We first saw a Peace Mala in 2005 when Adam's children got them as presents from their Grandma. We read the booklet and thought it was a beautiful idea. Neither of us follows any particular religion but we loved the idea that the coloured beads on the bracelet represented all the religions of the world existing together in harmony.
We got married in 2006 on Strathy beach on the north coast of Scotland, where Adam is from. We chose a humanist ceremony partly because neither of us was attached to a religion and also because of the freedom they allowed us to have with our ceremony. We wrote the words, our vows, chose our music and had a Celtic knot-tying ceremony.
We wanted to give each of our guests a gift (a favour) to thank them for travelling so far to our wedding and to tell them we loved them. That's when we remembered the Peace Malas! What a fantastic message of inclusion and peace. So Adam rang and spoke to Pam and he arranged to collect the bracelets when he came down to Swansea for his stag do.
We wrapped the Peace Malas up with ribbons and placed them on the dining tables in the hotel. Everyone loved the gift and it provoked a lot of interesting conversations on the tables. We had mixed all of our guests up to be next to people they didn’t know so it was a lovely conversation-starter.
In 2010 we moved from London to Mumbles and opened our cafe, The Kitchen Table. I also became pregnant and gave birth to our son Ry Frederick in October. Peace Malas popped into my head again when I needed a bracelet to place on my wrist so I could remember which boob to breastfeed from! A couple of days after that I was standing outside the cafe with Ry and a lady asked to speak to me, explaining that she'd made a mistake with her change in the cafe and that she owed us some money which she'd brought back to us. What a lovely gesture I thought and as I went to give her a hug I saw that she was wearing a Peace Mala! The lady turned out to be Jeanette who helps as a volunteer for Peace Mala. She told me that the registered office for the charity was just the other side of Swansea in Morriston. After all that time we were now living just down the road!
So I called Pam and told her the story. She remembered speaking to Adam on the phone back in 2006 before the wedding. Pam then came to visit us at the cafe and brought along some bracelets and badges for us to sell.
On February 14th 2011 we agreed to host the Valentine Peace Project in partnership with Peace Mala. The day proved a great success with lots of people popping into the cafe for food and drinks and receiving the Valentine Peace Poems and flowers as gifts. Peace Mala supporters also went out on to the prom opposite the cafe and gave walkers and cyclists the Valentine peace gifts. A rainbow came out over Swansea Bay just as this activity started. The Peace Mala bracelet is a symbolic double rainbow. To see one in the sky was such a lovely sight and put smiles on everyone's face.
