The Tehran Peace Museum, which serves as the Iranian Secretariat of Mayors for Peace, involved in two peace activities in November and December 2019.
“Science for all” festival
In November 2019, two members of the volunteer staff of the Tehran Peace Museum, which also serves as the Iranian Secretariat of Mayors for Peace, raised public awareness about the effects of weapons of mass destruction in Iran by participating in the “Science for all” festival run by Iran’s National Science Museum.
“Science for all” is a festival which provides people with the opportunity to gain knowledge about different aspects of science. In this festival, Ms. Farzaneh Nazari, who was one of the participants of the HIROSHIMA and PEACE 2018 course, delivered a speech on peaceful ways of using nuclear energy. The main sections of her speech were about: nuclear structure; application of nuclear energy in health, agriculture, and water resource management; the nuclear disasters in Fukushima and Chernobyl; and the atomic bombing in Hiroshima.
Ms. Mona Badamchizadeh, who worked as an intern at the Hiroshima Secretariat of Mayors for Peace in September 2019, held a digital art exhibition with support from the Tehran Peace Museum and the National Science Museum, which exhibited artworks related to the consequences of use of weapons of mass destruction. The exhibit also included drawings by atomic bomb survivors from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum’s collection.
Peace Journalism Simulation
The Iranian Secretariat of Mayors for Peace held a workshop titled “Peace Journalism Simulation” in collaboration with the Peace Reporters Association and Iranian Association for Peace Studies at the Tehran Peace Museum on December 27 and 28, 2019.
On the first day of the workshop, the participants learned the basics and principles of peace journalism and ways to avoid bias. The topic of the second day was the principles of humanitarian law, the need to protect civilians and not to attack civilian places, and the protection of journalists. Also discussed was the political history of Afghanistan and the process of peace negotiations between the US and the Taliban.
The final section was a simulation of peace jounalism. The participants were divided into different groups and worked on a news report on Afghan peace negotiations, based on what they learned during the workshop. After the representatives of each group presented reports, the lecturers corrected the texts and explained the important points of each report.
The two-day workshop ended with the presentation of a certificate of completion to each participant.
(Photos Courtesy of Iranian Secretariat of Mayors for Peace)