DUBAI: The world’s biggest peace dove made of 1.2 million buttons with the colors of the UAE flag was completed in Dubai setting a new record to make its way to Guinness World Records to highlight the UAE’s stature as a peace-loving country.
The 19X19 meters white peace dove, with a design that follows the UAE’s national colors, will rise at the Burj Khalifa complex on 10th March in a ceremony to be held by the organizing committee of the forthcoming region’s first-ever Peace and Sport Middle East Forum, to be held April 23-24, 2013 in Dubai.
The Dove is idea of an Iraqi extreme sportsman Captain Fareed Lafta, 33, a dare-devil-turned-peace-campaigner who sought help from Dubai school children to build the Dove over seven days (from March 2 to 9).
The white dove, with a base and design that follows the UAE’s national colours, is more than symbolic.
“We want to encourage kids to choose peace and build something which the world can look up to – like Dubai itself,” said Lafta, a goodwill ambassador for Iraqi Red Crescent. He is also known as the Iraqi “superman” for his many feats, including skydive over Mt Everest and the North Pole.
So why is he attempting this new record? “It’s not about making a record as much as making our youngsters know why peace is for their own good. War is easy, but it brings so much destruction. Peace is a personal choice. It builds societies. Peace is profitable. Therefore, peace is the choice of the brave.”
Lafta left Bagdad in 2003 at the beginning of the US-led war and settled in Dubai. He boasts his own peace-making credentials. Lafta was chosen by the Arab Union for Astronomy and Space Sciences to represent the Arab world and Iraq in space and is a qualified cosmonaut who flew to the edge of space in 2009. He earned the Golden Peace Dove award as part of German diplomacy in Afghanistan in 2011 and was also chosen as World Champion for Peace and Sport in Monaco that same year.
The work is sponsored by Emaar Properties and is spearheaded by Iraqi extreme sportsman Captain Fareed Lafta, 33, a goodwill ambassador and peace-campaigner who roped in Dubai school children from 2nd March to build the dove over seven days.
At the ceremony, the committee will receive an official certificate from Guinness World Records.
In April 2012, the Dubai Sports Council and “Peace and Sport, l’Organisation pour la Paix par le Sport” formed a strategic alliance to make sport a driving force for development, education, social cohesion and peace in the entire Middle East region and further afield.
