Create a “Peace Presentation” for the International Day of Peace.

[This model was adapted from the material that was used to launch the Celebrate Peace! program sponsored by Peace Cereal. URI is grateful to Jeff Klein, Karen Zacharias, and Patricia Smith Melton for permission to adapt their creative script. Please see website links below for more information about Peace Cereal and Peace x Peace]

If your group is organizing a presentation with speakers and/or performance event for the International Day of Peace, this creative model might work for you.

It is a model script/program that integrates on stage reading of quotations and  presentations by speakers, musical performance, and interfaith blessing. Please adapt this program to serve your specific needs.

Program opens with five “citizens of the world” on stage. They mingle on stage.

There is a sense of conversations among them – the audience perceives them as a  base of cooperation, change, community.

     (One by one they step forward, face audience and read or recite one quotation.)

Section A

"Peace is a decision just as violence is a decision." Barbara Marx Hubbard

"Despite the impulses in the world  towards separation and destruction, there is another impulse, the impulse towards wholeness, connectedness, and healing." Patricia Smith L Melton

"Peace is a skill. Like other skills peace develops through practice and spreads by example." Jeff Klein

"Peace is a daily process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures." John F. Kennedy

"Peace is still the center of the loving heart. It is the space between breath and heartbeat that always welcomes us." Nina Utne

      (Citizens take a seat on stage.)

Opening welcome by program host.

Host introduces program and gives explanation of theme and intention, etc.

Music – song about peace.

Section B

    (Citizens again step forward one by one and recite a quote.)

"I googled the word Peace. 84 million web pages contain this precious word. Wow. Then I decided to google the word War. 189 million web pages came up. 54 million for terrorism. 62 million - fear. 15 million - anger. Compassion sprang up 9 million times. Forgiveness appeared 4 million times. 189 million web pages about war. 4 million about forgiveness – maybe we can reverse that." Author unknown

"I am only one person, and I cannot do everything, but just because I cannot do everything does not mean that I will refuse to do what I can." Helen Keller

"Treaties are negotiated by governments. Peace is made by people." Reverend Mary Wilson

Seven centuries ago by Sa’di, one of Iran’s greatest poets: "The children of Adam are limbs of each other, having been created of one essence. When the calamity of time afflicts one limb, the other limbs cannot remain at rest. If thou has not sympathy of  the troubles of others, thou are unworthy to be called of the name of man." Sa’di

Speaker is introduced. Key note speaker.

Music interlude

Section C

    (Citizens again step forward.)

"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy." Rabindrath Tagore

"If we worry about the big picture we are powerless. So I do whatever little work I can do. I try to give joy tone person in the morning as and remove the suffering of one person in the afternoon. If you and your friends do not despise small work, a million people will remove a lot of suffering." Sister Chan Khon

"My image of peace is like tranquility of an enchanted garden. We all came to it – from different paths. Each of us sees the garden from the path we came from, but in the end, we’re all in the garden playing together and it doesn’t matter where we came from." Patricia Smith Melton

"Peace is a deep breath that slows me down enough to realize all the blessings in my life. Peace is flowing in divine music and singing praises of the spirits in each of us." Snatam Kaur

Musical presentation and/or interactive activity with audience is offered.

Section D

   (Citizens again step forward.)

"Peace starts and ends with connection. When we connect we learn about the other. It's not just tolerance, but understanding, acceptance. In connection, everything starts to happen." Barbara Marx Hubbard

"Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are ob bound together. All things connect." Chief Seattle

"Non-violence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of the spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him." Martin Luther King Jr.

"Citizens of all cultures rising together are the most powerful force in the world to bring us to wholeness, to healing, to the place where we experience at every moment that we are one family."  Author unknown 

Closing: A closing blessing or invocation is offered by leaders representing different faiths or different backgrounds. Each leader gives a one-minute blessing or invocation for peace.  A song is offered to close program.

Websites to contact for more information about their work:
 Peace by Peace www.peacexpeace.org 

 Peace Cereal: www.peacecereal.com  “Celebrate Peace” is a trademark of Golden Temple of Oregon, Inc. All rights reserved.”