We'll be Painting for Peace again on the New Haven Green! This will be our 7th hand painted mural project and we hope to see you there.
Sign up here for our newsletter to follow the 2023 details as they unfold. Let's do it again!
Painting For Peace is an exciting hands on peace project created by IWagePeace.Org. where community members from diverse backgrounds hand paint their own interstate peace billboard. The first Painting For Peace sign was hand painted in 2007 in the West Bank by Israeli and Palestinian children side by side with Combatants For Peace. Five more signs have followed. To view the completed hand painted murals displayed for viewing on our Connecticut highways, visit our Billboard Campaigns collection.
On Sunday August 7th 2022, we hand painted our fifth peace billboard mural as one of seven volunteer projects on the second Interfaith Service Day in New Haven. This event brought a diversity of people together in fellowship and goodwill. Through the media and our billboard we sent to thousands of viewers the message we are one people, that we have nothing to fear from our differences, and that in fact, our differences make us a strong, vibrant, and dynamic community. We do not need to agree on all things to work together. We can disagree on doctrine and theology, while respecting, learning, and enjoying one another! Learn more about Interfaith Service Day
In 2019, while the politics of division dominated the headlines, IWagePeace brought local faith communities into fellowship with visiting American, Israeli, and Palestinian teens from the JerusalemPeacebuilders Interfaith Leadership initiative. This was the first annual Interfaith Service Day, where Painting For Peace was one of seven service projects. And what a show stopper it was. Volunteers kept showing up and were painting away throughout the day. Our theme that year was “We’re All In This Together,” and the photos below prove our point. Visit IWagePeace Interfaith Service Day to learn much more.
On July 10, 2018 over 30 Israeli, Palestinian and US teenagers joined teens from mosques, synagogues and churches in our local community on the New Haven Green to hand paint a 48 foot billboard sign declaring "We Welcome Refugees" and to send a message of respect and tolerance. The visiting teens were participants in the Jerusalem Peacebuilders' Service Learning Program, an initiative that brings together visiting Israeli, Palestinian, and American youth ages 15-16 for nine days to study their own faith traditions, explore each other's diverse backgrounds, and develop peacebuilding skills while volunteering at local community organizations in New Haven. The billboard was designed by artist Russell Rainbolt and inspired by a 2017 NYT times photo study called “Refugees Made Visible.” The sign will hang along I-95 in Connecticut courtesy of a long-time partnership with Barrett Outdoor Communications.
“A passion for peace in the Middle East drives our mission and partnerships power our program. Painting for Peace on the Green combines both. Our young Israeli and Palestinian leaders are proud to work with the interfaith community in New Haven and our partner Barrett Outdoor Communications to honor religious difference and to share their belief in the sanctity of all human life,”
.................Rev. Nicholas Porter, the Executive Director of Jerusalem Peacebuilders
“God calls everyone to be a peacemaker.”
................ Bruce Barrett President, Barrett Outdoor Communications and IWagePeace
Our Painting For Peace event was held on a beautiful summer weekend at Jerusalem Peacebuilder's Acer Farm in Brattleboro, Vermont. IWagePeace empowered Muslim, Jewish, and Christian high school youth from Israel, Palestine, and the United States to design and hand paint a mural for an interstate highway sign on I-95. The project was designed in partnership with an interfaith fellowship of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian youth, Kids4Peace. As part of the IWagePeace Combatants for Peace Tour, we travelled to Vermont for the youth retreat weekend. The youth at the camp were thrilled at meeting adult fighters from their own nations who found a path to peace. Together, they hand painted the 14x48 foot billboard sign of their design reading “Peace in Jerusalem is Possible.” IWagePeace Inc, Kids4Peace, and the Combatants For Peace ended the retreat by visiting the Bridgeport Rotary Club to share their experience. The sign, with viewership of 100,000 per day, remained on I-95 for the entire summer and shifted to I-84 in the fall of that year and is still posted on various Connecticut highways.
On the New Haven Green, Peacemakers from area mosques, synagogues, and churches broke the myth that Muslims, Jews, Christians and others cannot work together for peace. Inspired by the documentary film "The Billboard From Bethlehem" the multi-denominational group hand Painted For Peace their own mural for posting on billboards on the interstate highways of Connecticut. This was our second Painting For Peace project. The artwork was conceived by "Peace by Peace", a group of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian medical students at Yale University. Artist Russ Rainbolt used their drawings to prepare the canvas and Bruce suggested the phrase "We Refuse To be Enemies." Peace by Peace sponsored a festival of healing the same afternoon and IWagePeace organized teams of painters from area mosques, synagogues and churches, raising $6,000 for The Combatants For Peace.
The first Painting For Peace sign was hand painted in 2007 in the West Bank by Israeli and Palestinian children side by side with Combatants For Peace. This project became the subject of the documentary film "The Billboard From Bethlehem, directed and produced by IWagePeace Founder, Bruce A. Barrett.
Visit the "The Billboard From Bethlehem" project page to learn more.
