WFWP Ireland, Lorna Byrne and with the support of the Sisters of Faith for Peace had a very meaningful and fruitful event marking the occasion of the International Day of Peace. We were grateful to have had the opportunity to host the event in Chester Beatty Library in Dublin Castle, on Sunday, 20 Sep 2015.
With this event we launched the ‘Dublin Peace Forum’ which is to bring like-minded people together from across all sectors of society and to provide a platform for discussion and networking. In light of the current crisis we focussed on the theme ‘EU migrant crisis and our Quest for Peace’.
We were delighted to have had participants both young and old, as well as a very good representation of people from different areas of society, including members and leaders of the Christian, Muslim and Jewish faiths among the approximately 60 participants. Aideen Byrne, a current student of DCU, did a wonderful job of MC’ing the event.
The first part of the program consisted of an introduction by Doris McCann, WFWP Ireland President, then Lorna Byrne reminded us of the urgency of all of us doing our part, and in particular the importance of young people getting involved. Lorna is the internationally bestselling author of ‘Angels in my Hair’ and a passionate peace activist. This was followed by a deeply moving personal testimony by Fardus Sultan about her own refugee experience 20 years ago, in Bosnia. After that, Killian Raynor gave us a report on the hugely successful initiative called ‘Ireland Calais Refugee Solidarity’.
The second part of the program consisted of breaking up into discussion groups which was a really valuable opportunity to discuss sensitive and complex issues and sound out our concerns as well as proposing initiatives.
We are all fully aware that the current migrant crisis is a complex situation, and there is no one simple solution, but let that not be an excuse to do nothing!
We would like to thank again all our sponsors, speakers and participants who helped to make this event a success.
Doris McCann WFWP Ireland President