Eniwe High School pupils mark Peace Day with meditation and yoga programme
The Sivananda World Peace Foundation ran a social-cohesion and wellness day at the KwaZulu-Natal school, with its president saying peace-building should start with young people.
Pupils at Eniwe High School in KwaZulu-Natal marked International Peace Day with a day of meditation, breathwork, yoga and mindfulness, run by the Sivananda World Peace Foundation under the theme “Serve. Love. Be Good, Do Good.”
As IOL reported on 21 September, the school programme combined wellness sessions with discussions on respect, moral regeneration and peaceful co-existence, and a yoga session under the theme “Unity in Diversity.”
The foundation’s president, Prince Ishwar Ramlutchman Mabheka Zulu, who is also the Royal Ambassador for Social Cohesion and Economic Development in the Zulu Kingdom, said the work belongs in classrooms.
“When we teach a child to meditate, to breathe, and to live with respect for all faiths and cultures, we are planting the seed of a peaceful society,” he said. “True peace starts in the classroom, with our youngsters.”
International Peace Day, marked on 21 September each year, is a United Nations observance. In South African schools it lands in the middle of the third term, a stretch that carries prelim exams for matriculants and the usual pressures of a long academic year.
That timing is part of the point. The foundation says the programme is intended to give pupils practical tools to manage stress, alongside encouragement to tolerate different faiths and cultures.
The organisation describes the school days as part of its Sivananda Peace Pillars initiative, which promotes the teachings of Swami Sivananda. It says it also runs youth development, scholarship and community upliftment programmes in rural KwaZulu-Natal, and is preparing for the 12th International Day of Yoga.
Social cohesion work in KwaZulu-Natal schools is not new. The province’s classrooms are among the country’s most diverse, and the national school curriculum already requires life orientation teaching on constitutional values, tolerance and respect for diversity. What a foundation-led day adds is the practical version: breathing exercises, movement and a room of pupils doing it together.
The programme’s own stated aim is that young people become positive contributors to their schools and communities.
Source: IOL, KZN pupils learn meditation and mindfulness in peace-building programme
