In 2017 the Council in Woodbridge, Suffolk UK, agreed to establish for the town what has become a Monument for Peace.
The idea came after my retirement from a long career of teaching science and later of inspecting learning in schools. Inspiration came from locally resurgent Quaker values and from the nationally wide range of initiatives in Peace education. Exploration with local schools reflected experiences elsewhere that most have too little capacity to add Peace to their curriculum.
A Community Fair in April 2017 warmed to the ideas of a local Community Peace project and of adopting a Tree for Peace as a unifying symbol. An established and attractive Maple tree in a spacious corner of the town's Kingston Field recreation ground was agreed as a suitable form and location for the Monument.
The tree is a tangible and eloquent symbol and representation of Peace and is popular for occasional public meetings, picnics, commemorations and celebrations.
My motivating concern though was to close gaps in Peace Education. That's a relatively new post-World War discipline and is well-established internationally in many universities. But despite many valuable initiatives introductory learning pathways for young people in schools are not widely available.
Writing in 2026 for this site much else has happened,
After the disruptive 2020 Covid pandemic the monument's purpose was re-affirmed by the addition of a further Tree, the Tree for Peace 2021, and another was agreed in 2025. A formal ceremony of dedication in 2021 was supported by statements of welcome from many local civic, educational, business, youth and other groups and by leaders of a wide variety religious faith communities.
Together the separate Trees define a Modern Monument that is something much larger. A network of well-trodden and some lesser footpaths shape an engaging monument amid attractively varied rural, urban and maritime scenery. The paths are named as 'Trails for Peace', made 'for Peace' by guided observations here and there that illustrate many of the human capacities and skills that equip us as natural makers of Peace; capabilities such as co-operation, forgiveness, tolerance, vigilance and many more.
For different walkers the Trails will simply exercise some such capacities, refresh others that have not been much used, reawaken forgotten skills or perhaps reveal a previously unrealised skill.
In those ways the Trails are a first springboard for the Monument's educational purposes
Beyond grasping and practising 'skills' there will be different ways of getting to grips with 'ideas' - not so much 'springboards' as 'runways'!
For those there will be more to read here in later Posts
Michael - Founder of Woodbridge Trees for Peace