A report by Dolores Perez, Peace Partners pilot PEP EDU lead volunteer.

For a few years Peace Partners has been engaged in activities supporting the development of TPRF’s Peace Education Programme for Schools, Colleges and Universities (PEP EDU). This has included the operation and administration of pilot courses, together with financial support to enable institutions to provide materials for the courses. Several volunteers have participated in these efforts.

We began engaging with these pilot courses for students and educators in 2019, and we have been particularly busy in the last two years (2023-24) holding a total of 72 virtual sessions, including rehearsals, with 21 participants and 22 volunteers. Participants have included attendees from Ireland and abroad, as well as from the UK.

In June 2024 at a Brighton event with TPRF founder Prem Rawat, Peace Partners PEP EDU team contributed to a TPRF leaflet prepared for the event, through the inclusion of the personal expressions of three pilot EDU course participants - see below - and Peace Partners provided financial support for the TPRF Peace Education Program event table materials.  

We have felt privileged to have contributed to the very successful completion of the new 'EDU' PEP pilot courses, providing reports and feedback from the courses and the involvement and first-hand experience of volunteers and participants.

Most recently, Peace Partners has provided funding for materials for the very first TPRF PEP EDU University course in the UK. In the near future, we are hopeful that we can continue to provide the newly established PEP EDU courses with financial support, and will be able to recommend ways of promoting the course, including at UK conferences.

Some personal reflections from pilot PEP EDU participants:

“In my experience, the Peace Education Program offers a unique and transformative journey to self-discovery and inner peace. It reveals the true essence of the human heart and ignites a profound sense of aliveness. And what the world needs now, is for more people to truly come alive."

“Undertaking the program was a joyous and inspirational experience. The course content was wonderful and together with the periods of reflection, led me to new understandings. These discoveries brought me closer to my own humanity. I remember the whole experience with deepest fondness”

"The Peace Education Program has been a very unique and valuable offering for our students, one of a kind in fact. The course promotes extensive critical thinking and non-judgmental discussion, as well as a chance for students to engage with subjects they may not have the opportunity or time to discuss in the classroom, such as choice, understanding and clarity."

We are fortunate in being funded by individual donations and subscriptions. 
Despite these difficult times, core subscribers to Peace Partners and TPRF (via Peace Partners) have on the whole maintained their financial commitment. Thus we have been able to maintain our commitment to The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF), the promotion and provisioning of the Peace Education Programme in the UK and our work with other partners.

Our other source of funding is in response to appeals. 
We have run two so far this year: TPRF - California Wildfires and also Bedrock Books re “Breath”. It is only in the response to these that we have noticed the effect of the general lack of money.

In terms of spending.
Of note are two recent payments totalling £416 to print booklets for three PEP EDU projects in different parts of the UK. I understand these packs - for the recently rolled out form of the Peace Education Programme - are of a higher quality than those produced so far.

We are in the process of changing how we record our finances. 
This journey began when I became Finance Trustee in 2022 and found the systems in place difficult and time consuming. After discussion with the Trustee board we began the search for Charity Finance software. This continued throughout 2023 and 2024 in which we tried and rejected one system, and then another because of their lack of simplicity, adaptability and lack of availability of suitable training; it being imperative that lay people like us are able to use it successfully.

The solution came by chance when I engaged a local book-keeping firm to provide an independent inspection of our 2023 accounts. This was because in that year with a turnover of nearly £29,000 we were well over the £25,000 audit limit. In addition to pointing out an important inconsistency in our accounting, they were able to set up and provide training in Xero accounting software. Modern, flexible and easy to use it is better than anything else we’ve tried and the set up and training is really necessary for us. So far, So good!

a​After breakfast, the headmaster took me to see the local school. Each class was crowded with eager students. Girls are going on to high school now, which was unheard of before the Food for People facility was operational. Until FFP opened, there was no food for the children at home, so they had to work in the fields, breaking stones. Or in hotels, washing floors. The dropout rate was high. Today, 99% of the children attend school and have hope for the future. Your generous funding is now enabling the school to construct four more classrooms to accommodate the increase. What you do makes a profound difference in people’s lives.”

Since then, in addition to the first a Food for People facility in Ranchi, India, and this one in Nepal, a further one has been opened in Ghana and now, most recently, in the Cape Flats area of Cape Town, South Africa. The inauguration ceremony took place on 26th Nov 2024 attended by Mr. Prem Rawat, and members of the Prem Rawat Foundation, and the Prem Ubuntu Foundation. To quote Nitasha Barath, treasurer of the Prem Ubuntu Foundation, “Lots of people here live minute by minute, how am I going to feed my kids?” Here in the UK, when situations are extremely difficult we are familiar with the saying ‘living day to day’. Living minute to minute is on the edge of survival.

It is impossible to function normally on an empty stomach and people who experience such food shortage cannot work or trade to support themselves. It is a vicious cycle. In such circumstances, food is not just food, it is the solution to problems. It has been seen from the experience of the FFP kitchens in India, Nepal and Ghana that when the facility becomes an integral part of the community, peoples’ health improves and crime rates plummet, because there is no longer a need to steal to eat. Children can go to school, and trade can start up again. All this on just one good, nutritious meal a day.

Colin Barends, the Facility Manager, is a gang intervention specialist who works with gang members and community stakeholders to reduce violence in Cape Town. As an ex-gang member himself and a participant of the Peace Education Programme, he is—in his own words—the face of the Cape Flats. “I represent the Cape Flats, I’m furniture in the Cape Flats”, he says. When he was introduced to the Peace Education Programme, he recalls “We had never heard of it, then, when it hit us, we fell in love with the programme.” He is up every morning at 4am to go to the market to buy fresh food for the meals that day, and to establish the route for them to be delivered to the children.

The facility makes 6000 meals per week, local food cooked with love and care by local people in a hyper-clean environment. It is the generosity of donors worldwide that makes it possible to produce meals of this standard sustainably and reliably, and in time it is hopefully anticipated that this facility too will become an integral part of the community, and a hub for all sorts of benefits.

Initially, any extra support can help this facility in Cape Flats get going and become self-sustaining. During the inauguration ceremony, Prem Rawat said, "The whole world is one village", it is not hand-outs but practical help that provides a way out of the poverty trap, bringing dignity and prosperity to the people in the community. Such is the power of simple, nutritious food. 

The eating and sharing of food goes beyond divisions of ethnicity, class or religion. In the words of Shri Hans Maharaj, Prem Rawat’s father and teacher: ”The difference between people and other creatures is that people can cook.” This is a profound yet simple truth.

In the spirit of Julie’s first inspiration, Peace Partners donors continue to support the Epping kitchen in the Cape Flats, to help the ‘beaming lights’ who are working so hard to give the children there a better life.

​You can contribute to support for the Food for People Programme through our donation page, which can be found here: https://www.totalgiving.co.uk/appeal/tprffundraising. 
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“We want to offer the community clarity for the mind, peace for the being, gratitude for the heart and food for the stomach. This is what TPRF is all about” TPRF Founder, Prem Rawat 

Learn more about The Prem Rawat Foundation Food For People programme and its expansion in South Africa here:  https://tprf.org/prem-rawat-expands-food-for-people-program-to-south-africa/