This is the fifth time that we are organizing the Justpeace Festival in Mymensingh, Bangladesh. It will be held on the 10 and 11 of February 2019, in Mymensingh.We hope to attract at least 3,000 people, including many students, to this free event.
The festival’s aim is to raise awareness on Justpeace and inspire people, especially young people, to work for Justpeace in the community. We hope to build cooperation between local organizations by involving a number of partners in the planning group for the festival as well as inviting partners to participate in the event.
The organizer committee chooses a specific theme for every Justpeace festival. In 2018, we are going tofocus on personal transformation for Justpeace. The slogan of the festival is‘‘ Hridy alok jalo, boddo moner duyar khulo”. Peace is a right and also the responsibility of everybody. Nowadays, we can see that how the world is becoming restless; there are many incidents of violence all over the world, human rights issues are neglected and fundamental attitudes are increasing which separates us from each other. So this year, we are welcoming everybody to enlighten oneself for peace by illuminating their inner light and remove all stereotypes and prejudice to the difference. Justice and peace are not a ready met thing; we all have small parts to play in creating a better world. Our stories are only small parts of a big story. We also want to remind everyone that whatever we do, it keeps helping the world to change. To make positive changes we have to open up whatever is blocking us from accepting others.
Through this festival, we are trying to spread the message of unity and peace and inspire people to work for Justpeace in their own environment.
The activities of the festival are in below:
• Workshops on for high school, college and university students on Justice and Peace
• Cultural performances on peace and justice themes in both Bengali and ethnic minority languages (singing, poetry reading, dances, etc…).
• Exhibition of paintings by local artists on peace and justice themes
• Drawing sessions for young people and children on Justpeace themes andart installations where participants can add their own dreams for a peaceful society, in creative ways
• Exhibition of photography on Justpeace by local photographers
• Fun peace activities for children e.g. songs, cooperation games, inspirational stories, arts and crafts activities
Organizer: Shanti Mitra is a local nonprofit organization which works through peace building and conflict transformation in Mymensingh. They use the arts as well as participatory workshops to raise awareness about issues of conflict in Bangladesh and beyond and inspires people to work for peace. Human rights is one of the most important component in Shanti Mitra work.
They also consciously promote inter-faith and inter-ethnic understanding and build bridges between young people across differences.
Associate Partners:
1. MCC is an International NGO that has been working in Bangladesh for over 40 years. It has a strong justiceand peacecomponents to its development work. Some of its Peace Team members are based in Mymensingh.
2. Mati is an organization that aims to join its human forces, energy, and love in the universal fight against poverty and towards a life of dignity for all human begins regardless of gender, status, color or creed.
3. Caritas is an international branch of Catholic relief and development.Caritas Bangladesh works to support human resources development, social justice and human rights, health care, and ecological sustainability.
Promotional Partner:
MFPS: Mymensing film and photography society (MFPS) is one of the largest and fastest growing film and photography based volunteering cultural society in Mymensing. MFPS is working to promote youth and creative peoples works which national and international platforms.