Mie, Japan - On May 17 approximately 180 people gathered to clean Ishigaki Ike Park in Mie, Japan. It had been raining for two days until the early morning of May 17. Fortunately the sun came out from 8am and it became a hot day by the time the event began.

Global Peace Festival in Mie’s project, Service for Peace @ Ishigaki Ike Park, held a cleaning event with Universal Peace Federation, United Filipinos for Peace and Advancement (UFPA), and Suzuka Kameyama Catholic Church Community. The nations represented were Japanese, Philippines, which were the two majorities and Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Republic of Moldova.

Sharing the commonality that they live in the same place, the five different nationals experienced overcoming their differences and cooperating for the purpose of contributing to the society through cleaning together. The trust built by sweating together removed the intangible wall between the groups which previously never had any opportunities to meet and brought confidence to the participants that they can co-exist harmoniously.

The peacefulness of the nation depends on whether there exists the culture of peace. Through this cleaning activity one step went forward towards establishing culture of peace. The venue, drinks, garbage bags and gloves were offered by Suzuka City. Mr. Katsumi Tanabe, Officer of Suzuka City’s Life Safety Department Citizen Dialogue Division Foreigners Exchange Office, gave the opening remarks and participated together until the end. The activity will be posted up on Suzuka City News Magazine.

HAPIKO, a girls’ amateur band, came all the way from Gifu prefecture and made a joint performance with the band of UFPA. They sang GPF theme song and closed the day. Curiously it began raining again just after closing the event.

Link to gallery: http://gallery.me.com/eternalhigh#100099