PBI-Canada visits Big Rideau Lake in eastern Ontario where PBI was founded 43 years ago
Peace Brigades International (PBI) was founded on Grindstone Island, a small 11-acre island on Big Rideau Lake about 500 metres from shore, at a meeting that took place from August 31 to September 4, 1981.
The island is situated on unceded Algonquin territory and the nearest town of Portland is about 100 kilometres south-west of Ottawa.
Daniel N. Clark, who was on Grindstone Island for that meeting, has written: “On the final day at Grindstone, we adopted the Founding Declaration of Peace Brigades International, which read: ‘We have decided to establish an organization which will form and support international peace brigades. …We are convinced that this commitment of mind, heart and dedicated will can make a significant difference in human affairs.’”
PBI’s founding declaration was adopted at the Quaker Peace Education Centre on Grindstone Island on September 4, 1981.
In the preceding days, the sessions began with readings from books by Indian anti-colonial leader Mohandas K. Gandhi, American civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., and Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.
Clark further notes in his recollection of that meeting: “Just as at that point we were all feeling inadequate for such a demanding task, Tolstoy was admonishing his readers that while many would say that we had no business launching a major enterprise for peace and justice given our poverty of resources and the formidable nature of the challenge, we had no choice but to do so, and that destiny demanded it.”
Leo Tolstoy
Initial discussions on where peace brigades could be deployed included Guatemala, Mexico, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, a planned east-west peace army march in Europe, as well as the conflicts between India and Pakistan, Colombia and Venezuela, Belize and Guatemala, and Ecuador and Peru.
Over the past 43 years, the work of PBI has further taken shape.
Last year, PBI supported 3,493 human rights defenders (including 1,327 land, environmental and Indigenous defenders), 68 organizations, and 950 communities globally through its presence in Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Kenya, Indonesia, Nepal and Nicaragua (Costa Rica) as well as Canada, Spain and Catalunya, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Ireland, Norway and Switzerland.
Today, as we looked out onto the lake where the founding meeting took place on a little island 43 years ago, we celebrate the vision and work of PBI’s founders.
We also remember meeting with founders Hans Sinn and Daniel N. Clark, as well as attending the memorial services for Murray Thomson and Hans Sinn.
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Article: A celebration of the life of PBI co-founder Hans Sinn (September 25, 2023)
Article: PBI founder Daniel N. Clark: “We are like the street arm of Amnesty International” (September 3, 2021)
Article: Friends and family of Murray Thomson gather to remember and celebrate his life (October 25, 2019) If you look closely at the screen you might be able to see the PBI logo.
Photo: With Murray Thomson’s friends Eric Schiller and Nick Aplin at the service.
Article: Peace Brigades International co-founder Hans Sinn on disarmament and the social good (September 6, 2019)
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