A group of community leaders in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada met on Wednesday, 15 May 2013 with a view to forming an alliance on global peace for the very first time. Their interest in such an alliance was triggered by a new book on world peace, A New Beginning for Humankind: A Recipe for Lasting Peace on Earth (iUniverse, 2012) by a well-known local author, Dr. R. B. Herath. This historic peace meeting, which was also chaired by Dr. Herath, took place at the office of a local non-profit charity, the Baobab Inclusive Empowerment Society.
After this historic meeting the group continued to meet on a regular basis. As a follow up to the discussions at these meetings, they also held a number of peace events in Surrey. These events included a press conference to publicly announce their global peace initiative, ceremonial launching of the new book on world peace, and some peace workshops and seminars. These workshops and seminars were also attended by other like-minded people in the local communities, not limiting to Surrey. Through the discussions at these workshops and seminars, the peace-lovers so gathered agreed on a set of founding documents for a new global peace organization. These documents included statements on a vision, mission, purpose, core values and principles for the new organization. As the end product of all this, the ‘Global Peace Alliance, Surrey Society’ is now fully incorporated under the Society Act of British Columbia. For convenience, this new society is also referred to as simply “Global Peace Alliance” or “GPA”.