Peace of mind matters

‘An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind’ said Mahatma Gandhi, fondly known as the ‘Father of the Nation’.  

In simple words, peace education is the way of gaining knowledge, values, skills, and behaviours to live in harmony with oneself, others, and the natural surroundings. It leads to a path which is filled with prosperity for all. And to achieve so, it becomes essential for all educational institutions to develop such a peaceful mindset among the youth when they are in their formative age.

Apeejay Stya University (ASU) has always kept this social responsibility in its mind and remains ahead in fulfilling its duties towards the society, country and the world, in an endeavour to achieve its vision of man-making and nation-building.

In this regard, National Service Scheme (NSS), Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) and Rotaract Club of ASU recently organised Valedictory of Peace Education Programme (PEP), a ten module-based value added course in collaboration with The Prem Rawat Foundation. 

Endeavouring  to create a better place to live in, the programme therefore aimed at developing a peaceful mindset among young learners. It was a free 10 module-based value-added course for Apeejay students. Each module in the PEP focusses on one particular theme such as: Peace, Appreciation, Inner Strength, Self-awareness, Clairity, Understanding, Dignity, Choice, Hope, and Contentment.

The valedictory ceremony of PEP was presided over by Hon’ble Vice Chancellor of ASU Prof. Raj S. Dhankar, who was the Chief Guest and Mr. KK Miglani, a retired Director from the Railways and a senior resource person, who was the Guest of Honour.

During the event, Prof. Dhankar recalled his stay in the US and mentioned about the increasing violence in the society world over, particularly in the western society, where every day people are coming across news on shootouts. He said, “Such programme are very important to develop a positive mindset of the people at a very young age and I  congratulate NSS for organising this programme on such a wonderful theme.” 

Further, Mr. KK Miglani thanked Apeejay Stya University to provide full support in all the manners to make this value-added course a success. 

Subsequently, Dr. Ananda Padhan, Associate Professor and Head of the School of Education at ASU emphasised that this value-added course would help students in increasing their employability. This programme imparts lessons that will turn out to be helpful life-long. Peace of mind is a great way to reduce day to day stress. It’s the key to happiness.”  

The current batch was the first batch having more than 30 students who opted for this hybrid mode of teaching-learning engagement. Fifty percent of the programme was transacted in the offline mode whereas the remaining was in the online mode. All these classes were highly effective using the  multimedia approach.  Ms. Tanuja Vashistha was the programme coordinator at the event.

Sharing her experience, Toshila, a B Design student with ASU said, “It was a wonderful session and I got to learn from it a lot. This programme basically was divided into 10 modules and all are important in our life in order to strike a balance and maintain peace. If even one is missing from our life, we may not receive that peace completely. I feel, in any situation, we should just go with the flow and follow our heart.”

Another participant from the School of Biosciences Chandrajeet Dhara said, “Overall the event was very informative and peaceful. It actually helped me introspect in a better way than before. I enjoyed and learnt a lot.”

Dr. Vijay Kumar, Coordinator, Peace Education Programme mentioned, “Peace Education is a crucial theme for the development of a peaceful mindset of youth. It was the first such value added course, and students have enjoyed it a lot during the programme. More such programmes will be organised in future too.” 

In the end, successful students of the first batch received certificates and The Prem Rawat Foundation felicitated top performing students, Toshika, Dashmeet Kaur and Chandrajeet Dhara, with a book written by Mr. Prem Rawat, ambassador for peace and consummate storyteller.