A well-known American peace campaigner plans to visit her ancestral home of Old Kilpatrick as part of an upcoming visit to Scotland.
Heidi Kuhn is the founder and CEO of California-based peacekeeping organization Roots of Peace, and will visit as part of her #FootstepsforPeace campaign to mark the UN's International Landmine Awareness Day on April 4.
Roots of Peace clears war-torn soil of landmines or unexploded ordinances and work with local communities to build sustainable, regenerative agriculture in their place.
And Ms Kuhn, who will be involved in events in Edinburgh and Glasgow during her time in the country, credits her Scottish roots with giving her the strength of heart to be a woman leader of peacekeeping efforts.
She also plans to visit Old Kilpatrick, where her ancestor, Captain John McNear, was born in 1701 before he left for America as a young man.
150 years later, his descendent John Agustus McNear was an early pioneer of the California Goldrush of the 1850s, settling in Marin County, California, where Mrs Kuhn’s family has lived ever since– never forgetting its Scottish roots.
There are an estimated 60 million landmines remaining in the soil of 60 countries worldwide.
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