Real Women: Patricia Smith Melton, Founder of Peace X Peace

Patricia Smith Melton loves a good party, but the one she gave in January 2002 was unique even for her. This was a gathering that practically demanded to be held, and its impact was nothing short of huge. "It was the week after 9/11," says Patricia, 67. "Like everybody else, I was in a state of shock. Then one morning I woke up with a powerful gut feeling that I should bring together experts and women from several different cultures to ask what more we could all be doing to end the violence." Having spent years as a mother, poet/playwright, and dealer of vintage quilts, she had learned that her intuition should never be ignored. "I believe that the spirit is a muscle that has to be exercised," she explains.

The first step was deciding whom to invite. She started with two names in her address book and spent the next several weeks e-mailing, faxing, calling, and cajoling candidates who'd be willing to travel thousands of miles for a weekend of thinking, probing, and discussing. One by one, six women accepted. Five came together at Patricia's Vienna, Virginia, home, despite a heavy snowstorm. They were, Patricia says, "women whose voices of passion are known to the world": Susan Collin Marks, executive vice president of Search for Common Ground; Barbara Marx Hubbard of the Foundation for Conscious Evolution; author Isabel Allende; Fatima Gailani, head of the Red Crescent of Afghanistan; and Azizah Y. al-Hibri, PhD, founder of Muslim Lawyers for Human Rights. The sixth, Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian politician and peace negotiator, joined in by phone. "As we talked around my rented conference table," Patricia says, "I had a revelation. Men may be the news makers, but women are the ones organizing on the ground, doing the microfinancing, helping HIV orphans, fighting violence. Women's work is like oxygen. It's taken for granted."

The first day, someone lit a candle and the group began debating, "What is peace, and how can women be empowered to create it?" As the discussion deepened the bonds between the women grew, and when it was time to finish they felt it was vital not only to keep the dialogue going but also to open it up to the world. The result was the nonprofit organization Peace X Peace (pronounced "Peace by Peace"). After her guests left, Patricia set up her desk on the spot where the conference table had stood and promised herself she'd do eight follow-up actions a day. She kept her commitment by phoning people to brainstorm, investigating the legalities of forming a nonprofit, and researching the world's problem areas. It quickly became clear, she says: "I had to go big, big picture, and that there had to be a way to use the exploding new digital media."

The result was Peace X Peace's free international social networking Web site (peacexpeace.org), where women who want to make a difference in their communities can receive support from others. "There are lots of organizations that distribute food, offer medical care, and build wells," says Patricia. "But that aid, worthy as it is, is from the top down. What was missing was a way for women at the grassroots level to figure out what they need and how to get it." The site quickly blossomed and now connects more than 20,000 members in more than 100 countries.