Grantham Sunrise Rotary attends Bill Huntley Peace Seminar

On 28 October 2023, Irvin Metcalfe, Chloe Rollings, and Kevin Hale attended the annual Bill Huntley Peace seminar at the University of Bradford. This full-day event, kindly hosted by the 2021 Rotary Peace Fellows, invited Rotarians to learn about the student’s personal experiences of promoting peace and gain insights into the findings of the research completed as part of their fellowship tenure.

The morning session, delivered by Julia Sapucaia, Bhawna Solanki and Malang Jarju highlighted the wide range of work being undertaken worldwide to promote peace. From advocating for people’s rights in the aftermath of natural disasters to addressing the impact of single-use plastics and how the Security Sector can promote peacebuilding, we heard how raising awareness is the first step to empowering people to take their own steps towards achieving long-term peace.

In the afternoon, presenters, Juanita Zapata, Kateryna Mashchenko and Anne Guzman delivered moving presentations on the power of personal experiences and storytelling in driving positive change. During their talks, we heard about people’s experiences on the front line in Ukraine, the importance of telling women’s stories when talking about conflict and how to use moral imagination when engaging with children who have experiences of conflict.

This event also offered a glimpse into the research of the current peace fellowship students. They spoke with such enthusiasm and passion for their fields – we are excited to hear about their findings at the next seminar.

We all left the event with a renewed energy and focus on promoting peace within our own community, transcending the notion of peace as merely the absence of conflict. Overall, the event proved to be a worthwhile and enriching experience, reinforcing the commitment we have as Rotarians to the pursuit of global peace.

🖊 Chloe Rollings