Friday 2 October 2020

USING ART TO PROMOTE AWARENESS ON DIALOGUE AND PEACE

 


By HELGA AKAO

Managing Director and Founder of RESTORE DIALOGUE UGANDA

Email ; helgaakao@gmail.com

One of the most basic needs and rights of the human person is peace. Restore Dialogue Uganda, an organization that aims to promote peace, mediation and restorative justice in Uganda and the East African region,  organized an art exhibition under one of its programs; The Living Together Movement, to promote peace, interethnic and interfaith dialogue. The Living Together Movement is a global movement founded by International Center for Ethno Religious Mediation (ICERM) that aims at promoting peace and preventing interfaith and interethnic conflict.

The exhibition recognized the powerful voice and potential that artists and creatives have to promote peace. The works of the artists depicted their aspirations and ideals for a world living together in peace and using dialogue as a means to address their differences. Each artist together with the participants reflected on each of the ART pieces and the messages they portrayed, shared their experiences and views and explored ways in which the world can promote interfaith and interethnic dialogue to build a strong foundation for peace. They came to a common appreciation that the world is beautiful in its diversity, the children are pure and messengers of peace and living together, the leaders are responsible for promoting dialogue amongst themselves and the communities, the family is core in building up the minds of the young for or against peace and dialogue and ‘it all starts with the individual’. It doesn’t matter which religious, ethnic or political group one belongs to, we all aspire for peace and justice. Every one left with a stronger commitment to promote peace and dialogue in their everyday lives and in their professions.

The exhibition, which was organized at the Baha’i centre in Uganda and contributed to by the Baha’i community brought together people of different religions, ethnic backgrounds and organizations such as; Students without Borders, KQ Hub Africa, the Baha’i community members and the living together movement members.  The backdrop of the Baha’i temple and its peaceful and beautiful grounds greatly helped to portray the picture of a peaceful world that we are striving for.