World Peace Forum in Vancouver 6/06

The first World Peace Forum in Vancouver was a valiant effort to bring peacemakers of the world together to tell their stories of what is happening in their areas and to look at every facet of how to create peace. 90 countries were represented, spanning every continent. 3500 registered and 5,000 ended up participating.

PeaceRoots board member Tomas Heikkala particiapated in the Forum as a panelist and speaker on non-military options for youth. In addition,  Tomas and his wife Karen attended many of the workshops at the Forum and prepared the following report, which has been edited for the web.

The Report

The workshops explored everything about creating a culture of peace. They offered presentations on how to create peace in yourself and how to create peace in the world with a good sprinkling of cultural music and dance. The main complaint I heard was that that choices were too many and it was impossible to go to everything that was of interest.  To make it a bit more manageable they divided it into several major themes, which encompassed full day conferences on the following:

• Women Voices

• The Asian Regional Conference
• Indigenous Voices
• Youth Day
• Latin America
• Labor
• Health Professionals
• Educators
• War Resisters
• Military Recruitment, also Recruitment, A Personal Story
  
• US Military - Facts and Statistics
  
• Iraq War - Facts and Statistics
  

It was really an honor for Karen and I to be the representatives of the PeaceRoots Alliance, and we are grateful for the opportunity to be your connection to all these persevering people.

Thank you All,

Tomas and Karen Heikkala