Exhibition to promote peace

1 view

Skip to first unread message

isj expatparent

unread,

Jul 26, 2006, 9:00:47 PM7/26/06

to international...@yahoogroups.com, isj

The Star Online > Nation

Wednesday July 26, 2006

Exhibition to promote peace

By NELSON BENJAMIN and ALEX YAP

JOHOR BARU: Little Alana Sofia Osman may be too young to understand why wars are being fought but she knows that they bring suffering and a lot of sadness.

This has prompted the five-year-old, who can hardly write, to join more than 600 people in penning messages and making drawings about world peace at an exhibition here to promote peace.

TEACHING THEM YOUNG: Alana looking at one of the posters at the exhibition, organised by the Johor branch of Soka Gakkai Malaysia, in Johor Baru Tuesday.

“I hope people everywhere can always be happy, with no fighting,” said the shy Tun Dr Ismail International School pupil yesterday.

Alana was among 48 pupils from the school who visited the week-long exhibition, organised by the Johor branch of Soka Gakkai Malaysia (SGM).

It features figures such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr as well as Soka Gakkai International president Daisaku Ikeda.

Messages and drawings produced by visitors are stuck on cardboard boxes and displayed.

Fellow pupil Tengku Abdul Rahman Burhannudin Tengku Abu Bakar, 12, said the boxes with the messages should be sent to countries now at war.

Teacher Sixtus Lionel, who had accompanied the pupils along with four other teachers, said Gandhi, King and Ikeda were from diverse backgrounds but they all promoted peace.

“Such trips are educational because they expose pupils to different things,” she said, adding that the exhibition had opened the children’s eyes and minds to the message of peace.

Organising chairman Andrew Tan said some 2,000 people, including 500 students, had visited the exhibition since it opened last week.

“We have set aside 120 boxes to be covered with messages and hope to somehow send all these messages to countries at war,” he said, adding that the messages would also be displayed at other SGM exhibitions.

The exhibition, open between 8.30am and 9pm, is on at the SGM Johor Culture Centre at No 1A, Lot 40272, Jalan Selatan 5, off Jalan Kempas Lama, until Saturday.