City of New Haven Peace Commission Projects
by Paul Bloom, Peace Commission member
The City of New Haven Peace Commission is a city commission initiated by the United Nations 32 years ago. We were one of the first cities designated by the UN for their Peace Messenger Cities project, and only one of four cities in the United States of the more than 100 member cities worldwide.
The Peace Commission has numerous small projects in which we engage, and which are always changing, but there are several projects and events that are ongoing. Each year we plant a peace tree at a school or other New Haven site, we commemorate the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with an event on the Green, and we commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King with an event at City Hall (see peacecommission.org). Our other significant ongoing project is the West River Peace Garden located at the intersection of Ella T Grasso Boulevard and MLK Jr. Boulevard. The Peace Garden was also established by the United Nations and is a small site that promotes quiet, peace and introspection. Please consider stopping by anytime (but most especially when winter has passed) to visit and to meet with friends (see westriverpeacegarden.org).
There is also a new project which we are just starting to engage in, and which we want to invite you to consider joining. That is: working with other organizations and individuals in New Haven and the surrounding region in order to develop a regional strategy which effectively rejects the promotion of nuclear war and the development of nuclear weapons. We are just starting to make connections with other organizations that would like to engage with us on this issue, and we look forward to having other individual area residents join us in this mission.
If you would like to contact us, please note the following:
For general Peace Commission information: Roberto Irizarry, Chairman, Peace Commission, rocolino@yahoo.com.
For information about the Peace Garden: Aaron Goode, lead person of the Peace Garden project, aaron.goode@gmail.com.
For anti-nuclear information: Paul Bloom, Peace Commission member, paul.bloom.arc.70@aya.yale.edu.