WIC Celebrates Peace Festival, Honours Media Organizations, Others In Kaduna

NEWSDAILYNIGERIA: The Interfaith Forum of Muslim and Christian Women’s Associations, also known as Women’s Interfaith Council, (WIC) has ended a peace Festival as part of activities to celebrate the 16 days activism in the state.

The event attracted an array of Religious and traditional leaders in the state, policy makers, CSOs, NGOs, Peace stakeholders, Women and youth groups among others.

The Peace Festival featured a peace walk, award recognition to deserving Media organizations and individuals, health sensitization/ checks, Panel discussion, musical/ cultural performances and lots more.

Speaking the Executive Director, WIC, Rev. Sr. Veronica Ifeanyiwa Onyeanisi, OLA, said the gathering is to celebrate our shared humanity through the Peace Festival and also the 16 days Activism : “Unite our actions to end violence against women and girls”. We started the program with a peace walk by the women carrying placards saying No to Domestic Violence, No to violence against women and girls and let us come together to build rainbow Kaduna State where everyone belongs irrespective of our differences.

” We are also celebrating what we have achieved in the past years( 14), before we couldn’t stay together like this to celebrate but today, we are telling our success stories that we can, and that we can still do more; we have done a lot and we still have more to do, in the state where we can move together, where we can sleep with our two eyes closed” she stressed.

She further said the Media Institutions and individuals recognized today for award for their invaluable contributions to peace are “some of those who have been working with us in the promotion of peace in the state and the country, we have recognized individuals, media houses, such as NTA, AIT, Invicta FM, Newsdailynigeria online, Philip Omachi ( Oga Driver) we also have those that helping us with Psycho social trauma support because we work in conflict areas and most of these people have been affected and are traumatized “

She also noted while underscoring the importance of peace and proper healing for people to move and live freely with one another. “I know there are many that have lost their lives contributing to peace but today we are happy that we telling the success story, and I thank you the Media ,you have always been there to promote and propagate peace, may God hear our prayers and be merciful to us” she added.

Similarly, the Country Cordinator JISRA, Mr Jude Likita, said the Joint Initiative for Strategic Religious Action (JISRA) an initiative that started in 7 Countries in the world and being implemented by over 50 CSOs worldwide, also implemented in countries like Ethiopia, Iran, Ugandan Kenya, Indonesia and Nigeria.

According to him, JISRA programs seek to promote Freedom of Religion and belief, adding that with this 16 days of activism going on, ” WIC which is one of the partners that is implementing the JISRA programs in Nigeria, decided to do a peace festival to also mark and celebrate Women and Youths to ensure that peacefulness that we are enjoying presently in Kaduna state can continue and that contributes to the work that we do in promoting freedom of Religion and belief” he said.

In the same vein, the Permanent Commissioner, Kaduna State Peace Commission, Hajia Khadijah Gambo Hawaja , describing the WIC Peace Festival, saying” it’s women coming together to organize themselves and also invite Women including Men to come and talk about issues that concerns Women and so the discussion today centres around gender based violence, GBV, and also on freedom of religion and belief, which you know women are often times excluded from serious religious discuss ,

“So I think the purpose of coming here is to remind us the challenge ahead of us and the work we need to do together, that is collaborating as Muslims, as Christians, whatever we are, to ensure that we end all forms of violence against Women and to also foster unity among people of different beliefs, residing either in Kaduna or every part of Nigeria,

” so essentially, that’s the reason why we are here celebrating ourselves as Women, how far we have come and preparing ourselves for the journey ahead of us” she reiterated.

On her part, the General Coordinator, WIC, Mrs Elizabeth Abuk, appreciating the success of the festival, noted efforts of WIC over 14 years in advancing the course of peace and cementing relationships among people of different religions and beliefs in the state” WIC has been working, we started almost 14 years ago, it was very rough, very tough, the issue of unbelief and and lack of trust,

“but today, that we are now believing in each other, we believe that we can live together in peace, apart from the divide and rule from the political side, but whatever the challenge we have come a long way and we are doing fine, we have been in so many local governments, working in some other states: what we have in Kaduna is that many people believe we can live together” she added.

On her part, the Muslim coordinator, Hajia Hauwa Usman Magayaki speaking in Hausa, tasked government to basically advance peace by strengthening religious harmony among the different communities in the state, pointing out the need to unite the religious leaders and all people irrespective of their faiths or where they come from, to understand each and live together.

Similarly, the Christian Coordinator, Rev Dr Rose Okpagoye, called for conscious religious and moral education in our schools, to consciously reawaken in our young ones the fact that we can actually live together as Christians and Muslims, “some of us grew up living together ,we never knew who was a Muslim, we never knew he or she was a Christian, but with politicians who began to divide and rule using it for their own political purposes and aims, things began to go wrong,”

” but it’s not late, we can go back to where we were, but it has to start with conscious efforts with our children in the schools, from elementary, teaching the Muslim and Christian children that this is your brother, this is your sister and that we can live together and they will grow up with that in their subconscious and seeing each as friends and neighbours” she averred.