“YMCA World Peace Day” is recognized by YMCAs around the world on the third Saturday of November. In Canada, the YMCA uses World Peace Day as the opening of “YMCA Peace Week.”

In 1987, the International Committee of the Fredericton Y assumed national responsibility for producing the support materials for YMCA Peace Week. These included the institution of the Peace Medallion, now used across Canada–as well as in the US and Mexico–during Peace Week to recognize the achievements of individuals in local communities who–without any special resources–demonstrate in their lives and activities the values expressed in the World Alliance of YMCA’s Statement on Peace (1981), which states (in part):

Peace has many dimensions. It is not only a state of relationships among nations. We cannot expect to live in a world of peace if we are unable to live in peace with those close to us. . . . The responsibility for peace begins with each person in relationships with family and friends, and extends to community life and national activities. There are no simple recipes.

To nominate someone for the Peace Medallion, contact the International and Social Development Department at: 462-3090.

While teaching at Saint Thomas University, Sister Eleanor met many students who spoke about the various ways in which they felt they had been excluded from various aspects of campus life and activities as a result of their gender, race, culture, or sexual orientation. These encounters gave Sr. McCloskey a commitment to work for inclusiveness for all persons, beginning within her own church. The topic of her Master’s Thesis at Assumption University was: “Same-Sex Couples: Pastoral Ministry to Homosexual Persons in Committed Relationships.”

After completing her degree, she returned to Fredericton and presented workshops on inclusiveness to various lay groups, including teachers at Leo Hayes High School.

At this time she also began her work with breast cancer survivors. She has been a board member of the New Brunswick Breast Cancer Network and of the regional board of the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, sponsors of the Run for the Cure. Out of this work, she developed, with some other women, an annual retreat for breast cancer survivors which is held at the Villa Madonna in Saint John. The retreat provides an opportunity for survivors to spend time with women who have had similar experiences, a time to share stories and talk about the ways in which they have coped with the effects of their treatments.

Since 2005, Sister Eleanor has also been an active member of the Catholic Network for Women’s Equality.

In all her projects, she notes that she “has been generously supported by my CND sisters in the freedom to use my time and resources to minister to and with persons encountered in my journey.”

Origin of the Peace Medallion

[This article was published by Rick McDaniel in 1999.]

On January 5th of this year [1999], at the age of 87, Jim Bedell of Hatfield Point, New Brunswick, died of heart disease. Local obituaries rightly praised a long life of commitment to peace, social justice, and environmental issues. For me, Jim Bedell had special significance. He and his wife, Kay, were the inspiration behind the YMCA Peace Medallion.

In 1987, the YMCA of Fredericton had been given the responsibility for developing the national resources to be used during YMCA Peace Week in November. It wasn't a very big chore. If we had followed the example of previous years, we would have designed a poster and put together a pamphlet with instructions for a few "awareness raising" activities, like a "Rich Man/Poor Man" luncheon.

That summer, Bob Vokey of YMCA Canada, met with me and three volunteers—May Khoury, Lucie El-Khoury, and Carole Cronkhite—to try to determine a theme for the materials. Our discussion took a sombre note. We were all conscious of a malaise falling over international programming not only within the Y, but throughout the non-governmental sector.

I had become International Program Director at the Y in Fredericton just two years earlier, during the height of the public outpouring of sympathy for the people in the drought stricken Sahel region of Africa. The first activity in which I was involved was a fund-raiser conducted in cooperation with students from Saint Thomas University and the University of New Brunswick. That effort brought in $30,000 within a matter of weeks. The money was sent to support YMCA refugee camps which had been set up in the Sudan for the people fleeing the drought in Ethiopia. Similar efforts had taken place all across Canada and the United States and throughout Europe. Millions of dollars were donated by ordinary people who had been moved by the images of starvation they had seen on television.

Two years later, the media was starting to talk about “donor fatigue.” The images had become stale; people were wondering about how effectively their money was being used. And then there was the curious phenomenon of honors being bestowed upon various celebrities—film actors, musicians, politicians—in recognition of their contributions to drought relief and other social justice issues.

Many people began to feel that individual effort wasn't valued. Tens of thousands of ordinary people had donated time, money, some had even given up careers to go to nations in Africa, Asia, Latin America in order to assist in development work. But it was celebrities who were recognized by the United Nations for spending a couple of days visiting refugee camps.
So as the five of us met in Fredericton to plan the Peace Week activities for 1987, we talked about this growing sense of discouragement in the public. We agreed it was important to find a way to fight it, some way to remind people that individual effort was not only effective and meaningful, but essential.

And then I remembered something I had heard on the radio a few years earlier, before I had begun working for the Y. I couldn't remember their names, but I recalled how impressed I had been by a story of a 71 year old man and his wife who felt that not enough attention was being paid to the 1982 United Nations Disarmament Conference; so they walked 900 kilometers from the New Brunswick border to New York City in order to attend it. They had been right in assuming that their effort would attract media attention. I continued to find the memory of that walk inspiring.

I suggested we should institute an award—a peace medallion—to be given by YMCAs across the country each year to people like that couple, people who, without special status or resources, put their convictions into action, people who—because they did not have any particular position, fame, or wealth—could serve as models of what all of us were capable of achieving if we chose.

I suspect that that suggestion, and what has come of it, will be the most significant thing I will ever do throughout my career with the YMCA.

The couple was Jim and Kay Bedell. And they were the first recipients of the YMCA Peace Medallion in Fredericton. They received it for their work with groups such as the Voice of Women, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, and Project Ploughshares; for their environmental work; and, of course, for that 900 kilometer walk to the UN Disarmament Conference.

Since then, the Peace Medallion has been awarded to hundreds of worthy individuals and groups throughout Canada. But I take a special joy in knowing that the original medallion, produced by Carole Cronkhite, was presented to Jim and Kay Bedell. I can think of no one who deserved it more.

Past Peace Medallion Recipients

1987 - Jim and Kay Bedell
1988 - Allayne Armstrong (posthumously)
1989 - Father Monte Peters
1990 - Richard Blaquière
1991 - Saint Paul's United Church Refugee Committee
1992 - Judge Graydon Nicholas
1993 - Concerned Youth for Development [CYD]
1994 - The Staff and Volunteers of Transition House
1995 - Valerie Drury
1996 - Judy Loo
1997 - Robert and Marie Young
1997 - Inez Flemington (posthumously)
1998 - Brian and Elaine Perkins-McIntosh
1999 - Pauline Cunningham
1999 - Juan Montalvo (posthumously)
2000 - Judy Coates
2001 - Lorenzo Fabro
2002 - Comité de l'avenir of the Cercle Français
2003 - Karl McLellan and Charlotte Gallager (posthumously)
2004 - Anna Christie
2005 - Brigid Toole Grant
2006 - Mavis Doucette
2007 – Yvonne Mersereau and Gloria Paul
2008 – The Epsilon Y’s Men and Y’s Mennettes