Peacebuilding ads: Be a peace builder regardless major, race, and language

       Walking around BYU-Hawaii campus, there are 2 colorful posters on campus lately – one about Nichel Warwick and one about David Whippy. They are the IPB ads sponsored by McKay Center of intercultural peacebuilding aimed to increase the awareness of student body about peace building. Mackenzie McLeod said, “You don’t need to be an IPB major to be a peace builder. We are all peace builder.”

Meet Mackenzie McLeod, an art junior from Calif. as well as a member of the IPB ads team. She is a missionary-to-be, a gamer, a sushi-eater, a painter, and a baseball lover. She is a peacebuilder.

McLeod and her teammates are currently doing an IPB certificate. All of them are from different majors. “Like ‘I am the Mormon campaign’, we want to show others we are normal people who want to do something in our life,” said McLeod. “I am just like you. I am no better then you. I am a psychology major, but I apply the IPB theories in my life.”  

Since the beginning of this semester, McLeod and her teammates gathered potential people’s photo and story. They then make it into poster and publish it around campus as well as uploading on Facebook. The poster would be renewed once per week with different spotlight. “We try to highlight around two people per week and we will have nine more people on the way,” McLeod explained.  

“We chose David and Nichel because they are very personable and they are very involved in their major,” she said. To learn more about the story behind these peace builders, McLeod invited students to check out the link on the posters and read the blogs. “We are also doing a big poster soon with 9 people and we are trying to get diversity,” she said.   

Feeling excited about the IPB ads, Denise Burnett, an IPB senior from Washington, said “I think the IPB major for me is something that solidified my reason to be here [BYUH]. I learn a deeper understanding of how to be a disciple of Christ. I think that every student at this campus or students in general would be benefited by taking at least one IPB class because it is going to enrich all aspect of their life.”

Adam Eastburn, a fine art sophomore from Calif., said he used to think IPB is a “lie”, “brainwashing major”, and “major for people who don’t know what they want to do in life”. He said, “Now I am in the program. It is very helpful and I think it is like a secular gospel. The language of peace is a mutual language for everyone to speak and can speak. I don’t know what brought me in [the program], I just feel right.”

Clover Cheng