Mandurah will be one of the first cities in Australia to show award-winning documentary Inside Peace.
The life-changing movie will be screened at the Mandurah Performing Arts Centre on April 11.
The documentary tells the story of a group of Texas prisoners who rebuild their lives inside and outside of jail after undertaking Prem Rawat’s innovative Peace Education Program (PEP).
Mr Rawat’s PEP aims to help participants discover their inner strength, choice and hope to tackle anger, find personal peace,and turn their lives around.
The screening of the world-acclaimed documentary has been the result of months of lobbying by youth violence expert and Peel Youth Services (PYS) family worker Tanya Langford.
Ms Langford, who won the City’s ASPIRE scholarship last year, found out about the film at the Indigenous Stop Domestic and Family Violence World Conference in Adelaide, and worked together with other youth violence experts and social workers to bring the documentary to WA.
She hopes the documentary will inspire families, social workers and organisations dealing with violent behaviours to adopt practices like those in Mr Rawat’s PEP and help individuals turn their lives around.
“Each session of the Peace Education Program has a different topic, whether it is compassion, understanding or self-respect,” Ms Langford said.
“And all of these are such important messages, specially in our community, in our society, where there is so much anger, so much violence and so many people who are lacking what’s really important to be a well-rounded person and have that self-acceptance and appreciation of life.
“I think that’s one of the basic principles of this, it’s helping people to get over all that anger and all that resentment and actually recognise what a gift every day of our life is.”
Ms Langford said that Mr Rawat’s teachings had the capacity to be included in other education programs and be used in schools to coach young people with violent behaviours.
“We have so many young people who are in this destructive path and that are ending up in youth justice,” Ms Langford said.
“The fact that something like this can come along and it can actually stop someone in their tracks and help them formulate different thought processes and different understandings of how they relate to themselves, others and life it’s great.”
City of Mandurah mayor Marina Vergone congratulated Ms Langford and Peel Youth Services for their role in bringing the documentary to Mandurah.
“Since Tanya won the City of Mandurah Convention Scholarship last year, she has worked hard to raise the profile of youth violence in the home, and is achieving her goals of bringing an event to Mandurah which focuses on family and domestic violence, which in turn will go a long way towards helping our community,” she said.
The screening of Inside Peace will be held at the MPAC’s Fish Trap Theatre at 7pm on April 11.
Following the screening of the film, punters will be able to attend a special discussion panel with local community leaders and PEP expert Andrew Ramsay.
Tickets for the premier can be purchased on Eventbrite.com.
Youth service providers, teachers, workshop facilitators and other people involved in anger management programs will also have the opportunity to register for a facilitator training session by Mr Ramsay at the Greenfields Family and Community Centre.
During the training Mr Ramsay, who has implemented Rawat’s PEP in South Australian prisons, will share his professional experience and assist local workers in dealing with violence.
The training will start at 9.30am on April 11 and will run until 3pm.
Those interested can call Peel Youth Services on (08) 9581 3365 or email eo@pys.org.au.