2009 Peace Camp begins 22 April
ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines/ Albert Arcilla–As part of its advocacy program, the Peace Advocates Zamboanga (PAZ) is set to hold its annual summer peace camp starting Wednesday, 22 April till 25 April for selected children. This year’s theme is “Integrity of Mind and Heart”.
PAZ aims to gather at least 100 children for the peace camp, which involves a series of workshops on peace-related topics as well as the integrations of the culture of peace in all the discussions during the four days’ activity. The venue for this year peace camp is at the WMSU’s College of Agriculture in Sitio San Ramon, in Talisayan, this city.
The children participants belong to different faith communities and organizations, with ages raging from the seven to 12 years.
Camp Director Arweda Jalilul said the peace camp aims to instill the culture of peace in the mind and the heart of the participants.
“This summer peace camp aims to develop the participants into a peace oriented individuals through the various workshops,” she said.
“The peace camp is subdivided into four clusters, which are journalism, music, theater dance and the arts and craft, and in every cluster the workshop is anchored on the theme of peace,” she further added.
A total transformation is expected in the attitudes of the participants as a result. The organizers are hopeful that they will bring all the good things especially the peace lessons they had learned to their respective families and to the community as well.
“With the attendance of the different faith, this will make them understand more the uniqueness of each tribe, and eventually learn to appreciate and show respect for each other, since this is an effective tool to achieve peace in our society”, Jalilul emphasize.
To ensure that the inputs of the workshops and other discussions are in the context of the culture of peace, the resource persons are equipped with the basic knowledge of the culture of peace. They had gone into several trainers’ training that PAZ had given to them and they too are products of past peace camps.
The summer peace camp program was initiated by Peace Advocates Zamboanga (PAZ) since 10 years ago. Participants automatically become members of the youth arm of PAZ, the Youth Solidarity Peace (YSP).
Last year, the first Salam peace camp was held for exclusively the Muslim youth to introduce to them the culture and the real teachings of Islam.
PAZ is also conducting peace camp for Subanons, indigenous people mostly residing in Lintangan, Zamboanga Del Norte.
A second Summer Peace Camp, this time for the Youth, is expected to be held early next month. (Albert F. Arcilla)
