The giant white doves made from old bedsheets and carried high on poles first appeared more than two decades ago when Jane Goodall was named a UN Messenger of Peace in 2002, sparked by a group of Roots & Shoots students in Wisconsin who wanted to honor her mission. Jane explained that she had a vision and initiated the making of the giant peace doves with heads made from wire or papier mâché, designed so young people could fly them on long poles with one person supporting the head, one at each wing tip, and two for the fan shaped tail. What began as one small act of creativity became a worldwide movement, with Roots & Shoots groups in over 75 countries now marking the UN International Day of Peace each September by crafting and flying their own versions using everything from bedsheets to recycled plastic.
Roots & Shoots is the youth action program Jane founded under the Jane Goodall Institute that empowers young people to take practical steps helping people, animals, and the environment, the three pillars she believed were inseparably linked. Through this program, millions of young people have found ways to make a difference in their own communities from planting trees to protecting wildlife to building peace doves that fly proudly above them, with each dove showing that peace is possible but it takes action and helping hands to soar. The most recent World Peace Day was celebrated on September 21, 2025, just weeks before Jane passed away peacefully in October, and around the world her doves filled the skies once more carried by new generations of dreamers who still believe peace begins when we remember our shared humanity. Before she left Earth, Jane Goodall saw her doves soar one last time with the message she devoted her life to, proving that hope once lifted never truly lands.
