November 6 saw the launch of U of T’s fourth annual Peace Week, an event that features presentations, forums, music and art to promote reflection and debate on the “prospects of creating a sustainable culture of peace.”

“Instead of just one day a year to reflect on failed peace and our culture of war, the aim of Peace Week is to address how peace might be successfully sustained,” said Guru Fatha Singh, one of Peace Week’s organizers and a chaplain at U of T.

The week-long program kicked off with “Dances of Universal Peace,” a participatory event of multicultural dance and songs.

A variety of films are scheduled to be shown, such as Diamonds, Guns and Rice, a documentary that describes and analyzes the rise and establishment of the Sierra Leone women’s peace movement formed in Freetown in 1996.

Speakers include Denis Halliday, the former assistant Secretary-General of the U.N. and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and Trinity College provost Margaret Macmillan.

While Peace Week is currently limited to the St. George campus, Janet Chow and fellow student organizers hope that it will catch on at U of T’s two other campuses in Scarborough and Mississauga-and beyond.

“Our ultimate goal is for Peace Week to be a global event,” said Singh, with the main objective of “raising awareness of the dynamics of war, the preventability of conflict and the need for peace in a world of ever more devastating and diabolical armaments.”

Friday will see a presentation from various international peace groups about their experiences as unarmed civilian peacekeepers-heroically-minded citizens of first-world countries who place themselves in areas in conflict around the world to bring attention to them, “getting in the way” of injustice and death to stop it from happening. They will speak at Hart House at 7:30 p.m.

Peace Week wraps up Saturday with a benefit concert for War Child Canada, an independent charitable organization that works to assist children affected by war and to raise awareness for children’s rights.

The concert, to be held at Hart House, features a line-up of local talent such as Wax Mannequin, Peter Elkas, The Ghost is Dancing and Jasper Flat. Tickets can be reserved at [email protected] and will cost $6 in advance and $9 at the door.