiritual starvation. Ancient cultures and contemporary ones.

“And we will weave these threads into a new understanding that the way to create a culture of peace is just that: each one of us committing to its creation, in home and business, in community and government.”