Monessen native hosts peace conference as Rotary International president

Smile. You’re promoting peace.

“It is such a simple thing that we can all do,” Monessen native Stephanie Urchick said. “When you smile at somebody, you acknowledge they exist. You’re recognizing their humanity.”

Plus you’re likely to receive one in return.

As the 2024-25 president of Rotary International, leading 1.4 million members in more than 46,000 clubs globally, Urchick is furthering the organization’s foundational goal of world understanding by hosting a February peace conference in Istanbul.

And everyone is invited.

“You don’t have to be a trained professional to build peace,” Urchick explained. “You can build peace in your community by just thinking about simple things you can do or partnering with organizations and address the underlying causes of conflict.”

Members of Rotary clubs in Western Pennsylvania’s District 7305, for instance, support a variety of endeavors aimed at bettering lives, from aiding locally to supporting humanitarian work at the international level.

“Our efforts are focused on creating conditions that we need in every society so that peace can exist, because when people are desperate, they turn to desperate things,” Urchick said. “If people are hungry, we go in and feed them. If people need access to clean water, we go in and provide it. If children are at risk for polio, we go in and give them vaccines.”

She cited the long-running Rotary Youth Exchange program as another example.

“We send out students or take in students, and when we do that, these students represent their culture, their family, their language, their country, and they’re interacting with other students, host parents, teachers, Rotarians,” she said. “So we really are building peace one student at a time.”

Regionally, many District 7305 clubs — her own, the McMurray club in Washington County, included — have erected symbolic peace poles in public places.

“A peace pole is placed in a location so that as people are walking by it, they see the message and it makes them begin to think, what can I do to promote peace? Or, Rotary is behind this. Rotary is a peace-building organization,” she explained. “It’s meant to engage people in conversation and help them think about, what can I personally do? What should I be doing?”

An option could be traveling to Turkey in February for Urchick’s conference, which has the theme of “Healing in a Divided World.”

“Our aim is, for the people who participate, to really inspire them, inform them, and have conversations and presentations that are going to not only give them knowledge and suggestions, but give them opportunities to talk with each other about peace building, and form new friendships and look for partnerships,” she said.

The conference is in conjunction with the first class of peace fellows at the new Otto and Fran Walter Rotary Peace Center in Istanbul, the seventh such center to open in strategic locations worldwide. Each year, Rotary awards up to 130 fully funded fellowships, and 1,800-plus people have gone through the program since it began in 2002, working in more than 140 countries.

“I’m excited about having these two things happen at the same time,” Urchick said. “Other Rotary International presidents have chosen to have multiple peace conferences, and I chose only one. I want the world to focus on Feb. 20, 21 and 22, Istanbul. Rotary is there.

“We want the world to pay attention to us and understand what we do.”

For more information about the 2025 Rotary Presidential Peace Conference, visit www.rotary.org/en/2025-rotary-presidential-peace-conference.