OUR SIGNATURE EVENT

Spreading Peace, Love & Harmony, One Rose at a Time

 

We live in a world where religion is often seen as divisive tool rather than a positive force that can unite us. It is easy to express our unhappiness towards people who may be different from us. Amidst rising religiosity and religious polarization across the world, it has inevitably become a challenge to embrace those who share different ideologies, with love.

At Roses of Peace (ROP), we live by the mantra – be the change you want to see. We wanted to change the perception of interfaith cooperation through love. What else could be a better symbol of love than a rose? A rose is an apt description of interfaith appreciation. When we focus on the thorns, we fail to notice the beauty of the rose and the love and happiness it brings together with it. Hence, at ROP we help you to see beyond the thorns and appreciate the beauty of Roses. We are dedicated in appreciating the good in people of different faiths and we recognize the power of faith in uniting our diverse communities. Above all we fervently believe that every religion promotes the universal values of peace, love, harmony and kindness.

In our efforts to celebrate our diversity and appreciate our religious differences, we founded ROP in 2012. It first began as a small initiative, led by Muslim youths from various tertiary institutions. With the help of 100 volunteers, we distributed 3,000 roses across 7 different locations in Singapore. Every rose is attached to a greeting card with messages of peace, love and harmony from religious luminaries such as Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ, Gautama Budhha, Guru Nanak and many others. Ever since, ROP has grown significantly, engaging close to 1,000 volunteers from various faith backgrounds whom have distributed more than 35,000 roses islandwide, effectively engaging with members of public. More recently, in ROP 2017, 2,000 members of public also took the ROP Peace Pledge, to show their allegiance to our unique interfaith cause.

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VOLUNTEER TRAINING

Prior to the distribution of roses, every volunteer will go through a compulsory training. At the training, volunteers will pick up important skills on mindful communication and identify creative techniques to effectively impart the interfaith messages. They will also be given an understanding of the interfaith scene in Singapore and be briefed on emergency preparedness.

In this training session, volunteers will also get the chance to mingle with fellow volunteers and forge new friendships!

PACKING OF ROSES

We give our volunteers a greater sense of purpose through the packing of roses. Every volunteer gets to pack the roses that they will be distributing with their own hands. This experience adds more meaning to their volunteering efforts with ROP as they work in teams to tube roses, sleeve them and attach greeting cards.

It has been such a honour every year to witness hundreds of volunteers – Muslim, Christian, Budhhist, Hindu, Sikh or from any other faith – gathered under one roof and motivating each other as they pack thousands of roses. They spend some fun time together in a common space for a common cause – to build a religiously harmonious and appreciative community.

APPRECIATION DINNER

At ROP, we are always grateful for every volunteer who comes on board. After a fulfilling and meaningful time of distributing roses and interfaith messages, we invite all volunteers for an appreciation dinner. We celebrate the efforts of our volunteers with delicious meals and energetic performances! Every volunteer will also receive a certificate of appreciation by out Guest-of-Honour.

At the end of the event, it is no doubt that every volunteer leaves with a heart full of happiness and lifetime full of memories! Many volunteers continue to return every year and join us to relive the precious moments again and again!