On Friday, May 20th Scunthorpe Renaissance Town Team hosted a small dedication ceremony for the recently-placed Peace Pole in Central Park. Prayers and blessings were given by representatives of the local faith communities. Thanks to everyone who came.
The Peace Pole project was started in Japan in 1955 by Masahisa Goi. Peace Poles are simply wooden poles with the message "May Peace Prevail On Earth" written down each side in multiple languages. They are placed in public spaces to inspire people that see them to think of a more peaceful world. There are now around 200,000 Peace Poles worldwide in over 180 countries. Notable sites include the Pyramids and the magnetic North Pole.
Scunthorpe Renaissance Town Team and the North Lincs Multi-Faith Partnership decided to take on the project of placing a Peace Pole in Central Park, Scunthorpe. We raised about 70% of the necessary money from the local trade unions and the rest was from personal donations and Town Team's own funds. Thanks to all donors. The languages on the Pole are the six most-spoken languages in North Lincolnshire, which seemed like the fairest way of doing it. They are: English, Polish, Urdu, Lithuanian, Bengali and Portuguese. The Pole was placed on 26th April 2016 and a small dedication ceremony was held on 20th May.
Town Team hopes that the Peace Pole inspires people to live more peacefully in their own lives and maybe this can play a tiny part in leading to a more peaceful world. We know that a Peace Pole won't change the world overnight but hopefully it'll change some people's attitudes in a positive way. Also, we think it will be a point of interest in the park