Manchester Evening News, March 5, 2005
COMMUNITIES BLIGHTED BY GANG VIOLENCE MARCH FOR PEACE
• Children of peace...taking part in the lantern-lit family peace parade through Moss Side. Picture: Constantine Tofalos
Lantern parade's glimmer of hope
By Rashid Razaq
COMMUNITIES blighted by gun crime united last night for a dusk lantern parade for peace.
Almost 200 people including relative of people killed by gang violence met in Moss Side and Longsight for Peace Week 2005.
Carrying lanterns made by local school children, the parade passed through the two suburbs to Platt Fields Park where the Lord Mayor of Manchester unveiled a peace mosaic
The parade was organised by Carisma (Community Alliance for Renewal, Inner South Manchester Area) - a Moss Side organisation aiming to provide life chances for young people.
Doretta Maynard said: "This is about the community making a stand against violence and trying to give young people a future away from the gangs.
"It's not just people from Moss Side and Longsight taking part, its all areas and we've had people from Liverpool and Leeds coming over to support us.
"The whole community is behind this and we will have parents, brothers and sisters of people killed by guns and gangs. At the end of the walk the mosaics will be laid down to mark today's parade."
A evening of prayer was held later at Brunswick Church as part of a series of events this week. - A photo exhibition at ASDA in Hulme called Taken By The Gun will feature relatives of gun crime victims is on display.
Children from six junior schools have produced a CD tilled I Am Who I Am, based on the theme of peace. It is available in the schools and ASDA stores in Hulme and Longsight.
Peace week was started three years ago by local schools, community group,
businesses and churches in response to escalating gun crimes in the area.
Only recently Greater Manchester police launched Operation Breakthrough after 14 shootings and firearm- related incidents in less than a month. Armed officers have been deployed on patrol to protect the community and their unarmed colleagues.