Sydney, Aug 4, 2021 — The International Women’s Peace Group (IWPG) Sydney hosted the award ceremony for Australia’s 3rd International Loving-Peace Art Competition. Despite the pandemic, IWPG continues its peace initiatives, and the award ceremony for this competition was held through an online gathering for the first time.
This international art competition designed for the realization of peace fosters children and youth, who are the hope of the future, to become the leaders in promoting a lasting culture of peace. This opportunity plants the concept of peace in the young minds of today’s generation and fosters them to become active agents in creating peace within society. With this goal in mind, students aged between 5 and 13 from art classes across Sydney and Melbourne have created artworks expressing their perception of love, harmony, and peace. Among them, three artworks were chosen and awarded in this ceremony.
The event started with a hope-inspiring video featuring entries and messages from the 2nd IWPG International Loving-Peace Art Competition participants. These young artists were likened to the renowned artist Picasso who was himself an advocate of peace, as they shared their hope for a peace-filled future — a dream that is now quickly becoming a reality, thanks to the efforts of these young peace advocates.
The winning artworks were recognised as follows:
For 3rd place, “Peace in heaven” painted by 8-year-old Sean Shi, who could not attend the ceremony, won the award.
For 2nd place, 10-year-old Laher Vora’s “Live Happily together in Times of Joy and Sorrow” won. The young peace artist delivered a speech describing her artwork as representing the peace that we can find in Australia’s harmonious multicultural setting where people from different countries, regions, and islands can live in peace and harmony, which she symbolised with a dove. She also added that “all the communities in Australia want to grow together, rise together, and live happily together,” showing that people from different backgrounds can truly live together and dream together in peace.
And for 1st place, 13-year-old Janavika Hingorani’s symbolic “Rise From Hatred Spread Peace” was awarded. In Janavika’s speech, she described her painting of the phoenix as a representation of humanity’s rise from problems towards harmony, and together spreading “love and kindness around the world.”
To conclude the event, Maryam Popal Zahid, Founder and Director of Afghan Women on the Move, was invited to give a congratulatory speech for the participants. Maryam’s motivating words emphasised the absolute importance of peace in our lives, without which, people will not be able to do much. And for this, she expressed her awe in seeing that the young generation was starting to know the meaning of peace and thanked IWPG for its efforts in teaching the meaning of peace, especially to the youth. As she is learning about peace through IWPG’s Peace Education program, she took this opportunity to also share what she has learned, which is that when we begin to understand peace within ourselves and are able to visualise it and project it towards creating harmonious relationships and coming together, then that’s how we prevent war and unfavourable things from happening in the world, and instead create friendship, peace, and harmony.
IWPG is a peace NGO registered with the UN DGC (Department of Global Communications), UN ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council), and the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family in the Republic of Korea. Established in September 2013 the IWPG currently has 100 branches in 130 nations, approximately 240 cooperative organizations (MoA), and around 760,000 members.
Inspired by a mother’s heart towards protecting her children and the world, IWPG’s vision is to leave a legacy of a world of peace rather than war and conflict for all future generations by uniting the 3.7 billion women around the globe. This unity of women can be believed to be the greatest force to bring about a change and a world of peace. For more information about IWPG and the work of peace, visit: www.iwpg.kr/en
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