In a show of hope for a bet­ter T&T, burgess­es of Diego Mar­tin came to­geth­er yes­ter­day to erect a peace pole in the new bor­ough.

A peace pole is an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly-recog­nised sym­bol of the hopes and dreams of the en­tire hu­man fam­i­ly, stand­ing vig­il in silent prayer for peace on earth.

To man­ag­er of the project, Wayne Fuller­ton, of the Diego Mar­tin Ro­tary Club, the pole is not just an ob­ject that was erect­ed and will be for­got­ten but stands as a re­minder of the peace the bor­ough de­serves.

In his speech at the un­veil­ing, Fuller­ton called for a mo­ment of si­lence for the vi­o­lence and con­flict seen dai­ly in this coun­try.

“I will just ask every­one to join me with a ten-sec­ond mo­ment of si­lence just for the vi­o­lence that has been hap­pen­ing in the coun­try and by ex­ten­sion the world,” Fuller­ton said.

He called on the burgess­es of Diego Mar­tin to sow seeds of hope and com­pas­sion for gen­er­a­tions to come.

May­or Ake­li­ah Glas­gow-Warn­er echoed his mes­sage, say­ing, “As we plant this peace pole to­day, let us re­flect on its mes­sage and com­mit our­selves to liv­ing in a way that pro­motes peace, un­der­stand­ing, and co­op­er­a­tion.”

At the cer­e­mo­ny, a time cap­sule was al­so buried. Ac­cord­ing to the club, it con­tains me­men­tos and mes­sages that re­flect the spir­it of Ro­tary, a spir­it of ser­vice, friend­ship, and un­der­stand­ing that tran­scends bor­ders and gen­er­a­tions.

Sev­er­al stu­dents from var­i­ous schools in the bor­ough were giv­en two min­utes to speak on what peace meant to them.

“I con­sid­er peace to be an act of com­ing to­geth­er as one en­ti­ty to stand a face any chal­lenges we en­counter,” a stu­dent from Diego Mar­tin North Sec­ondary shared.

A stu­dent from Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral saw peace as “re­spect.”

Pres­i­dent of the In­ter­act Club of St An­tho­ny’s Col­lege, Zion Val­le­nil­la, said, “Peace is the part we take for bring­ing growth.”

There are more than 200,000 peace poles in 180 coun­tries, in­clud­ing two more in Port-of-Spain and Ch­agua­nas.