remembrance

Quaker report opposes increasing militarisation

“The stirring music, smart uniforms and synchronised marching that characterise Armed Forces Day are a glossy front behind which sits a deliberate strategy to manipulate the public,”

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Peace Education Network

The Peace Education Network is a national UK network that brings together people and organisations committed to education for peace.

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Teach Peace pack

Teach Peace, a new resource from the Peace Education Network, is a set of eight assemblies, follow-up activities, resources, prayers and reflections on peace for primary schools. From the UN peace day, 21 September, to the International Day for Children as Victims of War, 4 June, the school year is ?lled with opportunities to use the assemblies and activities in Teach Peace. This resource will help to ensure peace is a key theme in our children’s education and help you to celebrate peace and the peacemakers in your school. The entire resource is free to download below. Hard copies of Teach Peace are available from the Peace Education Network for £5. Also available in Welsh.

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Militarisation in everyday life in the UK: a conference report

In response to the recent developments in the UK, there has been an increase in critical academic studies, media coverage, and work by campaigning organisations and others on these issues. On 19 October 2013, around 70 academics, activists, campaigners, and writers came together in London at the Militarisation in Everyday Life in the UK conference organised by ForcesWatch.

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Welsh bishops urge army to raise enlistment age to 18

The Ministry of Defence has come under pressure from the Church in Wales and campaign group Child Soldiers International which is calling for an end to recruitment of under-18s to the Army

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Bishops attack army on recruitment of minor while teen enlistment figures plummet

Recruitment of 16-year-olds down 40% on previous year; former Armed Forces minister says “Time is right” to review recruitment age

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Open letter to Minister of State for the Armed Forces on armed forces recruitment age

"We call for the minimum recruitment age to be returned to 18 years. This would be a fitting memorial to those thousands who, whether unlawfully recruited as minors during the First World War or recruited to fight in other conflicts, were exposed to death, injury and trauma that no child should ever experience."

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The Poppy

When I was about seven, my dad took me to the local Remembrance Day memorial. Neatly turned-out elderly men were stood in equally neat rows while The Last Post was played. I wondered why everyone looked so sad. Dad said it was because their friends had been killed in the war; this day was to remember them. I wore a poppy then and I am glad that I did.  

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In praise of the white poppy

Jill Segger considers the growing appeal of the white poppy

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Not just waving poppies, but drowning thought

"There may well be a boom in poppy sales, but the act of Remembrance itself has been cheapened by a failure to back up words with action, particularly when it comes to successive governments' care for victims of war, but equally in terms of the appalling the lack of resources put into peacebuilding."

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