Peace Week aims to bring us one step closer to solving the internation problems we face today

The goal of Peace Week is to create international awareness as well as to reach out to the community of Laie, they explained. All week there will be a table set up outside the cafeteria with information on the McKay Center for Intercultural Understanding and a newsletter of upcoming events, sign-up sheets for an open-mike night to be held on Jan. 24, a service project, and a seminar based on the Arbinger Institute’s “Anatomy of Peace.” Students will be encouraged to fill out pledges of what they personally can do to be peacemakers, which will later be posted on a wall. 

The entire week is filled with ways to positively affect the world around us. Tuesday night, Jan. 22 is the kick-off. From 4-9 p.m. in the Aloha Center, free acai bowls will be handed out, while bands perform. Between sets, speakers will address the students about the issue of peace and projects going on within the community.

On Thursday, all students, faculty, and staff will be asked to fast in an effort called “One for Hunger.” Three bins will be set up to collect the food that would have been eaten, which will be donated to the Oahu Foodbank. At 10 a.m. three panelists from the Oahu Foodbank will speak in a forum on hunger and homelessness on Oahu. Then students are invited to participate in a question and answer session.

Several recent forums have been about friction that exists between the university and the community. The McKay Center for Intercultural Understanding was set up in 2006 with the goal of spreading peace, starting here in Laie. Peace Week and the service project to be held on Saturday are ways that BYUH is trying to reach out to the community.

Searing explained the source of some of the tension; “The school and the community are divided.  The students come here and they really don’t understand that this is not their land and that they need to be respectful towards the culture and the people of Laie. We are pushing for students to understand that, and have their school experience to be a community experience as well.  Students can try to become part of the community and help to give back, because they live here too. It’s a gift to be here.”

Hopefully Peace Week will only be the start of a semester of change. Peace Forums and Choice Seminars will continue to be held every other week throughout the semester, they said.  But students need to begin involving themselves. As individuals make establishing peace their personal mission statement, they will reach the potential that the Lord’s prophets have foreseen.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Write comment

Name

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment