Students launch organization to create peace culture

Patrick Parlej found that he is not the only dreamer when it comes to promoting a culture of peace on campus.

Parlej, a School of Arts and Sciences senior, is the founder and president of the Rutgers Peacemakers.

Parlej’s eagerness to help raise awareness among student peacemakers regarding national and international matters inspired him to create the organization.

Other organizations have the goal of starting a discussion, while the Peacemakers’ goal is to start moving to find solution, Parlej said.

“We’re not here to be a debate issue — we’re here to take social and political action, to raise awareness on actual issues rather than talk about how we can solve all those issues,” he said.

Fahad Akhtar, the club’s co-founder and treasurer, said the organization strives to give students an opportunity to affect policy. Many of the people who create policies are the ones who have both the money and enough free time.

“[We’re] trying to make it so students, early on, have a voice in international relations, so they don’t have to give up their time to be able to influence policy, to write about policy or to advocate a better policy,” Akhtar said.

The goal of the group is to build a coalition for what students believe are the paramount issues of international relations, he said. The club arranges discussions to help students form a coherent vision for what they want to see done in the international sphere. 

Akhtar, a School of Arts and Sciences junior, said the club finds it essential for students to keep up in order to understand why the world works the way it does.

“There is not practical application to economic theory unless you understand what’s going on in the world and why it needs to be understand,” Akhtar said.

The club hopes to use the discussions as the starting point from where they can either advocate directly to legislatures or state departments, or have students write letters or for certain issues.

The club’s first event, “Conquering Carbon; A Climate Reality Project Presentation,” took place last night at Murray Hall on the College Avenue campus. 

Roshni Karwal, a climate change advocate from the Climate Reality Project, addressed an audience of students.

Karwal gave students a broader perspective on climate change to provide them with a better understanding of the issue, take a position on it and eventually form some type of policy initiative to follow that, Parlej said.

“[Rutgers Peacemakers is] really trying to get on the map here with this event,” Parlej said. “Part of this issue is that while it may not be causing outward conflict now, it is one of those things that needs to be resolved for our generation and that was the idea of putting this event together.”

In the future, the organization hopes to hold events about other current events issues. They plan to use online feedback from students so they can cater to the issues that students are interested in advocating for.

Philip Kehoe, the club’s public relations chair, said the “global” in global climate change is what inspires him about the topic. 

“The actions we take set off a chain reaction that impacts the world in ways we previously never thought possible, and has longstanding implication for my children and grandchildren,” said Kehoe, a School of Environmental and Biological Sciences senior. 

The average student can make a change by doing as little as riding their bike or walking to class instead of driving, Kehoe said. Students can also save electricity by turning off lights when they leave their room or turning off appliances when they’re not in use. 

By sitting down and discussing complex topics and directing ideas, students can discover great ideas and create a message to bring to a larger group, Akhtar said. By coming together as part of this organization, students have a platform to discuss those ideas and see where their thoughts may eventually lead. 

“It’s difficult as an individual to make change, but with a group of intelligent, like-minded people, change is inevitable, and that’s how we’re going to do it,” Akhtar said.