As International Day of Peace is observed on September 21, a Bancroft resident is continuing his own advocacy efforts to promote peace.
Chris Houston is the founder of the Canadian Peace Museum, a registered charity that is fundraising to open a museum of the same name in Bancroft in 2025.
On Friday (September 20), Houston joined Bancroft mayor Paul Jenkins, the town’s general manager Andra Kauffeldt, and Reverend Svinda Heinrichs of St Paul’s United Church in Bancroft to unveil a peace pole in Cenotaph Park.
The peace pole is a monument that displays the message “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in eight languages, including English, French, and Algonquin. At the request of the Canadian Peace Museum, the peace pole was funded by the Town of Bancroft, which earlier this year proclaimed September 21 the “Day of Peace in Bancroft.”
“The Canadian Peace Museum congratulates the Town of Bancroft in this symbolic step and thanks the council for its moral and financial support,” Houston said in a statement.
A British-Canadian citizen living in Bancroft, Houston has worked in logistics and in program management for Médecins Sans Frontières in Papua New Guinea, Canada, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Turkey, and Pakistan, and for the Red Cross in the UK, Nepal, and Lebanon. He was also the head of logistics for the World Health Organization in Yemen.
According to Houston, his experiences as a humanitarian worker have given him a special perspective.
“I spent six months in Yemen during war, famine, and the world’s biggest cholera outbreak,” Houston told kawarthaNOW. “I live with PTSD, which is the downside to that experience. The upside is that I have a strong sense of perspective.”
While Canadians watch from afar as war rages in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, Houston warns that our country is not immune to violence and that Canadians have an important and urgent role to play in promoting peace both locally and internationally.
“Fourteen years ago I was a newcomer to Canada, and I love my new country for its relative peacefulness. I fear that many people (in Canada) take peace for granted. I understand why — we are not on the brink of war. But polarization is rising. Hatred is rising. And it’s important to promote peace, to work towards community harmony, to recognize how our choices affect local and global peace.”
As he works to establish the Canadian Peace Museum in Bancroft, Houston is continuing to promote nonviolence and understanding across communities. Both the cities of Toronto and Niagara Falls have agreed to his charity’s requests to recognize the International Day of Peace.
On Saturday (September 21), the Toronto city sign will be illuminated and the CN Tower will be lit in rainbow colours to symbolize peace beginning at sunset, in between the regular light shows on the tower as the top of the hour and on the half hour. At 10:30 p.m., Niagara Falls will be illuminated in the Canadian Peace Museum’s colours of pink, white, and purple.
Saturday at noon is also the deadline for submissions for the Canadian Peace Museum’s inaugural Stories of Peace Award, which invites Canadians to explore and express their personal interpretations of peace through short videos and visual art. The award celebrates creative reflections on the theme of peace, offering a $500 prize to the winner to be presented on Tuesday (September 24) at the Bancroft Village Playhouse.
For more information about the Canadian Peace Museum, including the Stories of Peace Award, visit canadianpeacemuseum.ca/awards.
