ABOUT 210 students from Ah Pyin Pade Kaw primary school in Ayeyawaddy region attended a peace event recently organised by an international youth organization, International Peace Youth Group(IPYG) and a local organisation in Myanmar, Myanmars Heart Development Organization(MHDO), tagged ‘Drawing Peace with Paper Cups’.
The organizations began to cooperate to hold an event on ‘Peace Fingerprinting’ raising the awareness of peace to their children and organized ‘Making Heart Necklace’ to express their desire for peace in attendance with families and friends in their local society.
IPYG is a youth peace organization that has been actively engaged in activities cooperating with local NGOs all over the world based on ‘harmony and solidarity’ to achieve peace.
MHDO works in the Yangon area and assists local communities such as disadvantaged and disputed areas caused by natural disasters with material aid. Now it cooperates with IPYG to provide educational support to the community in order to achieve peace based on the harmony that goes beyond race and ethnicity.
On that day, ‘Drawing Peace with Paper Cups’ was held to provide a peace education programme that children can easily get involved by drawing a world where various colours and shapes coexist.
A teacher of Ah Pyin Pade Kaw primary school, Thin Marlar Soe, said “We would better to love each other than dividing or splitting. So that Myanmar can develop and coexist peacefully”. And the representative of the Village Development Commision, U Thein Naing, said “Even though we are a different race, we can still love each other to make a peaceful world. I would like to say thank you for IPYG and MHDO for giving us such a nice experience.”
When Pope Francis visited Myanmar last November, he emphasized that the value of education for ensuring the peaceful improvement especially for the youth of Myanmar.