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Events 2007

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The Peace Flag Project works with groups throughout the year. Our main event is a celebration of the International Day of Peace, which is observed on September 21 of each year. At this celebration, we display the thousands of flags that have been created.

Rhode Island News
Activists fly flags to mark Peace Day

12:36 AM EDT on Monday, September 24, 2007
By Richard C. Dujardin
Journal Religion Writer

The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch

 

Hanging up her peace flag yesterday
at the Davey Lopes
Recreation Center Park in Providence to mark the International Day of Peace is Sat Kartar Khalsa. She is from the Gururamdas Ashram in Millis, Mass., a teacher of Kundalini Yoga and meditation for youth in urban neighborhoods and at Brown University.

PROVIDENCE — Monks in saffron robes, Sikhs, Hindus and Jewish and Christian clergy along with scores of others drawn by thoughts of peace held a silent and meditative walk past fluttering flags and through the gardens of the South Side Community Land Trust yesterday in what is becoming an annual tradition.
The silent walk, led by Joanne Friday, who is a Dharma teacher and the Buddhist chaplain at the University of Rhode Island, was part of a two-hour program of flag making, face painting, and drumming organized by the Peace Flag Project and the American Friends Service Committee to help celebrate the United Nations International Day of Peace.
Although the day has been celebrated on most years on Sept. 21, one of the Rhode Island co-organizers, Virginia Fox, said the celebration here was pushed back two days this year to accommodate the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur.
If you were ever in Tibet, you’d notice that the Buddhists hang flags everywhere, each with prayers on them for peace, kindness, compassion and generosity,” she explained. “They believe that their wishes and prayers are carried around the world on the wind.”
Fox said that she and Jane Maguire, working independently, came to the idea that in Rhode Island it would be nice to encourage people to put their own wishes, hopes and dreams on flags with the idea that these ideas can also travel the world.
The resulting Peace Flag Day project drew only 40 people when they held the first one at the Quaker Meeting House three years ago, but 120 came the following year at Providence’s Market Square Park, and 160 last year.
Everything big starts small,” she said. “Our idea is to have an event that will allow people to hold peace, embody peace, and to be about peace and see what happens. I like to say this in an event that can be a start of a ripple that goes out so more and more people think about peace and how they live with each other …
When they talk about peace, most people talk about finding their own personal inner peace, or they’ll talk about world peace. This is about the middle part where I believe people can have an effect.
How we live and how we treat people every day. It means fair pay for a day’s work. It means being kind to the people in our family and in the world. It’s about what ordinary people can do.”
Friday, the Buddhist teacher, said that Gandhi once remarked that “we need to be the change we want to see in the world.”
That’s what we are trying to do here. We’re trying to make as many people as possible come together, walk together and be peaceful. The thing that causes us to be at war is our sense of separation from each other.”
Rabbi Alan Flam, Jewish chaplain at Brown University and head of the Rhode Island Board of Rabbis, appeared to agree, saying that peace is not the absence of war, but a building of relationships with people with whom one has been estranged.
One of the things that I talked about on Yom Kippur,” he said, “is falling into despair. Anyone who does activist work knows how easy it is to become frustrated and even despairing, given how complicated and broken this is.”
rdujardi@projo.com



Some special words were said by the guests at the celebration of the peace day event:

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, in his 2007 Peace Day speech:
"On this International Day, let us promise to make peace not just a priority but a passion. Let us pledge to do more, wherever we are, in whatever way we can to make every day a day of peace."
Artemis Eskovich:
"I am always looking for ways to teach my children how important it is to become involved. Participating in the 2007 International Day of Peace provided that wonderful lesson. My oldest daughter watched adults and children interact and teach each other lessons of peace. My younger daughter used her artistic energies to create a Peace Flag, adding her beautiful wishes to the hundreds on display. Both were deeply touched by the silent Walking Meditation and appreciated the hard work of the Southside Community Land Trust's beautiful gardens. They say they will always remember being part of this Peace Day, and I think this experience will help shape the rest of their lives. Thank you for the opportunity to "teach our children well..."

Nisha Punjabi:
"Peace is not merely a distant goal, is what this event proved to all of us who were there. Peacefulness is an inner sense of calm - the silent meditation showed that. A smile is the beginning of PEACE."

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Events 2007

January
Roots and Shoots
Roger Williams Park Zoo
Providence, RI
www.rogerwilliamsparkzoo.org

Sunday School
First Unitarian Church of Providence
Providence, RI
www.firstunitrianprov.org




February
Stars Program
Women in Community Service
Exeter Job Corps
Exeter, RI
www.wics.org

March
Wholly Rollers
MS Bikathon
1st Unitarian Church of Providence

Interfaith Peace Service
Kingston Congregational Church
Kingston, RI
www.kingcongchurch.org


April
Party for the Planet

Roger Williams Park Zoo
Providence, RI
www.rogerwilliamsparkzoo.org





June
RI Sustainable Clean Living Festival
Apeiron Institute
Providence, RI
www.apeiron.org

RiverSing on the Blackstone
Slater Mill
Pawtucket, RI

July
Farmers Market
Hope High School
Providence, RI
www.farmfreshri.org

August
Sierra Club of RI
Newport, RI
www.rhodeisland.sierraclub.org

CityFest Celebration
Southside Community Land Trust
Providence, RI
www.southsideclt.org





September
International Day of Peace
September 21, 2007
Downtown Providence

www.thepeaceflagproject.org

Community Prep School
After School Program
Providence, RI www.communityprep.org






October
Community Service Showcase
Diversity Week
Rhode Island College

November
Providence College
Peace Vigil
Providence, RI www.providence.edu

Moses Brown School
Community Learning Class
Providence, RI

www.mosesbrown.edu





December
MET School
Providence, RI

Johnson and Wales College
Providence, RI


! For a write-up of our 2009 event, please click here !
! For a write-up of our 2008 event, please click here !
! For a write-up of our 2006 event, please click here !
! For a write up of the 2005 event, please click here !


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" I have only 3 enemies.
My favorite enemy, the one most easily influenced for the better, is the British Empire.
My second enemy, the Indian people, is far more difficult.
But my most formidable opponent is a man named Mohandas K. Gandhi.
With him I seem to have very little influence."

MAHATMA GANDHI

Mahatma Gandhi & Mother Theresa

BackUp

!!! MAY PEACE PREVAIL ON EARTH !!!