The local press in South Australia recently picked up the community building potential of the Creators of Peace Circles. The following article from the Messenger Press, was sent in by Jean and Bek Brown who, with other friends, are currently running a number of introductory gatherings around their city of Adelaide.

From The Hills and Valley Messenger Press, Adelaide March 9, 2010

09 Mar 10 @ 08:25am by Alice Monfries

WHEN Therese Minitong-Kemelfield fled war-torn Bougainville Island to Australia in 1990, she was forced to leave four of her five children behind with relatives.

“We got out of Bougainville to Papua New Guinea and the next day we were told to get on a plane to come here with nothing but the clothes I was wearing,” the 59-year-old, now living in Blackwood, says.

“It was so difficult because I couldn’t see my children for a year because the island was blockaded.”

Mrs Minitong-Kemelfield arrived in Canberra where she lived for a year before collecting her children from the island and bringing them to Blackwood in 1991. “At first I was very alone, I couldn’t talk to anyone and I had a lot of anger because of the civil war and what had happened on the island,” she says.

But that all changed when she met other women through a Hills-based Creators of Peace Circle, which was set up by Belair woman Jean Brown in 2003. The group brings together people from different cultures, backgrounds, beliefs and ages to share their stories and build friendships over six to eight weeks. “It opened my heart and I was able to get out in my own community and get to know people,” she says.

Mrs Minitong-Kemelfield has since joined the volunteer Coromandel Station Gardening Group and recently started taking part in the Blackwood Action Group street clean-ups.

Creators of Peace, which is a programme of Initiatives of Change International, has an outreach in more than 30 countries across the world since the idea was launched in 1991.

Jean’s daughter-in-law Bek Brown, also of Belair, has helped organise Peace Circles since 2007.

She says they aim to help women new to the Hills meet and find a way to connect, and also to explore ideas of peace.

“You can live in a street and not know your next door neighbour, but this is a way you can go deeper to get to know people and their stories,” she says.

“It’s also a chance for people to find peace by sharing their stories of pain, whether it be escaping war or going through a divorce.”

* A Creators of Peace Circles information session will be held on Tuesday, March 16, at 7 Woodleigh Rd, Blackwood, 7.30pm. Details: Bek 8278 1657