Tuesday 23 September 2014

International Day of Peace 2014



This has been a busy weekend with people all over the world marking the International Peace Day. Kenya was no exception with celebrations organized by
different organizations running from Friday 19th September to Monday 22nd September in different parts of the country. This was also the period when Kenyan commemorated the victims of the tragic Westgate attack in 2013.

I was very fortunate to have joined other Kenyans at State House Girls on 19th September in an event organized by Global Peace Foundation. The theme of the day was: Right of Peoples to Peace. They also used this day to launch Amani Clubs which are being supported by the National Cohesion and Integration Commission. This was a beautiful coincidence since I am working at Kenya Youth Foundation and have introduced Peace Clubs in four Primary schools and we are going to increase the number to ten in due course.

I become aware of the Peace Day not so long ago after relating with someone working for Peace One Day an organization based in the UK.

Peace Day is an idea that was conceptualized by Jeremy Gilley who founded a non-profit organization named Peace One Day in 1999.

Jeremy Gilley is an actor turned filmmaker, who in the late 1990s became preoccupied with questions about the fundamental nature of humanity and the issue of peace. He decided to explore these through the medium of film, and specifically, to create a documentary following his campaign to establish an annual day of ceasefire and non-violence.

Peace One Day led the initiative to establish an annual day of global ceasefire and non-vi­olence with a fixed calendar date, unanimously adopted by United Nations member states in 2001 as 21 Septem­ber – Peace Day. 

Peace One Day’s objective is to institutionalize Peace Day 21 September, making it a day that is self-sustaining, an annual day of global unity, a day of intercultural cooperation on a scale that humanity has never known. [Source: www.peaceoneday.org]

Jeremy Gilley simply set the path for us it is up to us to keep and preach peace.

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