Forget about war for a week and focus on finding peace.

Several Loyola organizations including Bridging the Gap, Black Student Union, Muslim Student Association, among others will join together to bring  Loyola the conference on world peace from March 23 to March 27.

According to Puja Cuddapah, biological sciences senior and chairperson of the dialogue committee, Vice Provost for Academic Programs Roger White introduced the idea to the different organizations and called students to see if they would be willing to participate in it.

“By promoting and encouraging events such as Peace Week, the Provost’s Office helps to bring the university in line with the essential mission of the university, which is to encourage students to develop their intellectual, ethical, and creative potentials,” White said.

The group began planning last semester with the goal in mind to create awareness about peace around campus and the New Orleans community. According to biology senior and chairperson of the peace conference, Danish Siddiqui, the event’s purpose is to make people aware that peace is not a vague idea.

“I think peace is open communication,” Siddiqui said. “Peace is everyone understanding one another, accepting one another, communicating with one another.”

She said this conference would make people see that by taking little steps, such as interacting with one another, it can lead to a greater perspective and the greater goal of world peace. 

According to Cuddapah, people can take the theme literally, meaning if people are born in New Orleans then peace starts in New Orleans. However, Cuddapah suggested other places to call home such as the heart.

“Peace starts in your home which is your heart,” she said.

With the theme “peace starts at home,” the week-long conference will be divided into research  and dialogue events — all focusing on peace.

During the conference, students who submitted papers on peace for the research element of the conference will be presenting their findings.  The research committee of the event chose fifteen papers out of 29 and three will be presented each day from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Not all of the students presenting their papers are from Loyola, however. There were two students from LSU and one from UNO.

Jihan Shami, biology sophomore and chairperson of the research committee, said students’ papers will be judge and two $250  awards will be given each to the best paper and to the best paper on the Middle East.

According to Siddiqui, these students are trying to make a difference in the community and trying to engage in conversation with their peers through their work.

To complement the student presentations, the dialogue committee chose four speakers for the dialogue events — two of them being from New Orleans.

The dialogue events will run for about two hours at Satchmo’s from Monday to Thursday.

According to Cuddapah, “everybody (in the dialogue committee) brought their own idea. Whichever speaker you wanted to bring you were in charge of bringing them,” she said.

Speakers weren’t given a specific agenda to follow, said Cuddapah. However, they have focused on the topics of local and broader peace. 

Even though the event will run for five days, speakers are limited to only four days.

According to Cuddapah, the committees of the event are encouraging students to attend the play “Trojan Women” on March 13.

According to the Theater Department’s website, the play is an adaptation of Euripide’s classic play. Its main idea centered on a group of women struggling to understand the horrors and devastation they have gone through because of gods and men.

To culminate this event, as Cuddapah said, there will be a candle vigil on Thursday night at the peace quad. This event is important for the Loyola community because it bring s  the campus together to stand for peace — peace beginning at home, Bryan said.

The event’s coordinators hope to deliver a peaceful week from which students can learn the perspectives on peace of their community, said Tanya Hamilton, political science sophomore and director of marketing.

“Come for the purpose of the event,” Hamilton said. “Come because it has significant meaning and it may inspire you to one day join these committees and so that you can make a difference on Loyola’s campus and in the community.”

Andrea Castillo can be reached at [email protected].