Today we reached a success! The Peace Hero Museum will soon not have any space restrictions due to the Metaverse reality! It is a unique opportunity to extend our museum to a broader public, letting people know what we do and expand our possibilities to promote peace in the world. 
​

Cecilia Strada, the public face representing peace activism in Italy. 

Dear followers of the Peace Museum,
soon the temporary exhibition here in the Peace Museum Vienna will be substituted with the Italian Peace Heroes, unfortunately pretty punctual and needed since the recent result of the election on September 25th. 
We'll present 20 different Peace Heroes of different kinds: some historical and still active activists, plus some younger activists of Fridays for Future Italy -one of the most active network of Fridays for Future in Europe- to discover and sustain them in their mission against climate change. 
Moreover the Peace Museum Vienna has a news! Besides hanging the traditional exhibition, we'll introduce also some songs with a qr code, to make the Italian experience of the museum full and intense!
​Come to visit us!

Today is the International Day of Peace and the Peace Museum was invited to collaborate with Vienna International School to educate students about Peace with some short and interactive workshops. We joined the celebrations listening to the choir and visiting the Peace Tree of the school, to then going to the students.

The aim of today was to make the students understand how peace starts from little actions in daily life. I was surprised how some 9-years-old-students knew already some important peace heroes such as Rosa Parks, Malala, and Nelson Mandela; but I also noticed that they looked up to those people as mythological heroes, therefore someone to admire but hard to compare in real life. The aim of these workshops was to remind children of different ages how everybody is a potential peace hero, able to do something for the community and willing to actually put it into practice. Many children came up with interesting ideas about what they could do within the week as a gesture of peace, from picking up the trash in the playground to making a donation to even smaller things such as taking care of their family. The slight difference between telling and doing is what actually makes peace harder to reach, therefore we have to praise the teachers who promptly gave those proposals as homework for the next day. If schools and families would promote more of those active moves, maybe we would have even more people stand up for their rights and peace around the world.
Another point that we wanted to remind the children was the controversy of competition, the concept of beating each other to win over someone else or something else. Most fights also among young people are also a form of competition to get attention, rewards, or some other kind of praise. However, such a perception of the other does not only limit the possibility to improve the lives of many but also encourages a predatory conception of the natural resources, a non-sustainable solution for the future. Therefore, we should try to educate kids to equality and harmony to let them live and promote peace with others. 

​Today at the Peace Museum Vienna we’re getting ready for the International Peace Day on September 21st. We’ll be invited to the International School of Vienna to promote peace education with the students.
Since children are the future of the world, it is important to let them understand how it is possible to live with each other without violent confrontation or aggressiveness, in order to be more tolerant and open towards other people. The International School in Vienna is definitely a nice environment to improve relationships with each other and foster a more equal and tolerant future, plus is also very active in enriching the learning experience of the students by organizing some events such as the one we’ll join tomorrow. Our aim is to highlight how peace is something to look for every day and to build up every day with small actions and examples. We should remember to children how peace lies in our hands and how examples in daily lives can also inspire and help others.
Peace Education with children is one of the main aim of the Peace Museum Vienna. We try to educate them to tolerance and love from a very young age to make them understand the importance of respect and tolerance with other people and with the rest of the world. This way we make them understand their role and their relevance in fostering peace, harmony and acceptance; by making the Museum also more alive and interactive. Peace starts from within, as a state of mind, and only when children are peaceful and aware of their actions, they can inspire and educate adults and the other people around them. Children could be the first Peace Heroes we educate on the grounds of what we learned from our previous peace heroes.
I will update you on the event tomorrow! In the meantime, try to be active and be aware of the way your actions impact the environment you live in. 

​"Peace is strongly correlated to freedom, the freedom of choosing the topic to discuss and the freedom of not being forced to think about politics all the time". Such words were coming from a nice visitor of the Peace Museum Vienna coming from Hong Kong.
Talking with this man I was astonished by the way he recognised himself as a Chinese who cannot look back or relate to his home country, its history and its culture. The way in which Communism interfered with Chinese History and Politics was for him one of the most severe cuts between mainland China and Hong Kong. As the years passed the situation became more dangerous and the Chinese control more restrictive in the Popular Republic, causing even more alert in Hong Kong.
 
The situation in Hong Kong is historically complex. The city used to be part of the Chinese empire until the Opium War, when it became a British colony. The English Empire settled in the city and tried to apply its institutions within this Chinese territory that still nowadays is an important support of the West block. The role of the city became particularly important during the Cold War, after 1949, when the Chinese Popular Republic was proclaimed. Hong Kong population raised and its economic development accelerated. Several industrial centres from the close industrial cities moved to Hong Kong, increasing its output and its economic and strategic importance.
However, Great Britain and China signed an agreement in 1997 where the former British colony will be returned to mainland China after 50 years from the signature of this bilateral agreement. Since the agreement several people from Hong Kong started protesting against the Chinese government, asking for more freedom and security.
 
The feeling of tiredness of this man - who told me to be interested in politics to the extent that he even joined the protest in Tiananmen Square - made me reflect not just on how politics is able to impact people's lives and how advocating for rights is never a lost cause, but also how his sense of powerless and tiredness of leaving in a constant threat made him give up his cause. This is the reason why we have to strongly sustain peace and human rights activists who acts in a constant feeling of threat. People such as the activist Josha Wong face lots of difficulties in showing their position and not denying it and we, who live in our democratic and safe countries have the duty of show support and interest in the cause.

At the Peace Museum in Vienna, several people bring their stories and experiences and relate to the exhibition and the concept of peace. Today I had the honor to meet a delightful woman who lives in the States, but has grown up in Iran. When I asked her opinion about peace and what does she think we should look for to reach peace she became very emotional. I initially was puzzled, but afterward, she told me about the experienced when she was still in her home country. Iran is not known for its progressive political view, on the contrary, it's one of the most conservative governments led by the Taliban since 1979. Under the Taliban regime, women don't have access to University, are not allowed to travel without the permission of their husband or their father, cannot work in the public sphere or join several public events. The story and the experience of this woman were particularly touching due to the violent persecution she had to face due to her Bahai faith. Such a faith is a rather recent interpretation of the holy script of the Muslim religion, which tries to approach the Muslim principles to a more progressive view of society where women and men are equal, where schools should introduce 'Western Science' and which follows the purpose of uniting the world under a peaceful frame.
Since its origins -during the Pahlavi dynasty- the Bahai faith was not recognized and its followers persecuted, still nowadays the situation has not changed. Bahai people are threatened, their houses or belongings burned down and they don't have access to higher education unless they deny their own faith. Despite most religions and faith all over the world advocating for peace, solidarity and understanding of each other, it is interesting to see how most of the concepts of religions are then not applied by their own prophets or followers. It is the case of the Church in the Middle Ages during the Crusades, the case of the Taleban Regime in nowadays Iran or Afghanistan, or is the case of many other religions. Most of those faiths try to build a peaceful and strong community, based onsome precepts that should guide everyday life to a better world, but eventually seem to create agood excuse for further conflicts and suffering.
​I believe this woman's experience was a starting point for reflection on the condition of women in the Integralists Countries and the difficult coexistence of different religions in the same territories. People have a lot to learn and a lot to think about peace nowadays, a good reflection on religion and peace will probably help understand the path towards a peaceful world.

To anybody who is reading this blog, I am Anita Micheli, one of the new interns at the Peace Museum in Vienna! I studied International Relations in Italy and I am especially passionate about intercultural dialogues and foreign politics.
I believe peace is a value that deserves to be pursued and never taken for granted, chased after with the use of words and actions that could contribute to reduce injustice around the world as the deeds of Nelson Mandela, Gandhi or Martin Luter King showed.
​
In this blog I will post some reflections about peace and some of our peace heroes, plus I will update you on what are the activities of the Peace Museum Vienna! So get updated with peace activism and let yourself get inspired by those people and our activities!