The Korean Children's Peace Train
The
Korean Children’s Peace Train is a model for building Children’s Peace
Trains in other countries of the world. It is fit and timely that the
World’s Children’s Peace Train has begun in Korea, because the lives
of its children are being threatened at this very moment. Millions of
children in both North and South Korea live under the hourly threat of a
catastrophic conventional, biological, chemical and even nuclear war. On
February 20th, 2003, the North Korean Government announced that
"War could break out at any moment." Seoul, the home of several
millions of children, has been described by the U.S. Military as "the
kill box," where an estimated 400,000 artillery shells would fall
during the first hour of a war.
So, for the immediate sake of the
children, their mothers and fathers and other relatives and neighbors, and
other people, including a large international civilian community of
families with children from around the world, as well as for the animals
and plants, mountains and rivers and skies in this peninsula, the plight
of and song of hope of the children must be heard.
Furthermore,
Korea is a perfect place for the Children’s Peace Train to begin,
because right now, the Governments of North and South Korea are
negotiating for the reopening of a rail-link closed since the Second World
War. It will be a Peace Train Railroad, which will run between Seoul and
Pyongyang and extend northward on through Beijing and Moscow, linking
Korea with Paris, London and all of Europe. Also, the railroad would reach
southward from Pusan through a tunnel under the sea to Shimenoseki, Japan,
linking the entire region to Europe.
Through the interaction and the
international exchange of people, goods and services, more open levels of
inter-dependency and understanding can be attained. Societies will become
more integrated with and tolerant of each other, and people, including the
children will become more secure. But none of this can take place if
because of narrow-minded tempers and fears of our leaders, both East and
West, a terribly devastating war breaks out, and millions of children and
others die. This is why the World Children’s Peace Train is starting
here in South Korea.
The
Korean Children’s Peace Train has already been built. Since the fall of
2002, students from the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, in Seoul,
have gone out and offered Peace Train(ing) workshops at local elementary
schools, church schools, art schools, and children’s playgrounds, all
over Seoul and in other cities. They have collected from children hundreds
of beautiful, high quality, art works expressing the children’s images
and ideas of peace and happiness in both their personal lives and in the
world. Several of the pictures deal with issues of peace between North and
South Korea, also South Korea and Japan, and World Peace. Other concerns
are racial and religious harmony, though most are related to friendship,
family life, sports and enjoyment of nature. For their participation in
the Peace Train each child received a certificate making him or her A
Conductor of the Children’s Peace Train. Their art-works are ready for
display in South Korea as well as in the rest of the world. Some of these
Children’s Peace Trains have already been exhibited at The
UNESCO-sponsored Asian-Pacific Forum for Inter-Religious Reconciliation
and Peace, held in Seoul in December, 2002. We hope that our presentations
will serve as an inspiration and model for others in their countries for
launching their own national Children’s Peace Trains, as part of the
World Peace Train Movement.
I’ll
add here, that on January 22, 2003 two Peace Train Workshops were held for
Korean Elementary and Middle School teachers at the UNESCO Training Camp
in Icheon, South Korea, as part of a cultural program for International
Understanding. 60 teachers participated, with each one drawing a large,
colorful picture of, and writing some words about what Peace means in his
or her life. Altogether these crayon drawings, mostly of smiling children
engaged in various activities, but also dealing with wide and sundry
social issues, were linked together by rings and connected to an elephant
head’s engine and an elephant’s tail caboose to form the Korean
Teacher’s Peace Train, a fitting compliment to and completion of the
Korea Children’s Peace Train. Each teacher received a certificate making
him or her a Conductor of the Children’s Peace Train.
Right
now Children’s Peace Trains are being constructed in Sri Lanka, India,
Turkey, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.S.A. We hope for the
children’s sake that this trend will continue with the Children’s
Peace Train grows to bring a fair and joyous peace to all troubled places
of the world, bringing to the children the fruit of all their dreams of a
normal childhood, ones with happy friendships, warm-hearted friends,
healthy diets, exercise and sleep, clean environments with trees and
flowers, fresh air and water, vermin-free shelter, warmth in winter and
coolness in summer, compassionate hospitals and open-minded schools.
Let us all realize that we are all one
world, one blood, one humanity, one heart, one soul, and we need to care
for one another, to survive, and leave a world behind after our hopefully
peaceful deaths for our children to thrive in.
View
Korean Peace Train Art Gallery
Welcome now to the Korean Children’s
Peace Train. All Aboard!!
