Call to Declare a GLOBAL PEACE EDUCATION DAY

Dear Peace Advocates

Please share this press release with your networks, media contacts, and social media.

Realizing the time is short, any assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

In Peace & Gratitude

Bill McCarthy
Co-Founder and Partnership Chair
The 2022 Global Peace Education Day Conference

Civil Society Leaders Call on United Nations:
Declare a GLOBAL PEACE DAY!

NEW YORK. Leading peace advocates, diplomats, educators and artists gather online Tuesday, September 20 to insist that the United Nations make Global Peace Education Day an annual United Nations event. The conference spotlighted the success of peace education in transforming lives of individuals and communities around the world, even in the face of the war, pandemic and climate change. Last year more than 1,500 people attended from 86 countries.

The Global Peace Education Network, year-old global collaboration, is taking grassroots action to share skills, know-how, and best practices to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development goals. It includes the Global Movement for the Culture of Peace, Fundación Cultura de Paz, Spanish Federation of UNESCO Associations and Clubs, Malaga Club of UNESCO, International Institute for Peace Education, Global Campaign for Peace Education, Institute for Economics and Peace, Pathways to Peace, IONS, The Prem Rawat Foundation, the National Peace Academy, Unity Foundation, PeaceChannel.com and a growing number of others. The Global Peace Education Network promotes cooperation, resource sharing and information exchange about peace education strategies, structures and curricula.

Gabriela Ramos, UNESCO Assistant Director General for Human and Social Sciences will chair the event. “The search for peace may be as old as humanity itself,” she says. “Peace cannot be secured through economic and political cooperation alone. But it must be nurtured through the everyday elevation of the knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes needed to understand, appreciate and cooperate across differences.” She continues, “We learn war, and we learn peace. If viruses can learn and spread, then we can learn and spread peace.”

Screen actor Michael Nouri will host the Global Peace Education Day event. “If we prepared for peace the way we prepare for war, we wouldn’t be in this mess,” he said. “That’s why I’m an ambassador for Seeds of Peace, preparing young leaders around the globe to be ready for peace with training, skills, knowledge and experience to build a peaceful world.”
“I was honored to be the inaugural speaker for a Global Peace Education Day” says Ambassador Anwarul Chowdhury, former UN Undersecretary General. “As human beings we must empower ourselves to contribute more effectively to bring inner as well as outer peace. This realization has now become more important, especially for women, youth and children, in the midst of the ever-increasing military expansion that is destroying both our planet and our people.” The ambassador has served the United Nations as UN Under-Secretary-General, president of the UN Security Council, the UNICEF board, and high representative of the UN, advocating for the most vulnerable countries of the world.

“For me, to assemble a global network of peace educators is very important, because it allows us to establish a culture of peace,” said Tunisia’s Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ouided Bouchamaoui. “Peace Education must be widely accepted by all nations, societies, and cultures. They require the abilities and knowledge to foster peace.”

“A United Nations Global Peace Education Day will provide a transition from a culture of imposition, domination and war to a culture of encounter, conciliation, dialog, alliance & Peace,” said former UNESCO Director General Frederico Mayor Zaragoza. “We need educators who can educate in a culture of peace and non-violence. We know that our earth faces an irreversible threat but now we the people will act to prevent all this by implementing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.”

Global Peace Education Day speaker Kehkashan Basu was only 12 years old when she founded the global Green Hope Foundation to educate her peers about the Sustainable Development Goals. She is a Climate Reality Mentor, former Global Coordinator for Children and Youth, UNEP MGFC, and a UN Human Rights Champion. “The way we facilitate peace education is to empower women in underserved communities to drive change. We’ve just opened a sewing school where women and girls make masks, clothes, bags and sell these products to earn their livelihood.

“We no longer understand the simple need to be kind. Even in environments that should be full of love, full of encouragement, full of understanding, you find that people are fighting,” said keynote speaker Prem Rawat, founder of the Peace Education Program which partners with governments, NGOs and volunteers in more than 70 countries. “On the other hand, you have a Peace Education Program in India’s Telengana State that closed down five prisons! The people that were released did not come back. This is what the Peace Education Program has done.”