Today, instead of running many mile to visits school children in far flung places, we had a group of students visit us from a nearby Hindu Summer Camp.

Our friend, Mitali Bandhu (pictured right above) planned many things with Ranjana Ghose (Curator of Si Chinmoy's Jharna Kala art collection) and others to help us all enjoy the event.

We were delighted to be able to host the children accompanied by senior officials and representatives of the Hindu Temple at "Aspiration Ground" a place where Sri Chinmoy, World Harmony Run founder spent much of his life sharing his remarkable spirit and philosophy through all kinds of creative and sporting endeavors.

The children learned songs taught by Paree and Govinda. Sri Chinmoy composed a remarkable 23,000 songs.

Today our visitors learned just three songs.

Our international team shared our message that peace and harmony starts in the heart of each one of us.

The WHR Banner they were holding showed support for the International Year of Youth (IYY) and the International Year of Forests (IYF) proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly. (See more at end of this report)

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Guessing countries of International Runners

Grahak and Salil demonstrate where they come from by hopping like kangaroos. The children quickly and correctly guessed Australia.

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Prayers and Wishes on a Harmony Tree

The children composed prayers and wishes for peace and harmony that were extremely heartfelt and profound. These were written on paper shaped like leaves and then placed on a symbolic "Harmony Tree."

Some of the students then volunteered to read their wishes out loud.

Here are some of the wishes:

"I wish all wars will end and no wars will start."

"I wish that my friends are happy for the rest of their lives."

"World Peace. Green Environment. No Poverty. Equal Rights. Love. Happiness."

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Harmony Run Theme song with Actions

After we sang the Harmony Run Theme song...

We then taught all the actions RUN, RUN, RUN, RUN

                              

World Harmony RUN.....

             We are the Oneness and Fullness

       of Tomorrow's Sun

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 Tree Planting

Next we headed outside to plant a real "Harmony Tree."

The area is very Green. It was fun to follow the torch and banner.

Everyone participated

The children carefully put soil on.

Then they added water - to make sure the tree got off to a good start.

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Importance of Trees:

They read out some of the many benefits trees provide to the world.

"Trees are important because:

• they give us oxygen;
• they remove carbon dioxide from the air;
• they provide us with many foods (fruits, nuts, cocoa, maple syrup);

• they provide us with wood;
• we get many medicines from trees;
• they provide homes for many animals;
• they prevent the land from becoming a desert."

Can you see some of these things represented in the logo below:

The young peoples science research and readings were most appropiate for understanding the reasons for the International Year of Forest supported on the banner.

In the USA on 20 April 2011, at NY City Dag Hammarskjold Plaza the Harmony Run participated in an event across for the UN Headquarters. It celebrated Earth Day with a special focus on the Environment and Year of Forests. A key speaker was Jan McAlpine, Director of the United Nations Division on Forests and head of the United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) Secretariat. She explained much about the year and the logo. (see more),

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Harmony Poetry

And since it was a "Harmony Tree" they were Planting, the children read out some of Sri Chinmoy's poetry on Harmony*:

• Harmony can solve all world problems.
• We can have Harmony if we have a deep reverence for Mother Nature.

• May the sweeter than the sweetest Heart of Harmony echo and re-echo inside every dividing and divided human mind.
• Harmony will before long dawn. It will not remain in an imaginary world forever.

As a sign of gratitude for the children's' beautiful performances, Ranjana presented each with their own copy of the Harmony book.

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Passing the Torch and Running

There was time for people to walk with the torch nearby

and pass it.  Arpan also gave us some safety tips on running.

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Finally everyone got some food and we said farewell.

Thanks so much for coming to visit us.

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One of the Harmony Run banners used today had many different languages including Russian and Ukrainian.

Recently Harmony Run teams from Russia, Ukraine and Belarus joined together during an international festival "Slavic Unity-2011" at the Friendship Monument of the meeting of the common borders of Russia's Bryansk region, the Chernigov region of Ukraine, and the Gomel region of Belarus. This year the festival was held by Russia and organized in the Bryansk region.

Currently there is also a run in Siberia from mid-July - August. (Follow the run and see incredible pictures from Siberia)

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The World Harmony Run proudly supports the International Year of Youth (IYY) and the International Year of Forests (IYF) proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly.

See the recent Youtube video on African experience which illustrates IYY slogan "Our Year Our Voice"  International Year of Youth - Zambia World Harmony. They surprisingly mention Presidents and UN Secretary-General in a unique way! 

See also the UNESCO World Heritage (WH) Centre support for IY of Forests.  ... Convention for conservation of forest biodiversity. (more)

* The Harmony Quotes read by the Children are from the small gift  book: "Harmony" by Sri Chinmoy, published by Jharna Kala Card Co. (1995) ; Jamaica , NY 11432 (pages: 4, 10, 56, 12. )

– Salil Wilson and others

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Team Members:
International Team form Austalia, New Zealand, USA multiple cities etc.

Harmonemail:
You can send a message to the runners or read the messages.

Gallery: See more images!

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