Television images of famine victims don't spur everyone to take action. For a young Audra Teague, they made a profound impact.

She grew up to become executive director of the Interfaith Center for Peace, which has its office in Indianola Presbyterian Church, 1970 Waldeck Ave.

The center, which was founded in 1982, will be sponsoring "Children of Abraham: Building Interfaith Peace and Community" from 1:30 to 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25, at the Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center, 2201 Fred Taylor Drive.

The conference, planned as an annual event, is the culmination of 18 months of planning on the part of Teague, Interfaith Center for Peace board members and numerous community leaders.

"More than 23,000 Jews, 70,000 Muslims and several hundred thousand Christians live in Franklin County," according to an announcement of the event. "All belong to the Abrahamic family of religious traditions. How do we handle differences and conflict within this diverse community? What do our religious traditions teach us about peace and working with people from other traditions? Come to engage those within your own faith community and those in other traditions as we explore the spiritual and cultural resources for peace that we, as children of Abraham, bring to our multi-faith community. People of other faith traditions are also encouraged to participate."

Teague, now 30, was 4 or 5 years old and living in Gloucester, Va., when broadcast news coverage of a famine in Ethiopia "deeply impacted" her.

She relived the experience five or six years later when similar images of human suffering from a famine in Somalia were shown.

By the time she was getting ready to attend the University of Virginia, she knew what she wanted to do with her life: "Travel the world and work on issues of poverty and war."

She majored in Russian studies and minored in Latin American studies at UVA. Teague spent part of her undergraduate time working with homeless children in Moscow. After graduating she took a position with the Lutheran Volunteer Corps in Washington, D.C., working with low-income families and homeless women.

"It was a year of intentional poverty and community service in our nation's capital," Teague said.

She also was in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua for a time.

Teague came to Columbus in 2005 to work for the organization BREAD.

"I fell in love with the religious community here," she said, "and many people who use their faith for social justice issues."

Teague, who is working on a master's degree in social justice in intercultural relations from the SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, Vt., needed a practicum in peace work for the program.

She signed on to participate in some Interfaith Center for Peace programs and was asked by Tarunjit Singh Butalia, a Sikh on the board of directors, to coordinate a conference.

She then was hired to sub for Madeleine Trichel, founder and executive director of the center until her retirement in January 2007.
Initially a temporary replacement, Teague has been the executive director for about a year now.

She had big shoes to fill, according to ICP board president Doug Cluxton, and she has done so admirably.

"Audra just seems to have a related spirit to (Trichel)," said Cluxton, vice president of education for the Ohio Hospice and Palliative Care Organization. "They come at things differently, and yet the passion that I saw and still see in the founding director and the passion and commitment I see in Audra are very much the same.

"It just seemed that we had been gifted, in a way, to have her surface and be available for this."

Replacing someone who had been in charge for the first 25-plus years of an organization's existence has required some examination and reinvention, Teague said.
"We're coming to a new understanding of ourselves," she said.

Teague, a Unitarian Universalist, wants to bring a greater emphasis to the interfaith aspects of the nonprofit organization's efforts.

"We are specifically focusing on peace, as well," she said.

She wants the center to become the "intersection of the peace and interfaith movements."

"Our community is so diverse that I feel it does present us with an opportunity to ask questions about peace," she said.

Teague is delighted to have her current position.

"I've called it a dream job since even before I was on staff," she said. "It's given me a lot of joy. I feel like it's been a real gift."

More information on the center and the conference is available at www.interfaithcenterforpeace.org.