Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons
July 2007
Banner photo: Jozef Szentpeteri/Getty Images
Interfaith in the U.K. and Canada
Visitors to the exhibition
[©Seikyo Shimbun]
Between March 21 and 31, SGI-UK members in Oxfordshire hosted a series of events including interfaith discussions, talks and activities for schoolchildren at Oxford Town Hall to accompany the showing of the Gandhi, King, Ikeda exhibition created by Morehouse College that introduces the lives of the three peacebuilders.
Hugo Brunner, Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, chaired an interfaith discussion on March 22, with speakers from the Islamic, Jewish, Christian, Hindu and Buddhist faiths.
Some 1,300 people from across the U.K. attended the exhibition.
On March 23, a video screening and workshop on the issue of conflict and violence in our own lives was hosted by SGI-UK in partnership with Oxfam, an NGO working to eliminate worldwide poverty and suffering.
Oxford Lord Mayor Jim Campbell (right) joins SGI-UK General Director Robert Samuels at the opening of the exhibition at Oxford Town Hall
[©Seikyo Shimbun]
On March 26, British "Woman of the Year" 2005 and SGI-UK member Claire Bertschinger spoke to a packed audience about her wartime work as a nurse. Focusing on key themes of humanity and hope, she commented, "We need to make humanity, not economics, our highest priority. We need to take the lead so that governments can follow. We have to be the change we wish to see." Her book Moving Mountains focuses on her work during the famine in Ethiopia that inspired musician Bob Geldof to stage the Live Aid concert in 1985.
Coinciding with the exhibition, local SGI members worked with nearby schools to stimulate interest in nonviolence through poetry, plays and religious education projects.
Also in the U.K. on February 20, SGI-UK's new Central London Centre hosted an interfaith activity when students from University College London's Interfaith Society visited as part of a one-day journey around London's places of worship.
In Vancouver, Canada, on April 23, meanwhile, SGI members joined representatives of Jewish, Christian and other religions in an open-air Interspiritual Blessing of the Salmon Heading to Sea. Participants walked to the low-tide line and placed their hands in the water off a Vancouver beach to bless the journey of the salmon and mark Earth Day. The event was one of a number organized by Greater Vancouver faith groups and environmental organizations to emphasize the sacredness of nature.
