Talking to TNIE, Ravi Nitesh founder of Aaghaz-e-Dosti said, “We observed a few unique things this year: Students were painting even on contemporary issues. For example, Sirjan Kaur, a student from Swami Sant Das Public School in Jalandhar, Punjab, has made a painting of Neeraj Chopra’s mother showing her hands upon the shoulders of Neeraj and Nadeem, saying ‘both are my sons’. This is a beautiful thing that young students are aware about these issues and linking such chains where they see peace and bonding.””This year, we also brought Nest Man of India Rakesh Khatri and people from the International Watercolor Society to open new avenues of linking both sides which young citizens need to know,” he said. Nitesh said, “The events create a culture of peace, as schools follow up with Aaghaz-e-Dosti for more activities. Recently, we facilitated a letter exchange program between Sajnjan Nagar Public School in Lahore and Kamla Nimbkar Balbhavan at Phaltan of Maharashtra where students wrote letters to each other, as ten students from each school wrote to each other telling about their culture, school, library and each other’s likes and dislikes.” “We are planning that, in the coming days, more schools from each country get connected to each other via video conferencing and thus students will share their experiences and aspirations in order to overcome misunderstandings,” he says. “At a time when the world is surrounded by things of war and conflicts, such actions by young people in India and Pakistan actually reflects how beautiful and strong our cultural bond is and how our future generations are willing to be connected and look for a future which is more peaceful, safer, violence free, hatred free, arms free,” he added.
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