Seeds For Peace Campaign Taking Root

  (Pictured above:  Seeds for Peace organizer Jeff Arsenault is pictured with students from Winchester
  Public School beside a tree of peace which was planted recently in the school yard.)

(Winchester) – Students at Winchester Public School celebrated a milestone Thursday in their Seeds for Peace campaign.

Nearly one year to the day after they sent sunflower seeds to places such as Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and South Africa, students celebrated the successful planting of their seeds in Kabul, Afghanistan. The children gathered in the gym and viewed a slide show of peers at the Sayed Jamaluden primary school planting seeds that the children sent to Afghanistan with the wife of that country’s ambassador to Canada. Pictures of the planting flashed on the stage screen as Winchester’s student choir sang I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.

Program Coordinator Jeff Arsenault, an educational assistant at the school who organized the campaign, says spreading the seeds is an important symbolic gesture and a first step in achieving peace in countries affected by war. It will create a link between different cultures by sharing a common bond – the joy of nurturing life, he said.

“The whole idea is that we want them to know that we are here and we are thinking about them,” said Arsenault of children in Afghanistan. “We want them to know that we remember them and that we want to help them participate with us in something that can bring them hope.”

Arsenault, an avid gardener, says that planting seeds and nurturing plants is a great way to bring children together and to share life lessons.

“It teaches them about growth, about self-esteem through a project well done, about responsibility and it teaches them about the rewards of caring and nurturing living things.”

Arsenault says that gardening is a hobby that brings him peace and personal fulfillment and he hopes to share that peaceful feeling with children around the world. He noted that world peace will only be achieved when each person has peace in his heart and in his family. Sharing the joy of gardening is a step toward that peace and fulfillment, he said.

His school and select partners in Canada and the United States have sent coloured packages of seeds donated by McKenzie Seeds to schools in several countries affected by war or internal conflict.

The expectation is that those seeds will be planted, sunflowers grown, and that seeds from the plants grown in those countries will be sent back to Arsenault for redistribution. He will send them to other countries affected by war to forge new bonds between children there and those in participating countries.

On Thursday, students also planted a tree of peace and laid a commemorative marble sign in the schoolyard to mark the first year of the project. The stone was donated by Upper Canada Granite and Stone. Arsenault hopes that other schools will follow Winchester’s lead by planting trees to honour the project, and by participating in the seed exchange.

Students at Winchester said they were thrilled to support children in war-torn countries through the program.

“I think it will really help them by knowing that there are kids their age out there who really care for them,” said Winchester Public School student Sophie Reoch.

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For more information, please call:

Jeff Arsenault
Educational Assistant
Winchester Public School
613-774-2607

Posted June 28, 2011