School Children Sing for Peace
Hundreds of school children shall sing for Peace on Saturday 7th July at 1pm in East London at a very special event dedicated to Peace. “Thursday’s Child”, a tiny organisation with a big heart, has launched a major inter faith festival taking place at West Ham Memorial Recreation Ground, Memorial Avenue, West Ham, London
The London bombings on Thursday, 7th July 2005, affected every single person in the UK in some way or another. It proved to have a galvanising effect on Vivienne Woolston, business person turned peace worker, spurring her on to establish Thursday’s Child – a Celebration of Faith. This is the first of what is expected to be an ongoing commitment of Faith Celebration and she hopes will touch the hearts and souls of thousands of individuals in a positive way. It is her wish that the event will help to turn a supposed source of conflict into a resource for peace and harmony – giving voice to the silent majority of peace loving people.
She says "This project has shown me you see that we can all do something for Peace - we can't just sit back and think that the world leaders can or do get it right - in the UK alone there are 64 million of "us"... that overshadows the numbers of politicians, world leaders and so on doesn’t it!"
The weekend will be an educational exploration and “a Celebration of Faith” where individuals and organisations representing all the major faiths will gather together to take part and unite in an understanding and mutual respect of each other’s beliefs in an especially created marquee arena and be ready and willing to engage in dialogue. Two exhibitors of particular interest to youth are Inter Fusion a youth inter faith group from Portsmouth and Faith Link, another inter faith group focussed upon the youth in London.
Workshops, talks, dancing, singing, Newham School children singing for Peace, and story telling will take place over the weekend and there will also be an opportunity for Youngsters to speak about what their Faith means to them and a quiet area set aside for devotional time and much more. It is anticipated that in excess of 1,000 school children, as well as young people, men and women of all faiths (or indeed none) will join together in a celebration of shared unity, to enjoy and understand how the various different faiths work together having indeed a common cause – the peace and security of all humanity.
Members of the public can visit the festival free of charge. The event starts at 10.00am on Saturday 7th July and at 11.00am on Sunday 8th July. Do check out the web site of www.thursdays-child.co.uk and/or contact her via Vivienne@Thursdays-child.co.uk Thursday’s Child, as the saying goes, has far to go. Vivienne hopes that we will all take those few tentative steps on our long spiritual journey ahead together
Other story lines:
- an Early Day Motion was raised 22nd May and has to date 24 MPs support
- Ken Livingstone sends support
- “People in Faith” visitors from Sri Lanka attending Thursdays Child
- Workshop titles include “Faith & Conflict” with Simon Keyes, Director of St Ethelburga’s, Centre for Peace and Reconciliation
- Canary Wharf Ltd and HSBC support peace initiative
- Metropolitan Police backing peace initiative
- One woman’s mission!
- “We can all be Peace makers”
- Achieving charity status and the eclectic Working Group including Imam Asim Hafiz, Muslim Chaplain to British Armed Forces who incidentally sent the first donation “on line” to our charity
- Faith leaders/representatives all requested to say a prayer for Peace at the opening ceremony
- One recent exhibitor we are delighted to welcome are Girlguiding UK participating with their Faith and Diversity team
- Dr Muhammad Abdul Bari – Secretary General of the MCB joining the line up to say a prayer for peace at opening ceremony
- Brave Brownie joins the line up to say a prayer for Peace
Ends:
For further information please contact Vivienne Woolston, Founder “Thursday’s Child”
+44(0) 1256 861012; mobile +44(0) 7740 737 430
NB:
Recently interviewed by “Defining Moment” which is available via the internet and more recently by David Chen for BEN TV for his live TV programme