Bermuda can be a beacon for the world in an initiative promoting peace and tolerance through culture says Dr. Noel Brown, CEO of Friends of the United Nations.

He is in Bermuda this week to help promote a serious of events aimed at bringing the community together via art projects.

He described the Island as a microcosm of the world with its diversity.

"It's not a perfect society but you get a sense of people trying to come to terms with their differences," said Dr. Brown.

"It's a small society, like a live laboratory, where you can test this concept."

He quoted his colleague Rene Dubos who coined the phrase "Think globally, act locally."

There will be an essay competition where people will write about what peace through tolerance means to them.

The idea will be used in a poetry and mural competition. Church youth groups will come together to write prayers on the subject, says Dr. Brown.

On Monday Dr. Brown visited Port Royal Primary school where the project is quickly starting to be appreciated by five-year-olds.

He said he hoped the same group would be followed to see how they progress with the project as it was repeated.

"We will test what works and what doesn't.

"We are urging Government to issue a tolerance day stamp perhaps in 2004/5."

A commemorative coin saying "tolerance, it's our currency," is another suggestion.

"There will be cultural festivals bringing together different strands of Bermudian society." said Dr. Brown who said he had found out about Bermuda when a team from the island offered to film a UN project for free.

He also met late Tourism Minister David Allen who invited him to Bermuda as well as Premier Jennifer Smith and Tourism Minister Renee Webb recently in Geneva who had impressed him.

Sites of murals will be advertised on TV and in newspapers but City Hall will have one. Poets will be aired on ZBM's Power 95 with the final on TV.