Jean & Keith Best

The Peace Advocate Project is a charity set up by Jean and Keith Best, enabling young people to become peace advocates in schools and community groups.

Jean and Keith were born in Yorkshire but have lived in Scotland for the last 36 years. They have a combined educational background of over 80 years with Jean retiring when one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Education and Keith as a Head of Educational Service in Dumfries and Galloway Council. In their Rotary lives they have given extensive service to roles within Rotary International, Rotary GB&I, Rotary Districts and Clubs. 

They are both founding Directors of the skills-based registered Peace Advocate Project Charity and encouraged at the outset by Rotary Peace Fellows studying at Bradford University Peace Centre. Together, Jean and Keith launched their skills-based ‘Rotary Peace Project’ at the Sydney Rotary International Convention in 2014.

Jean believes that it is our young people who will ensure peace in the world and we must empower them to tackle this through peaceful conflict resolution, transforming conflict into success. Their role is in developing the skills that youngsters need to allow them to make the right choices with confidence. 

The project has created Peace Advocates who develop their leadership capacity to bring about more service through projects in schools, local communities and the world. Since 2014 they have enabled projects in Mexico, US, Australia, Germany, Japan, the UK and Ireland. Currently they are supporting 19 schools, 7 of which are established in District 1070.

During 2017 Jean was honoured as Champion of Peace by the United Nations/Rotary in Geneva. This recognition enabled them to launch of their International ‘Peace Schools Blue Flag’ Award as achieved by schools in Australia, Scotland, England and Ireland.