From: Alex Morrison
Subject: WAY TO PEACE CAMP
Date: March 31, 2003 7:37
Way to Peace
Summer Camp
Taking Care of Ourselves,
Our Neighbours and Our World
WHERE: Cornwallis Park, Nova Scotia, Canada (on the Pearson
Peacekeeping Centre campus) situated on the shores of Canada's historic
Annapolis Basin and Bay of Fundy.
WHEN: August 11 to 16, 2003
WHAT: Together with youth from other countries, through scenario
role-playing, games, group discussions and presentations you will learn
leadership skills, negotiation and mediation skills, cultural awareness
and international understanding.
You will visit the Acadian Shore, Port Royal, Fort Anne and other local
historical and cultural sites.
FEE: $400 Cdn.
This fee covers transportation to and from the Halifax International
Airport, all meals, single accommodation with private or semi-private
bath, all materials, camp photograph, certificate of accomplishment
and all cultural visits. Partial scholarships are available.
To register or for further information on WAY TO PEACE or PSI, please contact:
Hetty van Gurp
Peaceful Schools International
PO Box 100
Clementsport, NS Canada B0S 1A0
Tel: 902 638 8611 x 200
email: hvangurp@mail.com
www.peacefulschoolsinternational.org
Peace… What is it?
(Written by Valeria Evtekhova, pupil of 8-th grade, Moscow Linguistic Lyceum # 1555)
Peace… What is it?
Peace is:
1) a state of freedom from war, cessation of war
2) a treaty ending a war, signed the peace
3) freedom from civil disorder, a breach of the peace
4) a state of harmony between people, absence of strife.
This is the interpritation of english-english dictionary. But every
person understands it his own particular way. So I decided to ask people
on this topic.
Here you can see the opinion of 7-year-old girl: "Peace is good.
It is the time, when everybody is happy."
The 5-year-old boy said: "I don't know what peace is, but to my
mind it is something very good".
Another girl , a twelve year-old one told us, that there is nothing
better than peace. And if we analyze children's opinions, we can easily
understand that they don't exactly know what it is, but they want to
live in peace. Maybe they have heard about peace from their parents
or from TV?
Then I asked another question: "What can you do for peace?"
A 7-year-old girl answered: "I can plant the house and help my
mother about the house."
The boy's opinion was: "My father is a policeman, and when I grow
up I'll be like him, strong and honest and there will be no criminals."
Here we can make sure, that children can't realize what peace is. People
understand it only when they get into trouble or a war breaks out. Such
situation happened when our grandparents were young, but they demonstrated
the best qualities and won the victory. But talking about the examples
above, nothing can be expected from little kids, because they are just
children. But when I got acquainted with the opinions of grown-ups I
was really shocked.
They were asked: "who is a peacemaker?" and "do you
want to be one of them?" The man in his forties said: "peacemakers
and peace-loving people are very good people. They help establish peace
in the world and help people to preserve it. But, in fact I think they
don't do anything."
And he made a great mistake. Certainly it his point of view, and nobody
will punish him for that, but how could he say this, as if there were
no peacemakers , the world would have already killed itself. So we can
divide people into two parts. One of them can be called "True
peacemakers", second is "Antipeacemakers". Let's examine
the first group.
Here I used the expression "a true peacemaker", just meaning
a man, that can help at any moment, and a man, who, perhaps, has no
time, but tries to be a peacemaker. Another group thinks, that peacemakers
are just people, who idle, have nothing to do.
But to my mind peacemakers are very important for the society and for
the world in general. The greatest organization of them belongs to U
N O or United Nation Organization. It is an international organization,
which was created for keeping peace, safety and developing international
relationship. Charter U N O was signed on 26 of August 1945 by states-founders
at San-Francisco Conference in 1945 and started working on 24 of October 1945.
Russia was there from the very beginning. But U N O peacekeepers corps
consists of civil-officers and military-men. To my mind they are both
very important for us. Nowadays people don't pay any attention to them.
They don't know, when peacemaking troops went to fulfil their mission,
It is not useful for them.
In fact peacemaking forces U N O to have, so-called council of safety.
U N O has already made some missions. For example they controlled the
maintenance of peace on Ciprus in 1964, in Lebanon in 1978, in Yugoslavia
in 1992. And they even got the Nobel prize in 1988!
The first group of Russian UN military observers, which consisted of
36 officers went to the Middle East for joining UNTSO (United Nations
Truce Supervision Organization in Palestine) after the October war of
1973. Already in November 1973 Russian group started to execute duties
and in May 1973 Russian military observers and their foreign colleagues
were awarded a medal "IN THE SERVICE OF PEACE". This medal
can be given to militarymen and civil policemen, participating in peace
missions.
Since 1966 to 2003 thousands of peacekeepers were praised with this
medal. It was made for the consolidation of peacemaking generations.
But there is also a great drawback of peacekeeping missions. Of course,
soldiers use a weapon, which can kill people. Now, I think you've guessed,
what I mean. The weapon can kill people , so there are a lot of sacrifices.
But for what do they do it? For whom do they risk their lives? For
people, who are not interested in this problem, until it touches themselves?
These questions will never be answered.
To my mind peacemaking does not only cover professional military soldiers,
it also touches civil peacekeepers and fighters for the ecology and
everybody can do it his own way. For example the whole planet knows
an outstanding scientist and a public figure-Andrew Sakharov. He was
a physic-theoretic and society activist. He was one of creators of H-bomb.
Since the end of 50-es he was against nuclear weapon and thought that
it should be banned forever. From the end of 60-es till the beginning
of 70-es he was a leader of lawprotective movement. But in 1968 he said
that there was a menace to humans, connected with their separation and
it can lead us to nuclear war, starvation, ecological problems, dehumanization
of social nationalizm, terrorizm. After protesting against coming soldiers
to Afganistan, he was deprived of all his titles and exiled to Gorkiy,
where he continued lawprotecting activity. He came back from the deportation
in 1988 and elected to be the politician in 1989. He offered the project
of new Constitution in1990. He was a great peacemaker and for that he
received the Nobel Prize in 1975.
We have also a very real peacemaker. Ilia Kasianov is a hero of Russia,
and now we also plan to include the biography of Russian volunteer U
N O very respectable man, but he hasn't U N O medal.
Now we can make sure again that civil peacemakers are very important
people. But we can make our future better too!
In some Russian schools pupils have already organized peacemaking organizations.
One of such schools is Moscow school # 1938.
Certainly they can't participate in battles, using the weapon, but
they can help orphans in their country, who have no home and parents.
Children from school # 1938 collected things, toys and food and sent
them to orphans.
Unfortunately our school has neither peacemaking organization, nor
peacemaking deeds. But I think we, children, students must create it
ourselves! We must make our organization or join "Young peacemakers".
As I asked pupils from another school, about 50% wanted to join "Young
peacekeepers". But it is too little, as everybody should want to
be a peacekeeper. So we must attract children's attention. How?
We have to create some awards, because, if a grown-up want to have
a prize, why don't children want to have it too? Of course they want!
We also can have interesting meetings and actions, where children can
participate and so on. But the organization will differ from pioneers
and scouts. I think does it matter wear uniform or not. The most important
is discipline. It is rather bad that there are no pioneers now, as children
nowadays rapt in alcohol and drugs, instead of helping old men or participating
in competition.
If children join the organization "Young peacekeepers", they
will have no time to idle. Isn't it good?
But as all organization, our peacemaking NGO must have a code. And
also children must create it. I know some rules from U N O peacekeeping
code. To my mind nearly all them with some amendments must be included
to our one. The code must be divided into two parts. First will be called
"WE WILL ALWAYS" and the second will be called "WE WILL NEVER"
But its meaning will be like that:
1) We must respect laws and local traditions of the country.
2) We must always be disciplined.
3) Respect each other.
4) We must respect the environment.
5) Respect and regard the human rights.
6) Support and aid infirm, sick and weak.
In my opinion these are the most important ones. So peacemakers are
not only people, who make or keep peace, they are also people, who respect
each other, as there can't be peace without respect, kindness. How can
cruel man keep peace?
Do you think you are cruel or kind one, do you respect yourself and
then your friends and country? If no, try to be such kind of person.
If yes, join the organization and the Movement of Young Peacemakers!
The scientific and practical conference under the title "Leadership
in Children Movement: Time and Values" was taking place in the
city of Minsk (Republic of Belarus) from March 31
to April 4, 2003.
The conference was oraganized by Moscow government and the Ministry
of Education of the Republic of Belarus for about 100 researchers, teachers
and leaders of children NGOs to come from Moscow and 20 regions of Russia,
Ukraine and the Republic of Belarus.
Former Russian UN peacekeeper have analized the history of UN peacekeeping
and came to the conclusion that the time for the Corps of really independent
monitors of armed conflicts has come. The article under the title "Problems
of the Use of Corps of International Monitors (Observers) in Armed Conflicts"
was recently contributed into Museum funds. The author of the article
was Alexander Vladimirovich Kuznetsov, veteran of UNTSO (1989–1992)
and UN peacekeeping missions in Yugoslavia (1994–1995), a brilliant
instructor of Russian UN Military Observer Course (USUNMOC) at the "Vystrel"
Military Academy (1996–1999).