Peace Forum Focuses
on Children’s Needs

Several peace organizations held a peace forum concurrent to the ‘Building a Culture of Peace’ exhibition at Columbia University in New York August 13, 2003.

We, the Children of the World, assert our inalienable right to be heard and to have a political voice at the United Nations and at the highest levels of governments worldwide,” begins the Universal Declaration of the Rights of the World’s Children.

The declaration is a key initiative of the World Centers of Compassion for Children International, a nonprofit organization founded in 1997 by Nobel Peace laureate Betty Williams, who is pushing for its widespread adoption by governments around the world.

Williams and other peace educators spoke of the need for honesty and fearlessness in helping all youth to better understand the horrors of war and violence at a peace forum held at Columbia University’s Alfred J. Lerner Hall, Aug. 13, 2003.

Along with the forum, the day marked the opening of the “Building a Culture of Peace for the Children of the World” exhibition, featuring artwork and stories by children from various countries. The activities were co-sponsored by the Martin Luther King Jr. International Chapel at Morehouse College, the Milagro Foundation, which supports underprivileged youth in the areas of arts, education and health and SGI-USA.

“Speak your truth clearly and distinctly. Don’t allow anything to frighten you from the truth,” Williams told an audience of 450 educators, scholars, activists and concerned citizens. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 for co-founding the Community of the Peace People, a grass-roots organization in Northern Ireland, in response to escalating violence between British Unionists and Irish Republicans.

In the nearly 30 years since she stood up for peace in Northern Ireland, Williams said she has traversed the globe, holding orphaned children in her arms and listening to their tortured stories. Some have died in her arms, she said.

Outrage at the scope of military spending in the midst of more than 35,000 children dying each day of starvation has spurred her to advocate for children’s political rights with politicians around the world. She cited prospects for a breakthrough in Italy, where the government is about to pass legislation that would give children opportunities to testify about their circumstances and beliefs before politicians.

Nel Noddings, professor emerita of child education at Stanford University, encouraged teachers in the audience to use curricula, including such classics as Homer’s , as ways to talk with high school students about the grim reality of war and to not perpetuate the myth of war as a heroic endeavor.

Danny Hall, co-chair of the SGI-USA’s Victory Over Violence initiative, relayed his efforts to help high school students expand their understanding of the forms that violence takes.

Discussing the Columbine High School tragedy, Hall said the students who killed 12 of their classmates before turning their weapons on themselves felt alienated by their peers — a form of passive violence — and were no longer able to recognize the humanity of their classmates.

“When you can see yourself in another person, it becomes almost impossible to commit violence against them,” he said. Hall encouraged the audience to look for like-minded people in their own communities as one way to fortify their daily commitment to peace activism.

If the forum inspired people with ideas, the exhibit displayed the eloquence of children’s artwork and storytelling. One guest, Jill Strauss, who heads a diversity project at CAMBA Inc., a community-based social services organization, brought one of her student interns to the exhibit.

“It’s nice to see some positive stuff being put out there,” said student Maheshwarie Gopaul. “Since we’re the future, we should have a say.”