Walk for Values USA hosted its first event of the year Saturday at Tempe Beach Park.
Sethuraman "Panch" Panchanathan co-directed the Walk for Values USA event and said the walk’s purpose was not to preach, but to encourage people to be conscious of the five human values: truth, love, peace, non-violence and righteous conduct.
Panchanathan is the senior vice president of the Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development at ASU. The event was not affiliated with the University.
Around 700 people attended the walk and held colorful signs representing their chosen value.
Walk for Values USA will host walks in other major metropolitan cities, such as New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C., throughout the year.
The walk originated in Toronto, Canada, in 2003 and gained notoriety in other countries.
“It’s a celebration of human values and to practice (values) as much as we can,” Panchanathan said.
He said he was excited to see people from all religions and races there, adopting the walk’s human values.
Attendees were asked to adopt a value they would practice in their daily lives.
Paul Eppinger, executive director of the Arizona Interfaith Movement, asked the crowd, “What word do you want to be known by?”
Eppinger said Alfred Nobel, founder of the Nobel Peace Prize, was disappointed when a French journalist mistakenly wrote his obituary and called him the “Dynamite King,” without noting his selfless acts.
“If we open the newspaper and read our own obituary, what would we read?” Eppinger said.
Jan DiSanti, a public teacher from Denver, Colo., said she teaches the five human values promoted by the walk to her students.
She said it is important to teach these values of oneness throughout the globe.
“We are all connected, no matter where we come from,” she said.
DiSanti said she made the trip from Colorado because attending previous walks has been the most powerful thing she has done in her life.
Gilbert resident Rajini Param attended the event and said the walk is important because human values are often forgotten when conflicting values such as religion overshadow them.
“(The walk) is the right thing and it gets the message across,” Param said.
Reach the reporter at thaniab@asu.edu
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