Over 1100 Sydney-siders gathered inside Australia’s largest cathedral last
month to commemorate the United Nations International Day of Peace
with an interfaith service. This service, held at St Mary’s, was closely
followed by a free pop-up classical concert with Ambre Hammond at
Martin Place the following Monday. The 2015 United Nations
Association of Australia Peace program directed by Dr. Zeny Edwards
was indeed a mix of mass and music.
With a rainbow complement of twelve volunteers from ten countries, the
first event at St. Mary’s Cathedral – an interfaith mass concluded by a
dove release – gave people an opportunity to be reflective on the actions
of peace. Now in its second year of partnership with the Catholic
Archdiocese of Sydney, the UNAA’s team worked with the diocese to
deliver an event that was both solemn and celebratory. The rendition of
sacred traditional hymns by the Cathedral’s choir offered attendees an
opportunity to remain silent and solemnly ponder over the day’s theme
whilst the dove release gave UN guests and other attendees reason to
applaud and celebrate the benefits of peaceful partnership. Amongst our
UN guests were His Excellency General The Honourable David Hurley
AC DSC (Ret’d), Governor of New South Wales with Mrs. Linda Hurley
and Captain Sarah Winter, Aide de camp.
Executive Director, Mr. Matthew Kronborg, was on hand to greet our
guests together with Mr. Christopher Woodthorpe (Director, UNIC). His
Excellency was invited to do the first liturgical reading as part of the
mass with Father Paul Hilder, Dean of the Cathedral, delivering a
poignant message on the power of peace. “One must be a peace within
oneself to be able to be in peace with others,” Father Hilder reminded
everyone and went on to praise the UN’s ongoing work of peace building.
He cautioned against intolerance and being inwardly focussed. At the
conclusion of the service, The Governor of New South Wales released
twenty-five doves on the steps of St. Mary’s amidst fascinated onlookers.
The doves symbolically represented all member nations of the UN. They
flew back home in eighteen minutes from St Mary’s.
Monday’s grand open air event offered a theatre style piano concert with
celebrated pianist, Ambre Hammond, also known as the people’s pianist.
Generously allowing for musical requests in between her concert, Ambre
performed a medly of classical tunes. “There is a saying that a picture
paints a thousand words – well I think MUSIC sings an inestimable
number of words – from St Mary’s Cathedral’s heavenly choral Mass to Ambre Hammond’s piano concert. The weather for the Martin Place
concert was perfect. Ambre Hammond was truly the ‘people’s pianist’ in
her beautiful blue gown playing the world’s favourite classical music to
the lunchtime crowd at Martin Place. The audience was very
appreciative, children danced, a woman was moved to tears, office
workers in the adjacent buildings were soothed with the musical
background, and our volunteers distributed all the white roses, peace
flags and wristbands,” Dr. Edwards said of the event later.
Over two days, volunteers from as far as Canberra, enthusiastically
donated their time towards these events. “Volunteering for the peace
program is very rewarding and helps me see the value of peaceful actions.
I want to be apart of something that is much larger than myself,” said
Susie Lee, a student from Australian National University, who travelled
from Canberra just to volunteer for two days. To ensure that volunteers
weren’t knew how appreciated they were, the UNAA Peace Program
director ensured that each volunteer had the opportunity to be thanked at
a special “Thank You Party.”
Planning for 2016’s peace program is already underway with significant
new partnerships on the horizon. “We appreciate our new and growing
partnerships with organisations like the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney
as well as organisations like The Sydney Peace Foundation, who have
helped us highlight the importance of working together to strive for
peace. These are indeed, Partnerships for Peace, dignity for all.” The
UNAA looks forward to much larger and more wide-spread events for its
Peace Program next year.