Vena School Videos Win Peace Awards

Vena Avenue Elementary School students have placed second in a national contest for one video that promotes peace through religious tolerance and another that focuses on the similarities between children with different intelligence levels.

The Grinnell Peace Project Awards, coordinated by the Iowa Peace Institute, honored about 130 Vena students for furthering the institute’s main goal: to foster respect and understanding of others to promote peace.

The Vena students produced an 8-minute documentary called “Common Bonds: The World’s Great Religions.” The video celebrates the differences and similarities of various religions with footage from ceremonies and rituals that the students recorded at mosques, synagogues and churches.

Another documentary still in progress highlights relationships between highly gifted students and those with developmental disabilities. Its working title is “These Are the Facts About Life.”

Both documentaries were based on ideas by students at the Vena Gifted Magnet School.

“I learned that people have to be tolerant with other religions rather than saying there is only one,” said Dana Irwin, 11, who played a boy at his bar mitzvah in “Common Bonds.” “Good hearts are more important than differences.”