The annual Peace Festival in Tonasket on May 11th will feature two speakers:
Methow activist Dana Visalli, who went to Afghanistan in March 2013 to teach in the School of Leadership Afghanistan (SOLA), will give a talk and PowerPoint entitled "Big History, Afghanistan & End of War."He will speak at 6 pm.
SOLA is a private school in Kabul, Afghanistan teaching biology and ecology to a small number of young Afghan women, preparing them to attend college in the United States. SOLA also helps their students to find scholarships to be able to finance their continuing education. Bringing the curriculum of "Big History" to the Afghan students, Dana was able to share hands-on learning that increased curiosity while having fun learning. He will also speak about Afghanistan, Ecology, and the End of War.
Spokane cardiologist, John Peterson, MD, who will give a talk and PowerPoint about his work with Healing Hearts Northwest in Rwanda, will begin at 7 pm.
Healing Hearts Northwest is a group of health care professionals from the Spokane/Coeur d’Alene region, partnering with the medical staff of King Faisal Hospital to deliver cardiovascular care. Working with partners from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Australia their goal is the independent cardiovascular program staffed by Rwandans. Further, they seek to develop a program for the prevention and early detection and treatment of Rheumatic Heart Disease.
The 10th annual Peace Festival will take place on Saturday, May 11, from 2:00 to 9:30 pm, at the Community Cultural Center in Tonasket, 411 Western Ave., just south of the Tonasket Natural Food Coop.
Other presenters will be storyteller Dayton Edmonds of Omak and hopefully Shane Barton, Veterans Administration Services Counselor at North Valley Hospital in Tonasket. An opening circle at 2:00 pm will include a sharing of songs, poems and stories by all attendees.
The annual Veterans Forum at 4 pm will feature local vets sharing their ideas on the necessary work ahead to
establish a world of peace and justice.
Festival events are Free of Charge, except for dinner and desserts. Donations are gladly accepted.
At 5 pm, a Peace Family Dinner will be served. Dinner receipts contribute to the costs of operating the Community Cultural Center.
At 6 pm, Dana Visalli will present his talk on his experiences in Afghanistan as a teacher at the School of Leadership Afghanistan and his subject "Big History, Afghanistan & End of War."
At 7 pm, Dr. John Peterson will talk about his work as a cardiac surgeon with Healing Hearts Northwest Team in Rwanda, helping to train Rwandan medical personnel to perform cardiac surgery to help heal the war torn country of Rwanda.
At 8 pm, we will dance and delight to the sounds of Ruby Rust, a local band of peace activists.
The annual Peace Festival was begun by a local family who lost two youth in the military in the Middle East, and sought healing through a on-going partnership with the Veterans for Peace. The Festival has continued in memory of all the women and men who serve Peace throughout the world.
The first North American Mother’s Day was conceptualized with Julia Ward Howe’s Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870. Howe had become so distraught by the death and carnage of the Civil War that she called on Mothers to come together and protest what she saw as the futility of their Sons killing the Sons of other Mothers. She called for an International Mother's Day celebrating peace and motherhood.
Thirty years ago this week we held the first Mother's Day Walk in protest of the first testing of U.S. cruise missiles over Canada. Military expenditures have grown increasingly and today 56 cents of every tax dollar goes to the military, not to mention several trillion spent on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that president Bush put on the credit card. Services to the most vulnerable among our population are being cut and the nation's debt soars. It is time to chart a new positive direction for this great nation. If we the people stand together for peace, change can happen and new directions will be found.
As International Peace Activists we gather at the Osoyoos-Oroville International Border to share our messages of Peace and Justice on our local Mothers' Day Walk for Peace. This annual event is sponsored by the Doukhobor Communities of Western Canada, B.C. Southern Interior Peace Coalition, Okanogan Peacemakers, Veterans for Peace, and other Peace and Justice organizations. Please come to hear and share important messages of peace and justice as we gather on Mothers' Day 2013.
In Washington, we will meet at the Oroville Public Library and leave to walk to the border at 12 Noon. You can drive to the border also. Join us in this annual ceremony of peace at the border at 2 pm with the Doukhobor Community and Peacemakers of the Kootenay, Similkameen, ane Okanagan Valleys of Canada. Bring something to sit on, an umbrella for shade or to shed a shower, and a message, song, or poem of peace & justice.
Come and celebrate peace and justice in our communities. For more information, Joseph Enzensberger, 509.476.4072, jgenz4@gmail.com, or Rick Gillespie, 509.485.3844, rickg@columbiana.org
The premier showing for North-Central Washington of the film “Roadmap to Apartheid,” will be the main attraction of the 4rd Annual International Peace Day program in Tonasket on Saturday, September 21, beginning with dinner at 5:30pm at the Community Cultural Center.
"Roadmap to Apartheid", a feature-length documentary by filmmakers Ana Nogueira (a white South African) and Eron Davidson (a Jewish Israeli), is an extremely ambitious project that is largely successful in achieving the difficult goals it sets for itself.
Not only is "Roadmap" the first documentary to offer an in-depth exploration of parallels between the South African and Israeli forms of apartheid, but it presents the material in such a way as to serve as a fairly comprehensive and accessible introduction for audiences with no prior exposure to the issue.
"Roadmap" employs striking data visualizations, animations and split screen effects, but does not overuse them. Decades-old footage is smoothly integrated with modern material, and the original footage is remarkably well-shot. The interviews employ a variety of different camera angles which help maintain an organic, conversational tone that never feels monotonous, and much of the on-the-ground footage of demonstrations and military incursions has an immersive, kinetic quality that pulls the viewer into the action.
The sheer breadth of the aspects of Israeli and South African apartheid that the film explores and compares will likely exceed the expectations of many viewers. The filmmakers cover nearly everything: siege mentality colonialism, forced migration, checkpoints, passes, foreign natives, present absentees, partition and proxy rule, bombing and boycotts, bulldozers and Bantustans. Refugee issues, central to understanding Palestine, get less screen time, but this is mainly because this is one of the numerous ways in which the Israeli form of apartheid, as journalist Allister Sparks puts it, is “significantly worse than apartheid” in South Africa.
The event will take place at the Community Cultural Center at 411 South Western Avenue in Tonasket on Saturday, September 21 beginning with a Dinner at 5:30 pm. Veterans for Peace and Columbiana are sponsoring the 4th Annual Peace Day program.
Bill Dienst, M.D., an editor and coauthor of “Freedom Sailors,” will speak about his accounts of the first voyage of the Free Gaza Movement which broke the 41 year-old maritime siege of the Gaza Strip, and how they succeeded in initiating non-violent actions in support of Gaza which have followed since. Bill will conduct a book signing and sale of his book. To order their book or for additional information about ordering “Freedom Sailors,” go to http://freedomsailors.com.
