WATCH: Manchester primary school pupils talk about the importance of peace

Lord Mayor of Manchester Eddy Newman visited pupils Credit: Manchester City Council

Manchester primary school pupils have drawn up a unique Peace Plan for their schools.

The children from three primary schools got together to talk about what peace means to them and have decided to put in place a peace bus-stop, philosophy lessons, a peace festival, peace benches and a peace garden.

They also devised tips on how to deal with anger and resolve arguments between friends as part of their plans, and created videos talking about the importance of peace.

The workshop was held as part of a Manchester schools' peace project that began in 2015 to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the dropping of the nuclear bomb on Hiroshima.

Over the last two years pupils from six primary schools have taken part in creative art and poetry sessions and presented their work to the Lord Mayor of Manchester and the Mayor of Hiroshima.

Earlier this year pupils also got the chance to hear first-hand from two people who survived the nuclear bomb in 1945.

Last week saw pupils from St Margaret Mary's RC Primary in Moston, Heald Place Primary in Rusholme, and Webster Primary in Hulme, get together at Manchester Museum to take part in the specially devised workshop to help them draw up their own peace plans for their schools.

Pupils heard from the Lord Mayor of Manchester Eddy Newman who told them about his visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki earlier this year through the international organisation Mayors for Peace.

Staff from The University of Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan University helped the children explore the meaning of peace and to think about what they could do in their schools to make them peaceful places.

The Lord Mayor of Manchester, Councillor Eddy Newman, said:

The six schools that have been involved in the peace project will also be given a Gingko tree sapling to plant in their school grounds.

The saplings are of great significance as they have been grown from seeds collected from a fully mature Gingko tree growing in Hiroshima that was believed to have died after the bomb.

The following spring the tree sprouted back into life and since then seeds have been taken from it and sent around the world in the name of peace.

Some of the seeds were given to Manchester and looked after by gardeners at the National Trust's Dunham Massey, the seeds have now grown into 15 saplings.