Peace festival at Warwick University

On 8 September, the third event in the ‘This is Our Age’ initiative towards 26 January 2025, the fiftieth anniversary of the formation of SGI, took place in the University of Warwick arts centre, writes Akarsh Kaul.

This event was another significant effort by SGI-UK, in collaboration with likeminded external partners, reaching out into wider society and was co-hosted along with the University of Warwick (UoW).

With the theme ‘This is Our Age – Peace Festival’, the Midlands area was able to welcome more than 300 people to this event, with many youth division members participating and lots of guests. The event also engaged with children from local schools invited through UoW’s UNESCO outreach programme. Among the attendees were specially invited guests including the Mayor of Solihull Shahin Ashraf MBE.

The festival showcased the Seeds of Hope and Action exhibition alongside a Peace Fayre that consisted of many amazing stalls with creative and dialogue-based workshops, aiming to raise awareness on the themes of nuclear abolition and Sustainable Development Goals.

Another headliner was the Hiroshima Peace Day activity, which explored the theme ‘I disarm myself’, and included talks by SGI-UK General Director Justine Marchant and ICAN representative Daniel Högsta.

We also heard a deeply moving experience by SGI-UK member Kyoko Gibson, who is a second-generation survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, and an engaging and thought-provoking panel discussion with the theme ‘I disarm myself’. The members of the Fresh Departure group performed a hope filled song.

The activity was a remarkable success, and the determination is that the ripple of hope and peace created will continue to spread across the UK and the world.●