The Sri Chinmoy Peace Run comes to Mt Manypeaks, Parklands, Little Grove and Spencer Park primary schools

West Australian

04-06-2025

An international team of peace runners arrived in Albany on Tuesday as part of their 111-day, 15,000km torch relay around Australia.
The Sri Chinmoy Oneness-Home Peace Run is the world's longest torch relay and has featured humanitarians and celebrities including Nelson Mandela, Cathy Freeman and Mother Teresa since it was founded in 1987.
This year's relay started and will finish in Canberra.
It came to Albany via Esperance before moving on to Denmark and Walpole.
The 16 runners stopped off at Mt Manypeaks, Little Grove, Parklands and Spencer Park primary schools.
Runner Grahak Cunningham said it was an opportunity for children 'to feel part of a worldwide family'.
At Parklands, the children sang the Cat Stevens song Peace Train before gathering around the peace tree, planted when the relay came through Albany a decade ago.
Parklands Primary School principal Joanne Thiel was presented with a painting by Sri Chinmoy and a new plaque for the tree.
She said the visit had been a great success.
'The choir welcomed the runners with the song which they had learned as part of our Harmony Day project last term,' she said.
'The new plaque was a lovely touch because the original had come off the paperbark tree.'
The relay's itinerary always includes school visits and stops with community groups with the torch passing from hand to hand.
Jeremy Hadlow, principal at Spencer Park, said the message of peace was a welcome one.
'It's a message which resonates with the school and applies also to families and the broader community,' he said.
'At Spencer Park, we are certainly an advocate for that.'
Organisers estimate more than eight million people have held the torch since 1987 as the runners pass through more than 70 countries every year.
The run is the brainchild of Sri Chinmoy, an athlete and spiritual leader who was born in what is now Bangladesh.
He moved to America in 1964, setting up a meditation centre and advocating a path to God through prayer and meditation, and world peace through sport and athleticism, before he died in 2007.
The relay participants included Canberra marathon runner Prachar Stegemann and Ashprihanal Pekka Aalto, the Finn who holds the world record for 5000km.