Peace in Youth Workshop

A workshop on World Peace was organized on 31st October 2009 in the senior AV room by
two young women- Ms. Mariya Salim and Ms. Aishwarya Chatterjee. They first showed a
presentation on Peace- within the school, within the country and told us about the culture of peace
and war. Then, they divided all the students into five groups of eight students each and were told to
present their views about peace. The students came up with many different perceptions in the form
of songs, poems and vibrant posters. Then, each student was given a chit in which a task was
allotted to them and no one was allowed to reveal it which was called the 'Discrimination Game'
where all the students were given the same task of avoiding all those wearing spectacles and they
were the group being discriminated against. Then, there was an interacting session about world
peace. Then, the students were asked to get divided into five new groups and two of them, Naina
and Vinita were selected as volunteers. They had to discuss about how women are discriminated
against by the different social spheres. The volunteers were made to sit on chairs and were tied up.
Each group had to comment on the volunteers who played discriminated women in the domestic
sphere, Government, Non- academic field, by the Elite groups and in religious affairs. As each
group kept commenting, the rope kept passing on to few members of the different groups and it
ended up looking like a web. They were then asked to repudiate and apologize to the volunteers. As
they apologized, they dropped the part of the web, undoing it, and stepped back. In the end, the
volunteers were set free. Lastly, all the students were asked to pin up a paper on their back and write
at least one good quality about the person. The workshop ended here and all the students found it
really interactive and had a great experience.

Highlights:
• We learnt some ways on how to spread peace as students.
• Through the 'Undoing the web' game, we learnt how easy it is to discriminate and how
difficult, yet brave it is to apologize.
• We also learnt that we can undo all the societal webs just by thinking with the right attitude.
• We learnt about cultures of the different religions and how people misused their religious
teachings.
• We learnt about the way in which the regional groups, different caste groups are ill-treated.
• We learnt about a few possible ways in which we could help the society to function
peacefully.
• We learnt all the above in an environment which was contrasting to the typical classroom
environment.

Our school should keep having such workshops because-

• They give us a lot of opportunities to learn in a different environment which is much more
enjoyable.
• We learn things in a practical-oriented way which helps us remember important things very
easily.
• It is basically an open forum where we are free to present our own ideas and perceptions.
• We enjoy such interactive sessions as we can convey our ideas to people outside the school.