Every year on September 21st, the International Day of Peace is celebrated around the world. It’s a reminder that peace isn’t just the absence of conflict, but something we actively build in our daily lives, in the way we treat ourselves, our neighbors, our communities, and the planet. Small gestures of kindness, understanding, and cooperation add up, like stitches in a fabric, creating something stronger and more beautiful together.
This year’s theme for the International Day of Peace is Act Now for a Peaceful World. It’s a call to remind us that peace isn’t something abstract or far away: it’s built through our daily choices and actions. From standing up against unkindness, to listening to voices different from our own, to volunteering in our communities, each of us can play a part.
This year, several postal administrations joined forces to celebrate peace in a very tangible way: through a special embroidered postage stamp. The “Dove of Peace” stamp is literally stitched out of thread by the Austrian embroidery house Hämmerle & Vogel, and features a dove carrying an olive branch. It’s being issued jointly by postal services from Åland, Armenia, Austria, Barbados, Cyprus, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the three offices of the United Nations.
More than just a philatelic novelty, the embroidered Dove of Peace stamp is meant as a symbol and a commitment. Like embroidery, peace requires patience, daily effort, and care. And through the vast network of the postal system, this little dove can fly around the world carrying its message of hope and unity.
To celebrate this initiative and World Peace Day, Austria Post and Liechtenstein Post have kindly offered us 20 of these embroidered stamps to give away (10 from each country).
To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment below sharing a small act of kindness or gesture of peace that has brightened your day recently. Comments will be opened until October 5, at which point we’ll draw 20 winners at random and have one of these special stamps mailed to them.
On this World Peace Day (and every day!), may our small acts of kindness and connection (like a postcard, a smile, or a shared story) add up to something bigger!