By Aotearoa New Zealand – Te Waipounamu South Island Chapter of World BEYOND War, December 15, 2025
Our chapter has been involved in two events recently promoting our message of peace and a World BEYOND War.
The first was supporting peace in West Papua with a flag-raising ceremony at the Bridge of Remembrance near our city centre on Monday 1st December. We marched from a local centre (Aldersgate Methodist Church) to the bridge carrying our banners. This was a distance of about 700 metres on a path near a busy motorway at a peak traffic time.
When we got to the bridge – a number of speeches were given including by a local Green Member of Parliament – Teanau Tuiono who supported this cause passionately.
The second was at the Carnival for Change — an event supported by several other groups where we joined together to promote peace, social justice, and environmental protections. This included: World BEYOND War; Climate Liberation Aotearoa; Eat Plants – Plant trees; Forest and Bird to save the Denniston Plateau from being mined; Keep Nature -Out Coal; Stop all Military Ties with Indonesia-Free West Papua; Free Palestine; People Against Prisons Incorporated; Peace Action Aotearoa; Students for Justice in Palestine at University of Canterbury.
We attended this event for 3.5 hours during the middle of the day on Saturday 6th of December. This was near a busy intersection – so we got toots from cars and a number of people visited the site to engage in our activities and discussion. We were able to gather more signatures for the Declaration for Peace.
