RYAN BA­CHOO

The Green Mar­ket San­ta Cruz, The Uni­ver­sal Peace Fed­er­a­tion and The Brah­ma Ku­maris are call­ing on all cit­i­zens to join in with the Unit­ed Na­tions in a na­tion­al peace­build­ing ef­fort from Mon­day Sep­tem­ber 21st through Thurs­day Sep­tem­ber 24th, Re­pub­lic Day.

The three or­ga­ni­za­tions al­so have made a call to the me­dia to high­light mu­sic, art and oth­er cul­tur­al ex­pres­sions that ad­dress peace-mak­ing. For ex­am­ple, one of its sug­ges­tions is at the top of every hour, ra­dio sta­tions could play mu­sic about peace. Tele­vi­sion news pro­grams could start or end by high­light­ing ex­am­ples of peace­ful res­o­lu­tion of con­flicts, as well as acts of gen­eros­i­ty and kind­ness. They al­so sug­gest every or­ga­ni­za­tion could post on so­cial me­dia an idea to in­crease the peace in our coun­try.

The UN says we con­tin­u­al­ly need ac­tion­able ideas to make peace a re­al­i­ty:

“As we strug­gle to de­feat COVID-19, our voic­es are more im­por­tant than ever. In these dif­fi­cult times of phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing, this In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Peace will be ded­i­cat­ed to fos­ter­ing di­a­logue and col­lect­ing ideas. The world will be in­vit­ed to unite and share thoughts on how to weath­er this storm, heal our plan­et and change it for the bet­ter. Even though we may not be able to stand next to each oth­er, we can still dream to­geth­er,” the UN state­ment says.

The theme for In­ter­na­tion­al Day of Peace 2020 is “Shap­ing Peace To­geth­er”.

“We should cel­e­brate these four days by spread­ing com­pas­sion, kind­ness and hope in the face of the pan­dem­ic. We should stand to­geth­er with the Unit­ed Na­tions against at­tempts to use the virus to pro­mote dis­crim­i­na­tion or ha­tred. Join us so that we can shape peace to­geth­er,” said Vic­ki As­severo, founder of the Green Mar­ket.

Princess Lee Kei­th, Pres­i­dent of the T&T chap­ter of the Women’s Fed­er­a­tion for World Peace said:

“Our or­ga­ni­za­tion ap­plauds the Green Mar­ket San­ta Cruz for re­mind­ing us about this glob­al ini­tia­tive. De­spite the chal­lenges caused by COVID-19, let us bind to­geth­er with one ac­cord since PEACE be­gins with each one of us.”

Sis­ter Sil­vereen, rep­re­sent­ing the Brah­ma Ku­maris in Trinidad, a world­wide or­ga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to peace ad­vo­ca­cy, ex­plained:

“We should be aware that each and every peace­ful thought adds to the vi­bra­tions of the world, and these con­scious vi­bra­tions then gen­er­ate pos­i­tive en­er­gies through­out the en­tire uni­verse.”

She echoed Ms. Kei­th’s sen­ti­ments on the per­son­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for peace, by of­fer­ing this thought: “My trans­for­ma­tion be­comes a part of the so­lu­tion. When I change, the world will change”