Australia: Petals of Peace at Viva LaGong

Wollongong Viva LaGong festival is a celebration of the world of arts, culture and innovation. It is the highlight of Wollongong's cultural calendar coinciding with the Rugby World Cup 2003 matches on 29 and 31 October. Local Falun Dafa practitioners realised this was a great opportunity to clarify the truth to the world's people and immediately applied for the event.

This year, the practitioners decided to take the "Petals of Peace Initiative" as the major theme at the stall to introduce Falun Dafa and the truth of the persecution to the people.

On Friday, October 31, it was so windy and there was even a heavy rain storm at the beginning of the event, but it didn't stop the many people celebrating the festival. Practitioners put a few posters of the "Petals of Peace" story on the marquee so that people could see the truth of the persecution through the project. When they passed the stall, most people read the banner "Falun Dafa" and were curious of what the practitioners were providing. We told them that we are teaching people how to fold the origami lotus flower, and the story of why we make them. At the same time, we gave them the Truth flyer and the instructions with cover sheet "Little Fadu's Story". So many children and adults were interested in this and became involved in folding them straight away at the stall. Practitioners were very busy looking after all these people who accepted the information and who wanted to try.

The festival event went on from 4pm - 12am. In the end, hundreds of flyers and "Petals of Peace" story sheets were handed out. We local practitioners found this was another good way to have people know the truth of the persecution and even become involved in supporting Falun Dafa to stopping the persecution together.