Students’ cross border New Year greetings


Students’ cross border New Year greetings
Cross-border New Year greetings

A youth organization facilitates greeting cards by schoolchildren in Chandigarh, India and Lahore, Pakistan

Pooja lives in Chandigarh, India. Fatima lives in Lahore, Pakistan. Only five hours apart in driving distance, the cities seem much further due to the hostile borders. But hopes are high. However, Indian PM Modi’s surprise visit to Lahore has given hope to Fatima and Pooja that one day they too will be able to surprise their friend across the border.

"We want peace"

“We want peace”

Both girls are participants of an initiative by Yuvsatta (youth for peace), facilitating an exchange of New Year cards between the students of Knowledge Inn Preparatory School (KIPS), Lahore, Pakistan and Carmel Convent School (CCS), Chandigarh, India.

Yuvsatta is an NGO that has formed Peace Clubs in more than a hundred schools in India and Pakistan, and also organizes an annual Global Youth Peace Fest in the “peace city” Chandigarh.

The card exchange aims to strengthen the virtues of nonviolence and friendship in young minds and revive old traditions for developing new connections between people of India and Pakistan, says Aliya Harir, Yuvsatta’s Youth Ambassador of Change in Pakistan.

Guided by Ritu Yadav, teacher at CCS and Namra Nasir, Research and Development Head at KIPS, the students have made over 200 cards and letters, all carrying messages of peace, love and friendship for their friends across barbed wires, according to a recent press statement.

“We believe in fostering peace, love, and affection between the people of India and Pakistan,” says Yuvsatta Coordinator Pramod Sharma. “It is important that peace emanate from students who are at a formative stage.”

CCSHe believes that childhood is the most important stage to inculcate the right values, and foster love and brotherhood. The greeting cards exchange will not only promote goodwill and friendship at the grassroots level, “but it will also help the students grow as collaborators in the long run,” he adds.

The cards from Caramel Convent School addressed to friends in Pakistan not only talk about their lives but also express interest in knowing how New Year is celebrated on the other side of the border.

“Distance does not matter, happy New Year my friend,” wrote a student from India.

A student from Pakistan replied “Whatever color your skin may be, whatever your religion may be, whatever your situation may be, I wish you good health, lots of love and possibilities of peace.”

Upon receiving the cards from India, some students from KIPS immediately sat down and wrote responses, said Namra Nasir, who collected the cards at KIPS. Good wishes and prayers “always spread a positive aura,” she commented.

She hopes that greetings sent and received across the India-Pakistan border will be precedents of stronger bonds of peace and friendship. “May the peace activism of the students be auspicious for Indo-Pak friendship, for the New Year 2016 and the years to come!”

The cards from Pakistan also express the hope for an end to the Indo-Pak conflict in the coming New Year. “We cannot really go back in time and make a brand new start. Let’s start from now and make a new ending. Let’s be friends in the new year.”

CC-2-(1)Many of the cards expressed the students’ desire to meet each other.

“One day I want to meet you, and I hope we can be great friends,” wrote a student from Carmel Convent School. Another student wrote that she “would like to come visit you in Pakistan.”

“I am so happy to have received your New Year card,” responded Zoha Khan from KIPS “I hope you get good grades in your final exams. Never let anything demotivate you.”

Although they had never met, the students expressed kindness and love in their letters. “You’re the best friend that I never met. Happy new year” Kiran wrote from Carmel Convent School.

Many of the children made artwork depicting snowmen, peace birds and mountains. Some also drew the two flags together.

“The idea behind the new year cards exchange is simple,” says Ritu Yadav, facilitating the exchange of cards from Carmel Convent School, Chandigarh. “It enables kids across barbed wires to communicate with one another and send each other greetings and felicitations. Children create hopes where politics create chaos. They make friends when war only makes enemies.”

KIPS-1Sister Maria Swati A.C., Principal of Carmel Convent School finds such exchanges “really helpful” in changing the outlook of students about children their age from neighbouring countries. “Something as simple as a greeting card is enough to connect two people who their textbooks call enemies,” she says.

The students are feeling overwhelmed by this exchange and hope that Yuvsatta will continue bringing India and Pakistan closer in the coming years, she adds.

By enabling students in both countries to write letters of friendship, love and peace to fellow students across the border, Yuvsatta aims to inculcate positive and facilitating thoughts, says Pramod Sharma.

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