Part Three – Unity is Strength

"Unity is strength...when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved."

    -Mattie Stepanek

The beautiful thing about unity is it can happen anywhere, in an instant and in the simplest of ways. Like three young friends spending time together at the park after school. You can bring a bucket of chalk and see friends uniting to make beautiful artwork! As we mentioned in last week's blog, unity can be experienced on many levels to create a memorable and strong bond not only with yourself, but with other people, nature and the world.  It takes a true connection with ourselves and loving and respecting our uniqueness in order to do the same for others, and to come together to unify and make great things happen.

That is a major goal of ours: to help children see and believe in their own uniqueness and beauty, and be open to embracing, learning, understanding and respecting the same in other people.

Sharing other cultures with children will show them that although we all may look different, come from different backgrounds, and have different personal stories, we are ultimately all the same within-human beings.

Connecting with other organizations, bloggers, teachers and parents is Joy Sun Bear's way of unifying the world, bringing like-minded and goal-oriented individuals together from all around the world to make it a better place.  We love sharing and promoting other organizations and people who are also working to unite our world.  It takes small steps, practice, and patience, but we are committed to our mission and hope it inspires others to do the same.  We are a small group of four members and together we unite with love and passion to do what we do, in hopes of making a difference.  

Such a beautiful and simple way to unite-three six year-old friends coming together to draw these amazing chalk art pictures!

So how do you unify as an individual, family or community? How do you bring so many different people together to unite with one goal in mind? How do we encourage our children to practice unity and come together, letting go of judgement and fear to bring their authentic selves together for something bigger?

Children love learning through action, so we have found a great article by Chelsea Lee Smith of Moments A Day that teaches children a few different activities about unity.  We love how she breaks down the different ways we experience unity and offers activities in practicing unity on each level.  The more children understand how similar we all are, learn to celebrate and respect the differences, the more they can become empowered by those similarities and differences and come together to unite the world and make it better. As Mother Teresa said so wisely, "I can do things you cannot, you can do things I cannot; together we can do great things."

Here is a fun video that introduces children to the concept of unity and working together. Enjoy!!

So....

"What do you think can unite our world?"

Share your response with us in two ways:

1. Comment on this post below.

2. Post your answer(s) on our Facebook page, Joy Sun Bear, or tag us on Twitter,@JoySunBear, and use the hashtag #joyofunity.

We will be releasing our second video about unity very soon, so stay tuned!

Have a great week!

-Joy Sun Bear Family