A Children’s Gathering for Peace

A Children’s Gathering for Peace

On Sunday, June 5, 2005 I attended an event at the Seattle Center

called “A Children’s Gathering for Peace”. I read about the

event/festival in the Entertainment section of the Seattle Times

newspaper. I felt that it would be wonderful for my nephews (ages 3 &

4) to experience the diversity of various different cultures. The

event was put on by an organization called “Children Sing for Peace”

that is an organization focused on empowering children from around the

world through music.

When first walking into the festival we heard drumming and children

singing. There were also several children in different cultural

outfits. Many different groups of children preformed diverse children

songs from there own native culture. Several organizations based in

the Seattle area preformed for the music festival, such as: El Centro

de la Raza, Children of Peace, The Islamic School of Seattle, and may

other additional organizations.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that this music festival included

the participation of everyone who attends. The gathering finished with

several local school children and the founder of Children Sing for

Peace, leading the crowd in singing “We are Children of Peace”,

written by both the founder and her school age students. The music

festival was being recorded to later be aired on television in

Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and India.

The music that was preformed was so beautiful. I was flabbergasted at

the amount of diverse cultured children whom attended the event. The

songs that were performed by the children were very interesting to

observe; although, they were all preformed in their own languages.

I discovered this music festival to be an eye opening experience. When

children look at each other they do not see ethnicity or social class,

they see another child. Children are our Peace, we just need to teach

them to remain non judgmental and live with open arms to all people

regardless of their ethnicity, economical class, social class and so

on. Children love each other full-heartedly not considering any of the