Peaceful Lessons Learned at Schools

Children at Lochside elementary school formed a circle around a figure of a dove - all created by the students themselves - on April 22, 2004. The event was in honour of Earth Day.

Here are some images (click to enlarge)

(Article published in the local Victoria and Saanich area newspapers)

THE PENINSULA * Children and teachers are creating peace through music and art at Lochside and Brentwood elementary schools. Children at both schools decorated doves, wrote poems and sang songs about peace leading up to outside events last week. Brentwood elementary had its presentation on April 20, and Lochside elementary on April 22. First Nations students presented the "Paddle Song" with paddles they made themselves and drummed a "Welcome in Peace" song.

Artist Deryk Houston was a guest speaker. He inspired
teacher-librarian Donna Wende to organize this project for the schools. He was the subject of a National Film Board documentary last year called From Bagdhad to Peace Country. After journeying to Iraq, he created several outdoor peace sculptures: in Iraq, Scotland, Hudson Hope, B.C., and with hay in a farmer's field in Saanich a couple of years ago.

A second guest speaker, Mohammad Ahmed, at Lochside is from Iraq and recently saw his family again after many years. He lives in Victoria and sings poetry and drums for peace.

At Brentwood and Lochside Elementary Schools students read the book, Echoes from the Square, by Elizabeth Wellburn and illustrated by Deryk Houston. It is about a cellist in Bosnia who played in a square for 22 days to create peace where bombs had killed 22 people. Students also read several library books about peace, including Peaceful Schools, which was the source of the Peace Pledge and Children's Peace Treaty, written by children in Northern Ireland. (It was read out by Grade 5 peace keepers at Lochside and by Grade 5 ambassadors at Brentwood).