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Winnipeg. Man.
Winnipegger’s peacemaker award goes overseas


After three successful years at a Winnipeg high school, Bill Peters’ idea of a peacemaker award is making its way to the wartorn country of Sierra Leone.

“It makes you feel good when someone picks up on one of your ideas,” says Peters, a member of Bethel Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. “I appreciated the positive feedback I was getting from people who had heard about the award, but what I really wanted was for someone else to initiate a similar program.”

The idea of a peace award came to Peters following the high school shootings in Littleton, Colo. and Taber, Alta. Those events made him think about his own children and his experiences in junior high. He says he enjoyed his school years at Darwin School and wanted to create an award that would recognize the efforts of a person or persons who took risks to be a peacemaker.

“It’s different than being a pacifist,” he says. “Peacemakers take an active role in promoting understanding. They step beyond their comfort zone. They serve others and volunteer their time. They mediate. They invite others to activities where they might have been excluded.”

The annual award has been presented at Peters’ old school in each of the past three years. Recipients of the award, who are chosen by a panel of both staff and students, are examples of how walls can be broken down, he says.

“It means so much to the parents, to the staff, and to the kids who can take pride in what they have done,” says Peters. “Junior high students go through a lot. I like the idea of planting, or re-affirming, positive attitudes at that stage of their life.”

Peters’ idea attracted the attention of a researcher at the St. Boniface Research Foundation, which has ties to Sierra Leone. Dr. Frances Amara, who studies Alzheimer’s disease at the Foundation, read about the award in the local media and felt it would be a good project to pursue for his home country.

Amara requested more information about the peace award so he could pass the idea to people in his home country. Peters, who is a video producer at the Foundation, expects the idea to be implemented in Sierra Leone because of Amara’s ties to prominent leaders in both the United Methodist Church and the government.

According to Peters, Amara was struck by the simplicity of the award and its few regulations. “It has more to do with ideals,” says Peters. “Initially, I thought an award would help overcome issues on the schoolyard, like bullying. The purpose is to encourage kids to think like peacemakers and to go out of their way to be inclusive.”

 – MCC Manitoba

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Last modified March 28, 2002.

© 2002 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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