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Social Justice Documentary Being Screened At Villanova

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A small Catholic school in Southwest Philadelphia is the focus of a social justice documentary being screened Sunday afternoon at 3:30 at Villanova University.

Saint Francis DeSales School has students grades K-through 8, many of them immigrants. John O'Leary is assistant professor of communications at VU and co-director of the film, "Room For Peace". He says the title came from an actual room.

Room for Peace VU Social Justice Doc -- 2016 (1)
(Photo credit: Kathleen Scavello)

"Stuffed animal lambs and stuffed animal lions, and paintings of lambs and lions, the idea from the Bible that the lion shall lie down with the lamb, and they call it their "Peace Room"," he said. "If students have some sort of disagreement, that's the place they go to work it out."

O'Leary says the goal is to take that lesson outside the school doors.

"Possibly these kinds of methods for teaching young people how to work out problems in a positive way can be transferred into the adult world."

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