Peace is “feeling safe around others.” Or, “watching a sunset on a lake.” Or, simply, “being kind.”
These are among the answers Bird’s Creek Public School students gave in a video they recorded to explain what peace means to them.
The video took top prize in a Canadian Peace Museum contest. The prize was handed out at the Bancroft Village Playhouse on Thursday, Oct. 12. It was the first event run by the new non-profit, which plans to eventually open a tangible space in Bancroft.
The Museum’s Chris Houston acknowledged that the debut event comes at a time when peace seems fragile, in light of the recent National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and rising violence in the Middle East. But he says these issues speak to the need for a peace museum and the need for positive stories to be shared.
“The world feels really difficult right now, despite all of us having so much more in common than what divides us,” he says. “And what we have in common is a desire for peace.”
Among the speakers at the event was Dr. Wim Laven, Editor-in-Chief of The Peace Chronicle. He said that, if you look at human history going back thousands of years, most of it has been free of war and that war is actually a modern concept. That, he said, should provide optimism that peace isn’t as elusive as many believe it to be.
