AUSTRALIAN BASED ARTIST AND GRANDMOTHER KERRY BOWDEN recently spent a week writing her first book, Old Unfit and Unemployed, That’s Not Going to Stop Me Changing the World�?What’s Your Excuse? Bowden is not your average grandma. Her fans include French President Jacques Chirac, former President of Costa Rica Oscar Arias Sanchez and best-selling author Deepak Chopra. In December 2003 she was invited to be a panelist at the first Alliance for the New Humanity annual conference, a global world-change initiative organized by Sanchez and Chopra. Bowden attended alongside the likes of former Vice President of the United States Al Gore and film-maker Stephen Simon. She is now in the process of creating the world’s first Peace Embassy for Children.

According to Bowden, this is all part of her work as a grandmother. In November 2000 she made a promise to her newborn granddaughter Caitlin Jean. "I really was so worried about her future because of the decisions that were being made by the world leaders," says Bowden. "I made her a promise then that I’d work for the rest of my life to make it a better world for her. And if I make it a better world for her I’ve got to make it a better world for every child otherwise it won’t be a better world for her. So that was what started it, just that one promise."

Bowden gave herself a deadline to make sure she kept her promise: "I set the year for 2015. She’ll be 15 and I reckon she’s going to be an adult by that stage so I should try and do it by then."

The catalyst for getting her promise out to the world came through a poem Bowden wrote in 2002. "I wrote a poem called ‘One Mind One Voice�?and from the day I wrote that poem my path changed. I wrote the poem because of all the bombing. I thought there’s got to be a better message for the world," she says.

In September 2002 Bowden launched a website [www.onemindonevoice.org]based around the promise to Caitlin Jean and the ‘One Mind One Voice�?poem. "Three weeks later at 5 o’clock in the morning I open my emails and up comes the French flag. I had an email from Jacques Chirac to say he agreed with the sentiments of my poem, and they were his sentiments which were very relevant when he was making the decision not to go to war."

Meanwhile halfway across the world events were unfolding that were about to change Bowden’s life overnight. Former President of Costa Rica and Nobel Prize Winner Oscar Arias Sanchez together with best-selling author and speaker Deepak Chopra had just organized an Alliance for the New Humanity meeting in Puerto Rico in August 2002 with 34 people attending. Bowden says: "Oscar and Deepak thought we’ve got to get a better world and we need to get some people together to talk about it."

Betty Williams, a Nobel Peace Prize winner from Ireland, had just been to the meeting. She saw Bowden’s website and mentioned it to the Alliance Board. Bowden says: "The next day (after receiving the Chirac email) I got an email from Arsenio Rodriguez, the CEO for the Alliance. He said: ‘We adore what you’re doing and we want you involved with us�?"

Bowden was thrilled and replied with her natural humility. "I made it very clear to them that I am this very poor little grandmother in Australia. I said don’t think I am this big organization with all these funds. They came back and said ‘Kerry, we’re not interested in that. We’re interested in what’s inside you�? They asked me then to go onto the advisory board."

Staying true to her ideals has always been a large part of Bowden’s life. An artist for more than 30 years, she received an Order of Australia Medal in 1991 for her work with the Noosa Regional Gallery, and her work with indigenous people and indigenous artists in particular. "I was quite proud. But in 2002 with the Iraq war I just knew in my heart that I had to return it. It was when I went in to return it I thought I am no longer an Australian citizen. I just don’t feel like I belong, and the reason why is because I’m a global citizen. And I’ve been a global citizen since 2000 when I first started with the internet. I thought that’s my country, all these people I’ve met through there. We don’t have any borders."

In December 2003, Bowden was a panelist at the official launch of the Alliance for the New Humanity. There were about 600 attendees. "Most of them were founders of organizations, they were the visionaries. The vibe was so positive. I think we knew that by joining forces it would be one powerful humanity." She says the launch was a think tank for the start of something amazing. "All of these organizations have been out there for a long time. Everyone has been working busily on their own good cause for humanity, all around the world. But they’ve never joined forces, not on the level now that they are starting to link up."

Bowden describes the atmosphere at the conference as electric. "There was an incredible room of people, a variety of people, all from different walks of life. The only common interest we had was a better world. The ideas weren’t just coming from one stream of thought. Humanity was throbbing."

Bowden is excited about the possibilities for the future. "I was listed as one of the founders and I knew then that I am starting something that is going to change history, and I think we all left with that. We were all very aware that this is the start of something that is possible."

Bowden’s involvement led to a specialized role heading up the children’s section of the Alliance. "In March 2003 I came up with a project called HOPE - Hands of Peace Exchange and Hands of Peace Exhibition. Children put their handprints on paper and send them across the world to other schools...I thought I need to set up the headquarters of what is going to be the children’s part of this Alliance. I thought we need to have a Peace Embassy for Children. And I wanted it to be here in Australia."

The Peace Embassy for Children project, "A place where promises to children are kept�? was launched in April 2004. Bowden is still looking around Northern Queensland for suitable property as a base for the first Embassy. She is also busy working to manifest her vision of a Peace Embassy bus, travelling Australia so that children can share their ideas with each other, and teach adults how easy it is to find peace.

"When I made the promise to Caitlin I had no idea of the magnitude of it," says Bowden. This doesn’t scare her one bit. "I see a great hope. It’s not going to be easy. We’re all going to have to work our butts off. But I do think that people are really in that mode that they can change the world, and we’ve got to. We haven’t got a choice, we’ve just got to do it."