What comes to mind when you think of the word smile? For me, a number of songs, including "You're never fully dressed without a smile." (Thanks, Little Orphan Annie.) Lately, with so much trauma in our news, "Smile, though your heart is breaking" rings more true, but how can one smile when there is so much heartbreak?
Our founding director Amani has thoughts on the benefits of nonviolence (see video below), and offers that smiling is one of the practices we can do daily. Amani shares with us that it's an ingredient to inner peace, as taught by the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, who wrote:
“If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.”
Here is what a few of the students had to say when asked what brought a smile to their face this last month at the Congo Peace School:
MWAMINI KALEMBU: “I am 17 years old, a student at the Peace School in 3rd Grade of secondary school (9th grade). I am from a family of 9 children, 7 sisters and 2 brothers and I am the 7th born. After my mother died, our dad went to a gold mining site, and we’re not sure if he’s alive or not because he has not been in communication with us for years. Without parents, we were not able to stay in school, and we all dropped out until we heard of the Congo Peace School. Along with two of my sisters and one brother, I was enrolled at the Congo Peace School. I started smiling that day, and will not stop smiling: the day I got a pair of school uniforms kept my smile alive and this month of April, I smiled again when I heard we are getting some sanitary kits to take care of ourselves during our monthly period. The Congo Peace School is the source of my smile. In school I very much like Institution to Social Services as a subject, every time we have that class, it makes me smile too.”
ZAWADI BAFAKULERA: “I am a 1st grade student in secondary school (7th grade). I am 14 years old and from a family of seven. I am the youngest, and I live with my mother, my father died. My mother is not well, and we have nobody to take care of her with health assistance, and getting food is always difficult for us. But every day that I remember that the Peace School is providing for my education and food, I smile. Coming to school every day makes me smile. I like the subject of history because I get to learn about the past in our country, in the region, and in the rest of the world.”
MATENDO CIZA: “I am 15 years old, a student in 3rd grade of secondary school at the Congo Peace School (9th grade). I am from a family of six, but unfortunately two of my brothers died of malaria. I live with my sister as we have no parents. This month I smiled when we went to plant trees. In the past, I’d never had the chance to plant a tree in my life, the first time I planted a tree was at the Peace School. It makes me feel happy to be in harmony with nature by protecting the environment in a country with many natural disasters. Computer science is my favorite subject and I like being in front of a computer learning. Becoming a computer engineer will make me smile again and again.”
At the Congo Peace School, the principles of nonviolence are the bedrock of the curriculum. Watch this brief video to be inspired to pursue nonviolence as a daily, hourly, minute-by-minute practice in your own life.
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