Category: ACTIVISM

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Peace Walk 2025

PEACE WALK 2025: 80 km for 80 Years

Join us in remembering the past and walking toward a peaceful future.

Peace Walk Registration & Waiver Form

This year marks the 80th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To honour this solemn milestone and renew our collective commitment to peace, Nova Scotia Voice of Women for Peace and Peace Quest Cape Breton invite you to participate in the “80 km for 80 Years Peace Walk.”

Led by Mi’gmaq water and land protectors, this walk will trace an 80 km route across Mi’kma’ki from Pugwash to Truro from September 15 to 21, culminating on the International Day of Peace.

🕊 Why We Walk:

  • To remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
  • To walk together across communities and cultures.
  • To create space for truth, reconciliation, and reparative justice.
  • To centre Indigenous and African Nova Scotian youth voices.
  • To affirm our shared vision for a just and peaceful world.

80 km for 80 years posterWalkers will visit local schools, including Pugwash District High School—Canada’s only school declared “nuclear weapons free.” We’ll gather stories, foster intergenerational connections, and close with a celebration and community panel in Truro.

Route Highlights:

  • Mon. Sept 15: Peace Hall (Tour of Thinker’s Lodge available)
  • Tues. Sept 16: Walk to Wallace via local schools
  • Wed. Sept 17: Wentworth
  • Thurs. Sept 18: Folly Lake
  • Fri. Sept 19: Debert (Tour of Debert Bunker and Mi’kmawey Trail)
  • Sat. Sept 20: Arrive in Truro
  • Sun. Sept 21: Community celebration and panel event

📄 Download the Invitation PDF
📄 Download the Poster PDF

To join or learn more, email:
nsvoiceofwomen@gmail.com
winkler.kathrin2@gmail.com

Let’s walk together for peace, justice, and the generations to come.

If you would like to participate in the Peace Walk, please fill out the form below. We will be in touch with more information.


Peace Walk Registration & Waiver Form

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Walking Together for Peace: Honouring Nova Scotia’s Legacy of Disarmament

On September 8, 2024, the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace (VOW), alongside Science for Peace and Jai Jagat, began a powerful two-week, 200 km Walking Together for Peace journey from Halifax to Pugwash.

This walk is deeply symbolic: it connects today’s peace movement with the historic Thinker’s Lodge in Pugwash, the site of the groundbreaking 1957 conference that brought scientists from both East and West together to oppose nuclear weapons. That meeting sparked the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995.

Why We Walk

  • To call on nations to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, renewing the global push for disarmament.

  • To stand in solidarity with the Jai Jagat movement, whose roots in India’s Gandhian peace marches continue to inspire a global culture of nonviolence and justice.

  • To mark September’s International Day of Peace (Sept. 21), when over 100 peace walks took place worldwide.

Walking, as Jai Jagat teaches, is more than movement—it’s meditation, unity, and a living message of peace. Each step carries a commitment: to a world free from nuclear weapons, to climate and social justice, and to a culture of peace for future generations.

 A Global Connection

This Nova Scotia walk is part of a broader, international campaign to resist militarism and nuclear escalation at a time when world tensions are rising. By walking together, we continue the work of past generations and extend an invitation to all who believe in peace: join us, learn with us, and walk for a world without war.

Read the full article here: Activists Walk Together for Peace in Nova Scotia

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Standing for Peace: NSVOW Protests the DEFSEC Arms Show in Halifax

Standing for Peace: NSVOW Protests the DEFSEC Arms Show in Halifax

From October 1–3, 2024, members of the Nova Scotia Voice of Women for Peace (NSVOW) joined allies to protest the DEFSEC Atlantic arms show in Halifax. Each day, from 12 to 1 pm, we gathered to stand against the global arms trade and its direct links to violence in Gaza, Lebanon, and beyond.

As reported by Peace Brigades International–Canada, DEFSEC’s sponsors and exhibitors included some of the world’s largest weapons manufacturers, among them Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Leonardo, BAE Systems, and Rolls-Royce. According to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), these companies supply aircraft, artillery, naval weapons, and tanks that have been used extensively in attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.

This protest came in the wake of alarming findings by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry, which concluded that Israeli authorities are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza since October 7, 2023. The International Court of Justice has also ruled that it is plausible that genocide is being committed against the Palestinian people.

By showing up at DEFSEC, we join a growing movement demanding an arms embargo now—calling on Canada to end the export of weapons to Israel and to fulfill its obligation to prevent genocide.

📢 We stand with peace activists across the globe in saying:
No more weapons. No more war. We choose peace.

For more details, you can read the full press release here: PBI-Canada Report on the DEFSEC Protest

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Peace Walk 2024

Peace walkers follow a grassy path at dusk, with the moon rising on the horizon. The person in the foreground wears a backpack with a red peace symbol. Wildflowers line the trail, and the sky glows with soft shades of purple and pink.

 

 

Walking Together for Peace

September 8, 2024 – September 21, 2024
Pugwash to Halifax

“We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?”

— Russell Einstein Manifesto, 1955

Our Journey

From September 8th to 21st, 2024, communities across Nova Scotia came together for the Walking Together for Peace initiative — a 200-kilometer journey from Pugwash to Halifax. This walk supported the abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide, called on Canada to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), and promoted the vision to Decolonize, Decarbonize, Demilitarize.

Our Roots in History

The peace walk drew inspiration from the Pugwash Conference of 1957, where scientists, inspired by the Russell–Einstein Manifesto, gathered to oppose nuclear weapons at the height of the Cold War. This year’s walk reawakened the Pugwash story, renewing Canada’s legacy in international disarmament and the urgent need for commitment today.

Walking Through Mi’kma’ki

Sharing local Mi’kmaq history and African Nova Scotian experiences with participants was essential. Peace means understanding decolonization, reconciliation, and reparations, and supporting innovative possibilities such as land trusts in African Nova Scotian communities.

The People Who Walked

From beginning to end we were accompanied, smudged, prayed for, and guided by grassroots Mi’kmaq Water Protectors — Doreen Bernard, Marian Nickolas, Amy Maloney, and Darleen Gilbert. A diverse community of youth, peace advocates, ecological activists, and Gandhian Peace Walkers from India joined the full route. Local residents also walked beside them, creating a living network of solidarity.

Education

High school visits, organized by Lia Holla, Executive Director of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, brought nuclear disarmament discussions to Pugwash HS and Auburn Drive HS. Stories were shared by Peace Walkers from India, British Columbia, and Syria. Mi’kmaq water grandmother Doreen Bernard led a water ceremony.

Elementary visits by Raging Grannie and peace walker Kathrin Winkler reached Wallace Elementary, Enfield Elementary, and Le Marchand in Halifax, with presentations including Buddhist monks, an Indigenous educator, and Gandhian walkers. Over 100 letters from students to the Prime Minister were later presented to Senator Marilou MacPhedran.

Community Connections

Community members generously hosted dinners, including the Maritime Sikh Society, Vedanta Ashram Society, Maggie’s Place in Truro, Brahma Kumari friends in Carroll’s Corners, and Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Dartmouth. The Ummah Mosque in Halifax welcomed the walkers on the last day.

The DownTheMarsh Land Trust blessing was a highlight, celebrating justice and peace through historic community rebuilding for African Nova Scotians.

Sharing Stories of Activism

  • Rajagopal P.V. and Dr. Jill Carr-Harris shared peace work in India, enabling Zoom conversations with Peace Walkers there.
  • Dr. Joy Masura shared her family’s experience as Japanese Canadians during WWII.
  • Ann Verrall’s film with Elder Phyllis Googoo, “Phyllis and the Lady Bugs,” was screened during the Shubenacadie visit.

Gratitude

We thank the individuals, churches, community centres, and groups who supported this journey, including:

  • Canadian Voice of Women for Peace
  • WILPF Canada
  • Jai Jagat International
  • Science for Peace
  • Canadian Pugwash Group
  • International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Canada
  • ICAN
  • Peace Quest
  • Reverse The Trend
  • Nova Scotia Voice of Women for Peace

Voices from the Walk

Kathrin Winkler: “You can’t aspire to global peace without local justice and peace. In Nova Scotia, that means connecting to Mi’kmaw history and African Nova Scotian struggles.”

Lia Holla: “Really cool about this walk is that it’s co-led by Mi’kmaq grassroots grandmothers… The movement for nuclear disarmament is led primarily by Indigenous leaders.”