About Us

Patricia Montandon

The seventh child of two Texas ministers, Pat moved to San Francisco in the 1960s. After five years with the San Francisco Examiner, in 1982, she left her post as a columnist to create Children as the Peacemakers, a non-profit foundation that is dedicated to making peace happen through the creative participation of children around the world. The organization - honored with the United Nations Peace Messenger Award and nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize - has three main programs, an International Children's Peace Prize, which has reached out to thousands of children from 50 countries, Peace-Kids Peace-Clubs an interactive curriculum, and World Peace Missions where children visit with world leaders and share their concerns and desires for a more tolerant and understanding world.

Pat has made thirty-four international trips with young children, and has met with such world leaders as Premier Zhao Ziyang of China, Chancellor Helmut Kohl of West Germany, Pope John Paul II, the late Indira Gandhi of India, Prime Minister Gro Harlan Bruntland of Norway, and Andre Gromyko of the former Soviet Union. Madam Jehan Sadat is also a prolific supporter of the Foundation.

In 1986, Pat pioneered The Banner of Hope, a mile-long, red-silk memorial inscribed with the names and ages of children from all over the world who were killed in war. The Banner of Hope was first presented in 1987 at the Kremlin for the International Women's Congress where it brought former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to tears. The Banner was also highlighted at opening ceremonies of the United Nations in 1987.

Pat's current project, Remember the Children of Beslan, was recently launched in memory of the children who were terrorized and murdered, on September 1, 2004 - their first day of school. In December 2004, a delegation from Children as the Peacemakers will travel to Beslan, Russia, to assure the grieving people that they will not be forgotten.

As an author, Pat's many books include Making Friends, the first Soviet/American co-publication by Raduga Press in St. Petersburg and Henry Holt in the United States. Whispers From God, an autobiography, will be published in 2005.

As an early activist of women's civil rights, in the 1970s, Pat founded The Name Choice Center to inform women of their right to keep their own name after marriage, and she has supported the Ms. Foundation from its inception. In 1980 she originated the Napa Valley Wine Auction, the most successful wine auction in the world.

Pat resides in Los Angeles, California, and is the mother of Sean Patrick Wilsey, a writer who lives in Manhattan. Her first grandchild, Owen Taylor Wilsey, was born in July, 2004.

Pat's homepage: http://patMontandon.com/
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