Belgium: Lotus Flowers Blossom at a Secondary School in Limburg

On March 7th, 2007, practitioners were invited to introduce Falun Gong to thirty 13 to14 year old pupils at a secondary school in Lommel. They participated in a week-long project entitled ‘cultures around the world’ and on Wednesday they arrived in China.

During the first hour, a practitioner gave a presentation explaining to the children more about the cultivation practice of Falun Gong, the persecution of Falun Gong in China and the actions practitioners take to raise awareness about the unlawful persecution. The pupils were actively involved in this. When asked which torture methods they knew about, a boy described in detail the torture method of the water dungeon without knowing this is happening today to practitioners in China. His description was exactly the same as which practitioners undergo when being tortured by the evil police. It was very surprising that a young boy knew of such things. They were also all very attentive and listened quietly.

After a break, the group was divided in to two groups of fifteen students. One group learned the Falun Gong exercises while the other group listened to the story of a young practitioners called Fadu, and learned how to fold beautiful paper lotus flowers. Although one boy had difficulties with making a lotus flower, with the help of a practitioner he persisted in folding and was able to fold a flower almost on his own. He was very happy about that.

During this time, some children wanted to learn more about Falun Gong and the persecution. A boy wondered if practitioners could not appeal to the government, for instance. It seemed strange to him that practitioners have no place to go. There was a girl who could not believe the story about organ harvesting and wanted to know more details. She was really shocked hearing that this happened today. Another student wanted to know how and where people could learn the exercises of Falun Gong and where she could learn them as well.

After one hour, the groups swapped. There were several teachers who joined the activity, taking turns. Newcomers also were interested in the story of Falun Gong, the practice as well as the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. They asked questions and were enthusiastic to learn the exercises and folding the paper lotus flowers.

Afterwards, a teacher told us that the activity was very successful. The students were able to keep their attention with the three activities until the end. ”If they didn’t like it, they would have shown it to you”, according to the teacher.