Mwana Trust
Mwana Trust is a women-led child development, protection and women empowerment organization concerned with the welfare of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs), children with special needs, women at grassroots level and communities. It’s a proud MasterPeace club since the beginning of 2022.
Inner peace project by Mwana Trust MasterPeace (Zimbabwe)
Our dedicated MasterPeace team focused on Art Therapy to promote a sense of inner peace and sense of childlike curiosity and express their vision of what peace looks like to them by adding all elements that evoke this. The project termed ‘BEING A KID AGAIN BACK2BASICS’ garnered such a refreshingly positive response which was the desired effect.
It is almost always a little more complicated working with adults, especially in the African context because of walls and ideas built overtime that may reflect undertones of resistance to the activity. It was different because they felt like children again, and it was a little uncomfortable for them but the walls almost immediately fell down as they warmed up to the idea of this activity being beneficial.
The aim was to simply outline what peace meant to each of us reflecting through our personalities and colorings. Creativity is a universal language that transcends culture, previous experiences, and even current biases. The transforming potential of art leads to self-awareness and discovery, which aids in coping with differences and resolving issues in a peaceful manner.
This tiny effort is significant in and of itself because peace ambassadors are already assuming their place by learning about themselves and what it means to them first before trying to propel the peace agenda. This required a lot of introspective work, which appears to be a minor effort but is actually particularly critical work.
So, conversations lead into the question how we can act together towards co-creation of a peaceful office environment by developing empathy. Staff was able to relax and enable expressive dialogue in line with this. With this in hand tangible teamwork leads to a positive work ethic that allows people to bring their unique identity and creativity.
This activity also spoke to the need of allowing nimbleness and creativity to approach hard topics of achieving peace in a work system that rarely cares about its employees well being more than the results they produce.
The activity aimed at conflict management, supportive teamwork, collaboration, expression and creating a deeper understanding of empathy among us.
Growth towards understanding inner peace leading to environmental peace was inspired in the team. We believe in small efforts towards big change.
