Diplomatic community affirm support for Olympic Truce in London

If you are in London tomorrow afternoon, please join us at Westminster Central Hall, Westminster, SW1 9NH, at 4pm for an unusual event.

The Russian and Brazilian ambassadors will be speaking (the next countries to host the Olympic Games) and the Kuwaiti ambassador, HE Mr Khaled Al-Dawaisan GCVO, Dean of the Court of St James, will present letters from the diplomatic community in support of the Olympic Truce.

The London Peace Network will be speaking.  We will be inviting the diplomatic community and others to take part in our 21st September initiative.

Join us if you can!

Ringing bells for the Olympic Truce and giving one of them to Ban Ki-moon

Smiles, laughter, flags flying, a three-minute cacophony of tinkles, dings & dongs, ringtones, bicycle bells, woks, toy bells, silver bells, alarm clocks and egg-timers along with TV cameras, bemused sound engineers and commuters threading their way through (and joining in): we had a great time on the Millennium Bridge yesterday.

Thank you everyone for participating!

The London Evening Standard reported 150 people ringing bells for the Olympic Truce and Millennium Development Goals with the London Peace Network yesterday.  We were part of Martin Creed’s Work No 1197, All The Bells.

Hearing about the event through the Olympic Truce Facebook group (now 11 thousand strong with members across the globe), Kostas Hatzis came over from the Netherlands, wearing his national Greek costume.

Willi Lemke, UN Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace, addressed and encouraged us and Toaha Qureshi MBE read inspiring salutations from the International Olympic Truce Centre.

We are honoured that Dr Constantinos Filis, the Director of the IOTC, has invited supporters of the Olympic Truce to meet him while he is in London.

Afterwards, we wondered if the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, would like a bell that was rung on the Bridge.  This would demonstrate the commitment of Londoners from many different communities to turning the ideal of the Olympic Truce into a living reality.

Geetha Maheshwaran kindly donated one of the bells which she and her son had rung on the bridge and which came from the Shree Ghanapathy Temple.

Watch the film and see what happened.

Did you make the director’s cut (thank you PL Robertson for filming us)?  Do you have your own photos to add?  Send them in.