Building bridges with messages of peace

The initiative to collect ‘messages of peace’ was launched by the Italian Association for Jewish-Christian Friendship for the 20th anniversary of the passing of Bruno Hussar. In this framework, the Students of the WAS-NS Primary School received messages of peace, including more than 200 pictures! The project was initiated by Massimiliana Covati, a teacher for religion and an engaged member of the association. She recruited her pupils, together with those of other schools in Italy, to demonstrate their appreciation and show moral support for the daily work of Wahat al-Salam - Neve Shalom. The peace message project usually took place in the students’ catechism classes.

The children of the Primary School decided that they want to reciprocate by sending drawings to Italy too and created beautiful, colourful messages of peace. Their messages arrived back to two Italian schools: the Primary school of Nino Pernici, from Riva del Garda; and the Primary school “Bacone” in Milan.

The Italian pupils were shown photos of the children in the WAS-NS school receiving the colourful messages. One girl of the “Bacone” School in Milan was excited to spot her own message in the photos. It was a message of peace, with the symbols of Islam, Judaism and Christianity united in a heart.

This initiative created a bridge between our school children and the children in Italy. All the pupils will keep the messages of peace that they received. Like children everywhere, they dream of a future of friendship and peace which overcomes distances, as well as cultural, linguistic and religious divisions.

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