Our Work - Shanti
Workshops for Peace
Workshops in 2009
"Shanti" cell completed its 10 years on January 30, 2009 and a workshop on that day made the day fruitful. The program was organized with an objective to spread the message of peace among our community people and other people of the society. "Peace" has its wider meaning than merely an absence of war. Real existence of peace means existence of social justice, human rights and various securities. Based on this concept the workshop focused on existence of peace in the lives of urban poor.
The first session of the workshop was taken by a government official, who gave the perspective of government towards urban reality. He gave information regarding various government schemes for development of urban poor and their implementation in the city of Ahmedabad. The second session was on Rights of Urban Poor, which was taken by the human rights activist and Gujarat High Court advocate Mr. Girishbhai Patel. He described the reality that an urban poor faces in the city; he talked about urban slums and the state of education, health primary facilities etc in urban slums.
The third session was again taken by a government official who gave detailed information regarding practical procedures to be followed to get benefits from various government schemes. And the fourth session presented a case study of how unity can bring changes in the world and how important it is to be organized. The resource person shared his experience of fighting for the residential rights of urban poor in Mumbai. He emphasized on the need of forming an organization and thus strengthening the just fight for the rights.
During the workshop a booklet- Shanti ane Astitva was released. Shanti ane Astitva (Peace and Existence) is the expression of experiences of building peace and experiencing peace in day to day life. It narrates peace building efforts by the organization and initiatives taken by people organization to bring peace in their routine life. Peace is not merely an absence of war but it is related to every aspect of existence of a human being.
Workshops in 2008
We organized a workshop on the 30th of January 2008 for the selected area representatives to understand peace from the perspective of people. A high level of participation of the people remained the strength of the program which helped building a common understanding of peace and bringing them together to do something for building peace in their homes, localities and for the marginalized of the city that are often deprived of peace due to socio-economic forces.
Perspective of Children on Peace
In 2007 we organized a "Poster Competition" on International Day of Peace for children of all the centers of Innovative Education, St. Xavier's Loyola Hall High School and Loyola Evening School. Peace from children's perspective remained the theme of the competition. The artwork of the children depicted the "Cry for Peace" from the eyes of the children.
The selected posters were exhibited under the title "Shanti Pradarshan" on the 20th of September, 2007 as an Exhibition of the "Artwork" of Children at important and strategic locations in the city simultaneously. The exhibition drew a huge response from citizens from different walks of life. The message of peace and harmony reached to the mind and heart of the hundreds of people watching the exhibition. This exhibition resulted in the Exhibition Diary - the document which represented people's reactions and responses to the exhibitions.
We could present the artwork of the children and exhibition diary in a booklet- "Perspective of Children on Peace". It was published on January 30, 2008- the anniversary of assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the apostle of peace and non-violence.