The Student Peace Initiative held the 18th annual Peace Festival, celebrating this year’s theme: Survival. The event, held on Oct. 22, was a prelude to the upcoming 18th Annual Peace Conference held in the spring, and the Call for Papers for the upcoming conference was also announced during this event.
This year, the event had multiple activities for students who attended, including henna, tie-dye, and birdhouse painting, since the Student Peace Initiative’s logo is a bird, according to sophomore Mallory Phillips, who helped with this year’s Peace Festival.
“I only came for a little bit last year, but I think that we have a lot more activities this year,” Phillips said.
Alongside these activities, the Peace Festival invited Loyola music students and bands to perform, as is usually done each year, and there was also a grill provided for food.
“It exploded from just this fun event where you could watch live music to being a bigger thing with all kinds of activities, and it’s been so cool to watch it grow and be part of that,” Phillips said.
Additionally, all of the activities in the festival were planned with Loyola’s ethics kept in mind, including thrifting all of the t-shirts for tie-dye and ensuring all of the meat served was halal.
“I think it serves as this really visual reminder of what our values are as a university because not only is this a space where you can gather together, eat, and have fun, but it’s a place to do so within the ethics of our university,” Phillips said.
Phillips expressed her excitement regarding the spring Peace Conference, especially with this year’s theme focusing on survival.
“Peace Con is like my Coachella,” Phillips said. “I had such a good experience last year, but the theme last year was unraveling political polarization, which obviously was an interesting theme, but it wasn’t something that grabbed my attention the way that this year’s theme does. I just feel like that’s such a great theme to explore; it’s so relevant, and I think the Peace Initiative does a really good job of picking things that are really relevant.”
Junior Student Peace Initiative Operations Officer Sally Mannix also elaborated on how important these themes are to Loyola’s community, especially regarding the current state of the world and how Loyola’s students perceive it.
“A lot of our themes have to do with, like, our theme last year was polarization in peace and conflict, so that’s kind of showing both sides of the spectrum, not creating more divide, but showing both sides to bring people together, and I feel like that’s really important, especially for students to see,” Mannix said.
