This Sunday is the kick-off event for Long Beach’s local campaign for ‘Season for Nonviolence.’ The campaign is 64-day-long grassroots, media, and educational campaign beginning on Jan. 30– the anniversary of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. It ends on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4.
The Association for Global New Thought co-founded the annual national campaign with the purpose of creating an awareness of nonviolent principles and practice as a way to heal, transform, and empower lives and communities.
The campaigns teachings can be a great supplement to the Long Beach landscape, where violence happens much too often. Recently, the community gathered together in an outcry after conflict with police put a Cambodian youth in the hospital in critical condition.
As a Corollary to the international event, Voicewaves will be launching our own campaign for nonviolence, in which we will highlight peacemakers from the community and share their stories of progress through our website.
We caught up with some community leaders at a parade last Saturday to talk to them about building peace. The parade marked the end of our local celebration of ‘Peace-Week’ in honor of the lives of MLK, Mohandas Gandhi, Cesar Chavez, and Daisaku Ikeda.