Within 2 years of its existence, it became apparent to the families and friends of Toronto’s Sathya Sai School that these children were interacting differently and positively in various situations in life. Their level of maturity and loving approach spoke of wisdom beyond their years. Deeper inquiry attributed these positive changes to the influence of the human values that were integrated into their school’s curriculum. Investing in a transformative and service learning was paying off huge dividends of peaceful, happy and caring individuals and home environments. In 2003, the grateful parents decided to share their joyful discovery with the larger community by urging them to try their hand at embracing a values-oriented lifestyle.

Select a value that you would like to focus on.
Pledge to practice that value during the walk along with friends and families.Practice the chosen value going forward until it becomes a part of your personality.

The Walk for Values is a walk for you and I, our families and community, held with a purpose to promote Human Values.

The Walk for Values involves no money. Participants don’t raise money for any cause. Rather, we will make the world a better place by pledging our commitment to practice a human value of your choice.

We can make a difference by our collective will and leadership to act. By walking together as kindred spirits, we can achieve two things:

• We can raise awareness of positive human values such as love, truth, non-violence and peace;

and more importantly,

• 
  We can bring attention to the urgent need to practice them in our community and halt the social and environmental ills that plague our lives

Take a moment to reflect and zone in on a positive human value of your choice that will make you a more caring, concerned and happy person. When you are more socially responsible and aware, you make our community a better place and our planet a healthier one.

Human Values are the core attributes of our personalities that do not change with time and place. These are the inborn traits which drive superior human behavior and nobler choices. While different people use different words to voice their values, these concepts can be distilled into a set of five basic values:

Pledge to practice that value and show up, ready to walk

Mahatma Gandhi said: Become the change you want in the world. To show your resolve to be an example of the change you want, you will be required to wear a badge which labels the value which you plan to practice. For example, if you are impatient with your children as a parent, you may wish to choose the value “Patience.” If you wish to contribute to the health of the earth, you may wish to choose: “Conservation.” If you are always running late, you may wish to pledge to “Punctuality.” Every patient parent, environmentally conscious citizen and punctual colleague can make our world a better place.

The Walk for Values is a barriers-free invitation, open to ALL, regardless of your age, profession, faith, culture, language or race, for it promotes values that have no borders.
These inherent values need to be promoted and practiced among individuals, families, communities, political bodies, leaders, corporations, social groups, businesses… everyone who believes in the sanctity of all life forms, personal accountability and social responsibility.

Although it was born here, today, a dozen cities across our great nation, from Vancouver to Ottawa have been inspired by Toronto’s example to hold the same walkathon locally.
Another dozen cities across the world have also taken a cue from Toronto’s lead and are replicating the event in their communities. These include cities in the USA, New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong and Malaysia

The walk is a pleasant and short one. The experience is very powerful though. The actual time taken to complete it will be about an hour to an hour and a half. We will be walking a total of approximately 3 kilometers.

The walk will start off with some warm-ups and end with a carnival waiting to welcome you back with loads of entertainment from various groups, in addition to free face painting, henna tattoos and stalls selling mouth-watering food. You name it we’ll have it to make it worth your while. Your pledge to improve will be richly rewarded.