On November 21, 2008 NGOs, Ba Futuru, Arte Moris, Uma Juventude and Knua Buka Hatene worked together the Office of the President - Dr. Jose Ramos Horta - to host “The President’s Festival of Peace”. This one day peace summit, was followed by Timor-Leste's first Independent Film Festival organized by Thomas Nehrmann with support from NGO Ba Futuru.
The President’s Festival of Peace engaged hundreds of at-risk youth in the center of Dili at the Merkado Lama Expo Center - 100 martial arts members from across Dili and 110 additional youth from Comoro and Becora areas participated.
Arte Moris provided art, sound and filmmaking workshops. Their work resulted in an enormous peace mural (shown below on the front cover of Ba Futuru's Peace Festival Book). This fantastic mural is a permanent installation at the Merkado Lama Expo Center in the center of Dili.
The festival also included an exhibition of local young peoples' photography and art that was created in workhops at Ba Futuru's Seroja Center with assistance from their photographer in residence Chip Heinrich. In addition various peace education workshops were provided throughout the day by Ba Futuru's facilitators on conflict mapping, negotiation and conflict prevention.
Peace-related drama workshops and performances were put forth by NGO Knua Buka Hatene. Uma Juventude assisted with the festival by bringing in high-risk youth participants (many who are involved in gangs or martial arts groups) in order to maximize the impact of the festival.
The festival actively engaged youth providing them with new skills to create a more peaceful future for their community and their country. Each of the youth participants were provided information on where locations where they could attend additional educational workshops of this nature on a longer term basis.
The following day, Timor-Leste's first Independent Film Festival was held at Hotel Timor which was organized by filmmaker Thomas Nehrmann with support from Ba Futuru. Six films were submitted by Timorese and all submissions received cash prizes so as to encourage them to continue making independent films. In addition, President Jose Ramos-Horta presented the awards for the Best Short Film and the President' Short Film Award.
The theme of the Festival of Peac of Lao Ba Dame or Path to Peace. After the festival an iPhoto book was made documenting the festival as well as a documentary film called Lao Ba Dame by David Palazon.
Ba Futuru staff Linda and Helio were greeting guests at the festival. Ba Futuru staff Vidal and Lica acted as Mcs for the festival.
Ba Futuru dancers and co-founder Sierra James led Presiden't Jose Ramos Horta through the exhibition of chilren's human rights paintings.
