Founder

Patricia Smith Melton, Founder and Board Chair

Patricia Smith Melton is the founder, first executive director, and board chair of Peace X Peace, the international nonprofit organization that multiplies the power of women by the power of the internet, connecting women across all cultures for mutual support and concerted action. The heart of Peace X Peace, the Global Network, includes women’s Circles in more than 100 nations.

Smith Melton is the editor and photographer of Sixty Years, Sixty Voices: Israeli and Palestinian Women, a book (and interactive website, www.60voices.org) of interviews and photographs highlighting the experience and wisdom of 30 Palestinian and 30 Israeli women. Released in fall 2008, this is the first book that includes Palestinian and Israeli women equally. It is published in English, Hebrew, and Arabic, and was featured on NPR's "Tell Me More" in November 2008.

Mariane Pearl, documentary filmmaker, journalist and author of the memoir A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl, has this to say about the 60 women: "In a torn land they find a common ground ... because they have walked the walk. Here they stand and speak out. If we listen there is hope.”

Ms. Smith Melton was executive producer of the award-winning 2003 documentary PEACE BY PEACE, Women on the Frontlines, which highlights the often invisible work of women around the world in building the components of sustainable peace.

In 1990, Smith Melton co-founded the Melton International Education Foundation, which brings together university students in India, China, Chile, Germany, and the United States to participate in the earliest large-scale international effort using the internet to establish cross-cultural understanding and personal and professional connections.

Ms. Smith Melton is a poet, playwright, and photographer with more than 30 years of experience in the arts. She received the Rumi Forum's 2008 Peace Award and will be featured in Volume II of Dan Buttry's Interfaith Heroes.