WMW Jamaica (formerly Women’s Media Watch) has a powerful message for today – International Peace Day – as the day draws to an end. I am posting it rather belatedly, but of course the message rings true for “every day”… #peacedayjamaica
Thursday, September 21, 2017
WMW Jamaica Supports Peace Day 2017
Today is recognised as the International Day of Peace and WMW Jamaica is pleased to share in the values and sentiments in its theme: “Together for Peace”. This resonates very powerfully with our own theme of ‘Creating Equal Spaces’. WMW Jamaica has worked for nearly 30 years in Jamaica and the region enabling women and men, girls and boys, organizations and businesses to create spaces for gender equity, justice and violence-free social relations.
Many Jamaicans are concerned about the social challenges that have become so alarmingly evident, especially in the young, who immediately draw on bullying, abuse and violence when a slight is perceived. The need to overpower, diminish and take advantage of others has become the rule rather than the exception, and are often reinforced my media images.
The “Togetherness” theme of this day, offers 24 hours for the peoples of the world to acknowledge the similarities, regardless of their community or countries of origin. According to the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres, “ It is a day on which the United Nations calls for a 24-hour global ceasefire, with the hope that one day of peace can lead to another, and another, and ultimately to a stilling of the guns. Yet there is more to achieving peace than laying down weapons. True peace requires building bridges, combating discrimination and standing up for the human rights of all the world’s people.”
WMW Jamaica joins the thousands of peace-minded and peace-converted individuals wearing blue today as we affirm that peace, respect, safety and dignity have an equal space for us ALL. We encourage schools and all of organised civil society – human rights, social, cultural and sports groups to share today messages of safety, respect, equality. We expect organisations to allow staff members to wear blue and to clear up old conflicts, looking instead towards the collective and not the personal good.
Those individuals and groups guided by greed, discrimination and vicious intent in Jamaica and around the world are today asked/expected to pause and reflect, to put away vulgar, demeaning words, to abandon the knives, guns and fists, and embrace more peaceful and constructive approaches to others.
Colleen Wint-Bond,
Chairperson
WMW Jamaica
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