On International Day of Peace, 21 September 2016, the Lord Mayor of Coventry Councillor Lindlsey Harvard welcomed the formation of the United Nations Association Coventry Branch and thanked them for organising the first Coventry Peace Day.
‘I’m sure that your organisation will become another crucial part of our city’s work towards creating a peaceful world and we are pleased to welcome you to our Coventry family,’ he said.
He was speaking during a three-course dinner which the UNA had organised in the highly-rated Rising Cafe and was attended by 60 diners from a wide variety of organisations engaged in peace within the city of Coventry, as well as a number of refugees from Syria.
2016 was the first time that International Day of Peace has been celebrated in Coventry and the dinner was one of several events which the UNA organised in the city.
In keeping with the theme of Coventry Peace Day, “Come Together for Peace”, diners were encouraged to sit with somebody they did not know. The Chair of the Coventry UNA, Shagufta Hamid-Khan, welcomed the guests and introduced Dr James Hodkinson from the University of Warwick who ran the Two Chairs Exchange, in which strangers from different cultures meet and share their common humanity.
The meal was accompanied by music from Mexican singer Leticia and Amit Chakraborty from India. It included talks by the Lord Mayor, by Jenny Page from Rising Global Peace Forum and Sabir Zazai, Director of the Coventry Refugee and Migrant Centre. After the meal a collection was held to enable the Centre to support refugee children. There followed a talk by Mr Terry Waite in Coventry Cathedral.
Other events which the UNA Coventry Branch organised during Peace Day included the making of origami peace doves in the FabLab, City Arcade. This followed a similar event held in the Lower Precinct on Saturday 17 September.
In addition the website CoventryCityOfPeace.uk included a wide variety of other ideas about how people could celebrate and think about peace. Coventry UNA created this site as a portal into the wide variety of peace-related organisations and activities in the city.
For more details visit http://coventrycityofpeace.uk/lord-mayor-welcomes-una/
Coventry United Nations Association are planning a variety of other activities on international subjects throughout the coming year. Their programme can be found at UNACov.uk
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subtitle: UK action. Stronger UN. Better world.