The Culture of Peace, a UN Peace Messenger I

This year’s celebration of the International Day of Peace is capturing the attention of people, communities and nations worldwide.  Based on last year’s reports, it is estimated that there will be over 10,000 events on the planet this year, sponsored by thousands of organizations, and that over 200 million people will participate.  These will range from ceasefires, during which humanitarian aide is provided, to religious and interfaith services.  They will include educational and volunteer programs; government proclamations, media events and many types of activities by human rights, environmental, cultural and civic groups to draw attention to their particular aspect of “peacebuilding;” there will also be numerous private observances and events by many businesses and professionals.  Noted celebrities as well as religious and government leaders historically speak out on behalf of this occasion.  There will be vigils, performances, workshops, ceremonies, fundraising events, community service projects, school programs, street fairs, exhibits, walks, films, online activities, peace parties and much more.”

Created in 1981 by unanimous resolution of the United Nations, the observance of the International Day of Peace has grown exponentially in recent years and now reaches every level of society.

There will be large-scale celebrations in cities such as Sydney, Okinawa, Beijing, Amsterdam, Tehran, Geneva, Paris, London, Montreal, Havana, Buenos Aires, Calgary, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Honolulu as well as in countries as diverse as Costa Rica, Dubai, India, Burma, Uganda, Kenya, Lebanon, Turkey, Argentina, Nepal and The Philippines.

One way that anyone can participate is to observe a minute of silence at noon in all time zones worldwide, as requested by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.  The UN also arranges ceasefires, during which humanitarian aide is delivered to civilian populations affected by conflicts.

The UN has created the WMD – We Must Disarm – Campaign to call awareness of the need for reducing weapons of mass destruction as well as nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.  The UN promotes this occasion via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, YouTube, text messages, radio, TV, print and public service announcements.

Grass Roots

Thousands of international and grassroots organizations create events to promote their particular aspects of peacebuilding, whether these address human rights, the environment, education, health care, poverty, hunger, fair trade or any of a number of other such worthwhile causes.  Many of these organizations work with The Culture of Peace Initiative (CPI), a UN designated Peace Messenger Initiative with over 3,000 affiliated organizations worldwide.  See www.cultureofpeace.org and www.internationaldayofpeace.org.

The combination of all of these efforts is having both global impact and historical significance.  Our children will observe Peace Day annually and incorporate it’s meaning into their lives – and year round. You can find out what is going on in your neighborhood by visiting http://internationaldayofpeace.org/participate/peace_day_supporters.

First Ever 24-hour Internet Peace Day Broadcast

This year, for the first time ever, there will be a 24-hour internet “Peace Day” broadcast to unite the world community, at www.cultureofpeace.org .  The co-chairs of this special event are Dr. Robert Muller, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and Avon Mattison, Founder and President of Pathways To Peace. This broadcast will highlight the vitally important work of the United Nations and its humanitarian agencies, and will feature segments from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon as well as interviews with other high level UN officials, such as Sergio Duarte, UN Under Secretary General for Disarmament, Salil Shetty, Director of the Millennium Campaign, and Mary Robinson, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and former President of Ireland.  There will be a series of video presentations on the UN’s important work around the world, the “UN in Action,” as well as the UN’s Public Service Awards.

The finale will be a one-hour special highlighting the official ceremony at UN Headquarters in New York.  The ceremony will feature UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and other UN dignitaries, as well as high profile UN Messengers of Peace such as Michael Douglas, Elie Weisel and Princess Haya of Jordan. Also featured will be Michael Franti’s “Power to the Peaceful” celebration in San Francisco and The Jane Goodall Institute’s “Roots and Shoots” Peace Day Celebration in Santa Monica, CA.

This Peace Day internet broadcast will include the work of many organizations and individuals around the world dedicated to creating a more peaceful, just and sustainable world. Please go to www.cultureofpeace.org. (By Melvin Weiner)

by which we arrive at that goal.”  -Martin Luther King, Jr.

More than 15,000 health workers will travel from house to house in eight provinces – Ghor, Farah, Uruzgan, Helmand, Kandahar, Khost, Kunar and Nangarhar.

*  *  *

“Peace is essential for access and herewith to reach all children with our polio immunization efforts,” said the Minister of Public Health Dr Sayed Amin Fatemi, on the occasion of this year’s Peace Day Campaign.

With 20 cases of polio reported in 2009, the Ministry of Public Health and its partners and major donors for the eradication of polio are redoubling efforts to ensure every child under the age of five receives polio vaccine.

UNICEF Representative in Afghanistan, Catherine Mbengue [said] “It takes just a few seconds to immunize a child – but the results last for a lifetime. Unless we eradicate polio in Afghanistan, the virus will continue to disable children, placing even greater strains upon families.” Polio is not just a health issue – it has implications for the social and economic development of Afghanistan. Peace and polio constitute a vital cycle for the future of Afghanistan.

Source: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA); United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

(AFP)

The Taliban had also agreed to not carry out any attacks on Peace Day following a call from President Hamid Karzai that resulted in the Afghan and international military forces agreeing to refrain from offensive operations.

Afghans meanwhile rallied in marches, sport and other events to call for peace in a country ruined by nearly 30 years of war and struggling to defeat an insurgency led by the Islamist Taliban militia.

The latest campaign to vaccinate Afghan children against the crippling polio virus — only found in a handful of countries — was timed to coincide with Peace Day and targeted at the most risky areas, an official said.

About 14,000 health workers and volunteers aimed to deliver vaccinations to 1.85 million children under the age of five in six provinces.

Source: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5juT122tpxzw00zDMGiBBy6ZJ_e5g

Acting in concert, we do make a difference in the quality of our lives, our institutions, our environment and our planetary future.  Through cooperation, we manifest the essential Spirit that unites us amidst our diverse ways.

For more information, visity www.peaceoneday.org

that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens

can change the world.

Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

-Margaret Mead

I awoke on September 21, 2007, realizing that it was the United Nations International Day of Peace, and asked myself, “what can I do to make the world a better place today?”  The answer came loud and clear, and bright and immediate.  I could get the International Day of Peace printed onto calendars – lots and lots of calendars.  I am the Director of Sales and Marketing for a calendar publisher – the kinds of calendars you see at retailers like Borders and Barnes & Noble, in calendar kiosks in malls all over the world and in independent stores and mass merchants everywhere.  I’ve been in the industry for 30 years, plus I had just returned from a trade show where I had hung out with many of my competitors.  I immediately got on the phone and e-mailed people. I also sent lists around naming companies that were agreeing to do this – after all, it was “Peace Day.”  By the end of that day, I had almost all 20 of the largest calendar publishers in the United States, and in some cases the world, signed on to do this.  The International Day of Peace would be on all types of calendars – from celebritie, pets and nature to fine art and major league sports teams.  The 2008 calendars were already in stores, so this would begin with Peace Day 2009 – September 21st – which is next week.

That’s just the beginning of the story.  I awoke the next day realizing what I had done – that Peace Day would show up on 100 to 200 million calendars; and I began writing a list of how this could impact society.  There were dozens of ideas.  Schools, governments, businesses, professionals, non-profits, the media, religious groups and private citizens would begin observing this occasion.  This could impact everything from school curricula and sermons to store promotions and volunteering.  After all, this day would be on calendars annually going forward.  I e-mailed a few friends about it, and that very same day one friend wrote back saying, “You rock, Melvin.  I’m gonna tell my friends at the UN!”

Within a week I was speaking with Avon Mattison, the co-founder of Pathways To Peace, a non-profit peace-building organization. She was among the small group of people who originally brought the idea for “a day of peace” to the United Nations back in 1981.  By then my list had grown to over 100 ideas. After our conversation, I knew what I had to do next – take it worldwide.  I contacted distributors and customers everywhere.  I sent press releases titled “Calendar Publishers Unite for World Peace” to industry trade magazines — they were printed in the US and in Europe.  My largest customer in the UK signed up 22 publishers.  A distributor in the US got 200 small publishers to join in.  The Calendar Marketing Association promoted it.  A publisher in Asia thanked me for bringing this to their attention and wrote back that “it was their duty to do this.”  The Italian Publisher’s Association asked all Italian language publishers to participate as well.  This year, for the first time ever, the United Nation’s  International Day of Peace is printed on hundreds of millions of calendars.  We will reach a billion people this year – and more next year.

When I have to squeeze this into a sentence or two, I tell people that it was “a random act of inspiration,” or that I was “just doing what was in front of me to do.” It turns out that that’s a lot.  For the past two years, I have been volunteering with Pathways To Peace, which is a UN affiliated NGO (Non-government Organization) and has official Consultative status. It is also the International Secretariat of the Culture of Peace Initiative, a UN designated Peace Messenger Initiative involving over 3,000 organizations worldwide.  The global observance of the International Day of Peace is the annual highlight of this initiative, and its observance has grown immensely in recent years due to the efforts of thousands of people all over the world.  I have been to the UN about 10 times.  A former Under Secretary General that I have gotten to know has requested that the UN make this their “day of days.”

Being a marketing person, I now find myself promoting this global observance in many ways.  I have written about or compiled certain sections of our websites to reflect this global observance. The following link, for example, leads to thousands of observances across the planet:  http://internationaldayofpeace.org/participate/peace_day_supporters.  I have even collaborated with some of the organizations listed, on their programs and observances.  I have contributed to The Culture of Peace newsletter, which is distributed to thousands of organizations and people worldwide, www.cultureofpeace.org .  I have written and sent press releases to print, radio, TV and on-line media outlets.  I have directed outreach programs trying to get “high profile people” such as Barack Obama and Al Gore, to remind people of this occasion; and, possibly more importantly, trying to get additional organizations to participate.  This is because many peace-building organizations can and do use this Peace Day to promote their own agenda – whether it is the environment, education, human rights, disarmament, poverty, hunger or any of a number of other worthwhile causes.  I am a co-administrator of the Facebook page, www.facebook.com/peaceday, and have recently collaborated with a friend on a YouTube video for Peace Day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiOzRkjwy0I.

Most people don’t know that the first four words of the United Nations charter are: “To maintain international peace,” or that the UN has literally dozens of constructive programs impacting all levels of civil society worldwide.  I have met many truly amazing people, and have heard some heart-wrenching, as well as heart-warming stories.  There are thousands, and in some ways, millions of us working on this project worldwide.  We hope that the annual observance of the International Day of Peace will help to focus the world on the possibilities to transform our culture from one based on competition and rivalry, to one based on cooperation and peace.  Our 24 Hour Global Peace Day Broadcast at www.cultureofpeace.org will tell some of these stories.

Pathways To Peace has nurtured this observance from a single event of 400 people in San Francisco in 1982, to what it has become today – a global observance with thousands of events involving hundreds of millions of people; which will continue to be honored by future generations.  There are dozens of projects to pursue, and no story about Pathways To Peace should be printed without a request for financial support.  Many of us are volunteers, and we could do much more if people would pitch in, please.  www.pathwaystopeace.org.  Thank you.

(Editor’s note:  Melvin Weiner continues at his “day job” to support his family, and does all of this work on a volunteer basis.  Due to today’s economic conditions, he has even had to cover many of his own expenses.  He lives in Kennebunk, Maine and can be reached at melvin@pathwaystopeace.org )

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