Today, Councilman Bill Peduto will speak at the 2009 Mahatma Gandhi Birthday Celebration,
presented by the Alliance for Humanitarian Initiatives, Nonviolence and Spiritual Advancement.

The goal of the Alliance is to  celebrate Mahatma Gandhi as a global humanitarian figure, promote his legacy of nonviolence, and engage youth in appreciating Gandhi’s powerful message.  The event will include dance performances, cultural activities, and inter-faith religious practices to celebrate the birth of Gandhi and his message.  Topics of discussion will include “Gandhi on a New Generation” and “Gandhi and Martin Luther King,” and the keynote speaker will be Professor Varadaraja Raman, Emeritus Professor of Physics and Humanities at Rochester Institute of Technology.

Councilman Peduto also issued a City Council Proclamation in honor of this event.

On Sunday night, Councilman Bill Peduto was a guest at the Turkish Cultural Center of Pittsburgh, formerly known as the Pittsburgh Dialogue Foundation. This organization supports peace through interfaith dialogue between followers of the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish faiths.

The group was joined by leaders from all religious communities, and the keynote speaker, Dr. Jon Pahl of the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, gave a great presentation.

District 8 is home to numerous synagogues and temples, Roman Catholic and Byzantine cathedrals, the Islamic Center, and all denominations of Christianity, including the Korean Christian church.

Over 2 terms in office, Bill has actively engaged with all faiths to strengthen the East End community, and to make Pittsburgh a welcoming city for all.

At the dinner, Bill was asked to speak about his travels to Turkey, during which he participated in a peace mission to promote interfaith dialogue. A video of that speech will be posted in the near future.