Khit (NSS) - Aug 13 

The International Buddhist Education Centre’s principal and Stockholm World Peace Prize Holder Buddhist Sayadaw Dr. Ashin Sobhita (Venerable IBEC Sayadaw) requested to recognize the schools as safe zone in Myanmar. 

Venerable IBEC Sayadaw made a request at the ASEAN Conference on Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue held at Jakarta in Indonesia on August 7 and 8.

The Sayadaw was invited by the President of the Republic of Indonesia as a special guest to attend the conference for speech.

During the meeting, "I would like to urge all concerned parties --- not to disrupt children’s education but protect the schools," Sayadaw said. 

"Since I’m a son of Buddha, a Buddhist monk from Sagaing region of Myanmar, which have experienced the most tragic episodes of violent conflicts, I came here with a hope that I can seek concrete avenues of cooperation from my fellow ASEAN leaders to bring peace to my home town. While I teach loving kindness in accordance with the teachings of Buddha’s Dhamma to mediate the conflicts, I am providing monastic education to conflict-affected children and youth to build reconciliation within the communities," Sayadaw stated in the speech. 

At the conference, Sayadaw requested through international leaders, colleagues and friends to help Myanmar for reopening the schools in Myanmar by engaging in dialogue for the future of generations to live in peace and prosperity. The tasks ahead of Myanmar requires all parties to come together to make “schools as zones of peace.” 

In the conclusion of the speech, Sayadaw added, "The international community must help us to achieve this. Shaming, blaming, pressuring and sanctioning does not help but make our people suffer and leave our children without education and future."

In the conflict Myanmar since February 2021, nearly 100 educational staffs including schoolteachers were blindly killed and many schools were destroyed by bombs, fire but also some reopened schools were sent threaten letters by terrorists under the command of exile NUG.