Young Indians and Pakistanis together creating a calendar for peace
India News, New Delhi:
In a unique initiative of highlighting creativity of innocent minds is coming in the form of an Indo-Pak Peace Calendar being created jointly by paintings of school students of both countries. Aaghaz-e-Dosti has invited paintings from students and had received around 500 paintings from students of both countries wherein six paintings from each side are selected to create a joint peace calendar.
Informing about the initiative, Aaghaz-e-Dosti founder Ravi Nitesh said that this is going to be the tenth peace calendar and every year we are getting many paintings from students of both sides. He said that this enthusiasm of students, who are young citizens of our countries, actually motivates us, to learn more about positive thinking, about love-peace and compassion and most importantly- about dreams and desires for a better world.
Students whose paintings are selected this year are Aadhyaa Ayodhikaa (DAV Public School, Cuttack), Aarya Prasad Sahu (Gyan Mandir Public School, Delhi), Dhunn (Police DAV Public School, Ludhiana), Gauri Vijay Ghanwat (Kamala Nimbkar Balbhavan, Sitara, Maharashtra), Mehakjot Kaur (BCM Arya Model Sr Sec School, Shastri Nagar, Ludhiana) and Zeba Yusuf Patel (Matoshri English Medium School, Pune) from India and Ayesha Iftikhar (Lahore Grammar School I – Shah Jamal Lahore), Haniya Waseem (Ismail Academy, Karachi), Mauhib Ghulam Murtaza (The AMI School, Karachi), Rida Siddique (Jamshed Memorial School, Karachi), Subbuh Shafiq (DMC East Govt Girls Secondary School, Karachi) and Umm-e-Maryam Ameen (Ismail Academy, Karachi) from Pakistan.
As this calendar also carry messages of eminent persons who advocated peace and has already included many eminent names in earlier years, this year Aaghaz-e-Dosti including messages of persons who supported and gave messages to Aaghaz-e-Dosti in these ten years but now no more in the physical world. These names include messages of Asma Jahangir, I A Rehman, Dr Mubasshir Hasan, B M Kutty, Awais Sheikh, Dr S N Subbarao, Maulana Wahiduddin Khan, Swami Agnivesh, Kamla Bhasin, Rahul Jalali, Sadia Dehlvi and Kuldip Nayar.
This year’s calendar will be a respect towards their services on the path of peacebuilding. Through this way, Aaghaz-e-Dosti is also creating a broader message where peace is equally desired, dreamed, advocated and supported by people, be it a school going student or those who taught the society and the world.
Jansher Khan who is Aaghaz-e-Dosti coordinator in Pakistan informed that the peace calendar will also have 12 more paintings as runner up paintings to accommodate these beautiful expressions. He informed that Aaghaz-e-Dosti has not only received paintings from regular and established schools but also from alternative schools and social organisations such as Jamghat and Aakansha who are working with students.
Convener of Aaghaz-e-Dosti Devika Mittal says about the importance of this calendar that “The calendar with the paintings of an innocent and apolitical mind will remind us that mindsets have been constructed. Together with the beautiful dreams of the young and innocent, the Calendar also has messages from people who have been actively working to nurture these dreams.
This calendar is a collection of shared dreams of peace and friendship. It serves as a hope shared by people who are just like us, in habit and struggle. With the turn of the pages to start a new month, the hope shall be renewed.”
Nazir Ahmed, a member of Aaghaz-e-Dosti from Multan believes that by creating such a calendar, students from both side actually exercising their right to peace. He said that in all these seven decades, we created many barriers in movement and communication but still we all dream for a day when people from both sides can meet easily but for that we need to work more on creating a culture of peace through education.
While talking about the release of the peace calendar, Punjab coordinator of Aaghaz-e-Dosti Nitin Mittoo said that peace calendar release is expected by the end of January, however if situation doesn’t improve regarding COVID and omicron, then we may organize online calendar launch like previous year. But we really wish to have an offline one too after the situation improves.
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