As the International Day of Peace approached, some members of the URI in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) suggested that we celebrate this day a little bit earlier since many URI members from the Middle East and North Africa Region were already in Amman for the Women's Interfaith Network of the Middle East and North Africa (WIN MENA) leadership workshop. Therefore, we seized the opportunity to have Atefeh (URI Global Council Trustee for our region) and a distinguished group of women peacebuilders celebrate of this day with us on the 6th of September 2007.
The celebration was co-organized by the Quested Peace Cooperation
Circle (CC), the Mercy CC, the WIN MENA CC and the MENA Team and was
attended by 30 young orphans and 20 persons mostly from MENA CC’s in
Jordan, Israel, Iran and Egypt.
We decided that this should be an event where we could create a world
in which children are at the center and women from different faiths are
leading. On an exceptional evening, we visited Mar Mansour Convent.
This convent is a unique convent, it is a home for castaway, homeless,
orphans and socially-troubled children who have almost lost hope for
better future.
These children have found shelter in this convent. They represent the
purity of life and deserve love and support, therefore, we celebrated
the International Day of Peace with them. We spent 3 hours with them
forgetting all about the troubled world we live in.
We became children,
we held hands and danced, we lit candles and prayed for a peaceful
world where children can live and thrive. We heard their stories and
told them ours. In short, we saw ourselves in them, and they saw their
future in us.
We prayed for peace and love in three religions ( Jewish , Christian
and Islam,) and we listened to the children's prayers. At the end all
the attendees recited together:
May Peace Prevail on Earth
May Peace Prevail on Earth
May Peace Prevail on Earth
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