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Recent history has dimmed the hopes for an era of peace that many envisioned following the end of the Cold War. In the first decade of the new millennium, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians; insurgency movements in northern India, Pakistan, Mindanao, and Indonesia; escalating drug-cartel violence in Mexico; and widespread ethnic warfare in much of Africa have confounded serious and prolonged peacemaking efforts.

Significantly, recent decades have also seen the emergence of domestic and international NGOs and faith-based groups that are committed to peacebuilding, post-conflict reconstruction, and amelioration of poverty and disease. Motivated by humanitarian concerns and less constrained by national interests than conventional diplomatic efforts, this civil society sector adds vital capacity to the complex task of bringing just and sustainable peace among people traumatized by violence.

The Global Peace Festival Foundation (GPFF) presents a new paradigm with a proven track record for peacebuilding based on universal principles and shared values as essential resources to transcend divisions. In the past three years, GPFF has engaged more than a million people in a broad range of initiatives on six continents. These projects empower youth while tapping the innovations of civil society partners, the resources of the business community, the shared values of faith-based organizations, and the expertise of government agencies and universities.

Conflict is often rooted in historic experience. Each side— whether Israeli and Palestinian, Hindu and Muslim, or Tutsi and Hutu—has its own narrative of injustice and racial, ethnic, and religious identity. To bring peace, these experiences need to be heard with empathy, but religious

and ethnic differences need to be transcended as expressions of identity. The GPFF theme of One Family under God is not a simple slogan but a core defining value, wherein people of all faiths, races, and cultural backgrounds can find a common identity and therefore a basis for respect and accommodation.

The GPFF works to facilitate intercultural and interreligious cooperation, strengthen God-centered marriages and families, and foster a culture of peace and service. Among these projects are Global Peace Conventions convened yearly to engage peacemakers worldwide to share best practices and network on common programmatic objectives; festivals that celebrate cultural diversity, notably in conflict regions such as the Middle East, Mindanao, and Africa; and service projects such as the Nairobi River Peace Initiative and Mindanao Peace Initiative that tackle pressing environmental or social problems and draw upon all sides to work together for the common welfare.

Since 2007, this message and approach have resonated in the hearts of people from every corner of the world. Momentum continues to build through the commitment of growing numbers of partners, through pledges of support from government and business, and through swelling numbers of volunteers in GPFF programs from Kenya to Paraguay to Mongolia.

“It is fitting,” said GPFF chairman Hyun Jin Moon at the 2008 Global Peace Festival in Kenya, “that we have come back to humanity’s birthplace to break away from our collective history of war and conflict, and to set up a new paradigm for peace and prosperity for all mankind. What is most important now is not how and where the human family began millions of years ago, but rather how, where and when the human family will at last come together to live in peace.”

Religious faiths have been instrumental in awakening human consciousness to universal ideals of conduct. Faith traditions have decisively shaped world civilizations based on an emphasis on preeminent human virtues—compassion in Buddhism, morality and ethics in Confucianism, love for God and one’s fellow man in Christianity, adherence to basic laws in Judaism, devotional obedience in Islam, and mystical reverence for life in Hindu and Jain traditions.

Sadly, narrow sectarian identity has bred centuries of religious strife and undermined the witness of faith from the perspective of history. Yet GPFF sees the rich heritage of faith not as an obstacle to peace but as a vital resource, and faith leadership as essential to the process of reconciliation and peacebuilding. The examples of such figures as Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and

Mother Teresa just in the twentieth century affirm the foundational role of faith in advancing social welfare and justice.

GPF advocates a new view of interfaith cooperation, calling on religious leaders to move beyond mere tolerance by affirming the universal principles common to all faiths.
Through GPFF festivals, conventions, and grassroots service initiatives, religious leaders and lay practitioners discover spiritual and ethical common ground and build friendships across religious divides. In the Middle East, Nepal, Indonesia, and the Philippines, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus have served side by side to clean up neighborhoods, provide medical care, and address misunderstandings that have bred distrust and animosity.

GPF interfaith partnerships begin from the recognition that all people are endowed by the Creator with equal value and therefore share a common spiritual heritage. This is the original source of human rights and human dignity. Because all people have intrinsic value, we aspire to realize a global community of equality and respect. Thus GPF partners and activities are motivated by transcendent principles to work toward peace through its tri-fold platform of interfaith, family, and service.

The prophet Isaiah’s stirring universalism, his promise of the day when “all people would be filled with the knowledge of the Lord,” has been taken up by men and women from all the world’s faith traditions and modeled through acts of service and reconciliation that uphold our common bonds as One Family under God.

“The Global Peace Festival brings millions of people from diverse cultures and backgrounds together because we all are one human race. We all are one family, and we need to respect each other’s diversity in the vision of God Almighty.” —Imam Abduljalil Sajid Chairman, Muslim Council for Religious and Racial Harmony, United Kingdom

A global economic recession, epic natural disasters, and the threat of terrorism have dominated recent news. Often overlooked is another crisis, a crisis of values compromising the integrity of individuals and the status of marriage and family as intergenerational bonds that encourage peace. In many nations, divorce has become commonplace, a statement of “expressive individualism” that affirms as a social paradigm the primacy of the self over all other commitments. Drug trafficking and ever-more degrading pornography have become multibillion- dollar industries that devalue the lives and dignity of our young people.

In the developing world, the post-colonial era has seen a massive migration of rural populations into burgeoning cities lacking both the physical and social infrastructure to properly assimilate millions of new arrivals. Traditional values passed on through the extended family have been sundered, with cities in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia plagued by crime, ungovernable slums, epidemic levels of HIV-AIDS, and social anomie.

The GPFF recognizes that the family is the essential foundation in the quest for peace. The family is the soil in which the seed of a child’s character germinates and grows. Love within the family enables children to trust, to find value in their lives, to recognize the equal rights of others, and to practice relationships that prepare them to be responsible and productive citizens. “To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order,” Confucius said; “to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life.”

Through a range of programs, including community and school- based character education, seminars and conferences, and festivals honoring exemplary parents, the GPFF is investing in peacebuilding at the most immediate level. The family expresses in microcosm the model of a world of peace that is the dream of all humankind, a world in which the elderly are honored as one’s own parents or grandparents; women as mothers or sisters; men as fathers or brothers, and children as a cherished promise to our posterity.

Following the ancient dictum that we are our brothers’ keepers, service for others has been central to the world’s faith and ethical traditions. Compassion for the less fortunate and care for the environment affirm the universal principles of the interdependence of all life and of the ennobling character of service for the giver.

Building a culture of service has been a primary methodology of peacebuilding for the GPFF. In conflict regions such as Kenya, Nepal, and Mindanao, service initiatives engage volunteers from all racial and religious backgrounds to forge bonds of trust and good will. Through service, volunteers gain insight into the realities of life of those traditionally seen as “enemies” or the “other,” and in the process often experience personal transformation. In addition GPFF service initiatives are designed to further the realization of the UN Millennium Development Goals intended to uplift the world’s most at-risk populations.

In Kenya, the Nairobi River Peace Initiative launched the largest environmental cleanup in the nation’s history, winning the support of government and religious leaders and the collaboration of local NGOs. In Paraguay, the GPFF mobilized more than 10,000 high school and college students to clean almost every park in the capital city of Asunción. In Washington, DC, more than 1,000 area youth worked throughout the District in service projects coordinated by the U.S. National Parks Service, Washington Urban League, Boys and Girls Clubs, the DC Office on Aging, and the Anacostia Watershed Conservancy, among others. The GPFF’s Day of Service was the first act of a new GPFF service initiative, A Million Acts of Service and Kindness, conceived by the Points of Light Institute, a partner of the GPFF.

The GPFF is committed to creating a global culture of service, empowering youth whose idealism and energies are often dissipated in materialistic cultures that encourage self- centered pursuits, which in turn breed cynicism. The GPFF is revolutionizing the attitudes and priorities of young people around the world, not just with ideas but with on-the-ground action that brings idealism to life.

The Global Peace Service Alliance is the social entrepreneurship and global service partnership arm of the GPFF. The Global Peace Service Alliance is fostering a multi-sector approach to solve social ills by bringing government, corporate, and nongovernmental organizations together to build sustainable programs that address meaningful peace and development issues including pov- erty reduction, and clean water.

Transporting best practices to the field, the Alliance is advancing global service brands like “Rivers of Peace” and the Alliance partner Service For Peace’s “DreamCatcher” Library Project making primary education accessible to the world’s most vulnerable communities.

The February 2010 Kenya Rift Valley Peace Initiative kickoff included a partnership with Grammy Award-winning artist Usher’s Powered by Service to sponsor youth-based malaria pre- vention projects. The Alliance also delivered water pumps donated for the agricultural district recently devastated by drought.

Through tapping into the power of social media, the Global Peace Service Alliance will identify and train social entrepreneurs from diverse faith backgrounds to build a global networld, bringing innovative solutions to communities throughout the world.

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” —Mahatma Gandhi

Innovative Peacebuilding in Kenya

Although Kenya has enjoyed a reputation as a stable democracy, this confidence was shaken following the divisive 2007 presidential elections, when ethnic fighting led to the worst unrest since Kenya’s independence from Britain in 1963.

The arrival of the Global Peace Festival in 2008 and the International Young Leaders Summit in Nairobi a year later helped to foster a mood of volunteerism and national pride.“This is an important day for Kenya and for Africa,” declared Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga at the 2008 GPF in Nairobi. “It is a new beginning in the quest for our nation to be once again known as a nation of peace and security.”

Following the post election violence and 2008 Kenyan Global Peace Festival, a range of programs were inaugurated to address ongoing ethnic divisions and build upon Kenyan values and traditions in the cause of peace. GPFF partners sponsored school- and community-based character education initiatives and Sports for Peace tournaments in Mombasa, Nairobi, and the Rift Valley. Further, the Global Peace Festival targeted the critically endangered Nairobi River and launched the largest environmental cleanup in Kenya’s history as a model for peacebuilding with volunteers from every tribe.

“We want to reclaim our river,” said GPF spokesman, youth advocate, and noted Kenyan Constitutional scholar Dr. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba; “we want to reclaim our environment, we want to make Nairobi a clean city in the sun that will take its pride of place among cities of the world.”

With funding and sponsorship of the GPFF, the Nairobi River Peace Initiative has won the support of Nairobi businesses, civic organizations, and governmental agencies. To date GPFF partnering organizations have mobilized seven major cleanups involving tens of thousands of volunteers.

In February 2010, key GPFF leaders met with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki at the Harambee House to jointly announce the selection of Nairobi for the 2010 Global Peace Festival and Convention along with the International Young Leaders Summit (IYLS), set for November 17 – 20, 2010. The delegation also kicked off youth peace initiatives across the Rift Valley and met with former Kenyan President and African statesman Daniel arap Moi, who expressed his strong backing of the GPF model of peacebuilding along with Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Hellen Sambili.

The GPF’s growing partnerships with faith-based groups, government agencies, the business community, and nongovernmental organizations have brought renewed hope to many that reconciliation and peaceful coexistence are within reach in Kenya.

A Response to Religious and Ethnic Conflict in the Philippines

The conflict in Mindanao province in the Philippines has never commanded the world’s attention, despite the massive scale of violence and loss of life. Since 1969, when the fighting between Muslim separatists and the armed forces began, the Mindanao conflict has left 160,000 dead and displaced some two million people.

The Global Peace Festival arrived in Mindanao in September 2008, despite a recent outbreak of violence and travel warnings from the provincial government. Building partnerships with Muslim, Christian, and indigenous communities, the GPF won the fervent endorsement of some of the Philippines’ most prominent public figures.

“This peace cannot be won through the force of arms; nor can it be imposed through violence or the subjugation of our ethnic and religious minority,” declared then Speaker of the House Jose de Venecia. “I join you today to help change the face of Mindanao, to help transform its heart, to banish hate and discrimination, and to bring about an era of peace.” At the festival, some 8,000 members of different ethnic groups performed traditional dances in colorful costumes during the parade and at the Capitol Grounds. The lively performances brought joy and festivity to a people wearied by violence, poverty, and dislocation, and defined the under-appreciated role of celebration as a strategic tool to create space for forgiveness and reconciliation.

The GPFF later enlisted volunteers in tree planting and beach cleaning projects, tangible and symbolic works that inspired Muslims, Christians, and indigenous peoples to find common ground, work together, and bring hope through caring for their environment. Building on the foundation of the Global Peace Festivals in Manila and Mindanao, a coalition of partners launched the Mindanao Peace Initiative at a gathering in the Philippine House of Representatives, a rally at the Araneta Coliseum, and in cities across Mindanao in early 2009. The Mindanao Peace coalition includes representatives of Muslim, Christian, and indigenous communities, the Armed Forces, business, academia, and youth organizations.

In September 2009, GPFF and Mindanao Peace Initiative began the “Harvest of Hope Project,” which trains Mindanao rural fisher folks and educators from Christian and Muslim backgrounds in aquaculture technology and peace education. More recently GPFF has advanced the “Garden of Peace Project” in partnership with Asia America Initiative (AAI) to improve agricultural technology. These projects both support Mindanao communities’ livelihood while building peace through economic development and dialogue and cooperation.

About the The Global Peace Festival Foundation

The Global Peace Festival Foundation addresses the most urgent issues of our time as a movement of common cause and reconciliation among people of all cultures and faiths, rooted in the vision of One Family Under God. GPFF holds that all people are endowed by the Creator with equal value, and therefore share a common heritage. This is the original source of human rights and human dignity.

GPFF celebrates and promotes the vision of One Family Under God by building interfaith partnerships, vibrant families, and a culture of service and peace. Using a multi-sector approach combined with this unifying vision, the Foundation’s activities and efforts are making significant impact on every continent.

The first Global Peace Festival was held in 2007, inspired and guided by the innovative leadership of Dr. Hyun Jin Moon. With wide-ranging experience as a spiritual leader, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, Dr. Moon stresses the importance of a spiritual worldview, youth engagement, personal responsibility, and integrity of character as essential elements of effective peace-building. With a message rooted in universal principles and values and the eternal human aspiration of building a world of lasting peace, Dr. Moon credits his Father for his spiritual orientation and God for the life lessons that have molded his worldview.

A peace advocate, accomplished leader of global youth and service organizations, and avid sportsman, Dr. Hyun Jin Moon is the chairman of the Global Peace Festival Foundation and its policy-making board, the Global Leadership Council. He was a member of the Korean Equestrian Team in the Seoul Olympics (1988) and the Barcelona Olympics (1992), and holds an undergraduate degree from Columbia University and graduate degrees from Harvard University and Unification Theological Seminary as well as honorary doctoral degrees from several prominent universities around the world. Dr. Moon and his wife, Jun Sook, are the proud parents of nine children.

Global Leadership Council

The Global Leadership Council of GPFF is comprised of internationally recognized leaders in business, philanthropy, government, and faith-based social action who share the vision of One Family under God as a model for peace. Members of the Global Leadership Council will play an active role in strategic planning, resource development, and assessment of performance in relation to the Foundation objectives of facilitating intercultural and interfaith cooperation, strengthening families, and fostering a global culture of service.

Global Peace Convention

The Global Peace Convention is a preeminent global peace convening of leading representatives from faith-based organi- zations, the volunteer sector, government, business, and prov- en social entrepreneurs. The Convention is an action-oriented partnership forum for sharing best practices, networking across disciplines, and planning coordinated strategies to ad- dress innovative service and post-conflict solutions.

Convention plenary and breakout sessions enable experts to present findings and evaluate cutting-edge developments in providing critical-care and sustainable responses to underde- velopment. The 2009 Convention in Manila included tracks in interfaith collaboration, service, and character building and family education. A selection of delegates travelled to Mindanao Island, where they could observe first-hand the efforts of the Mindanao Peace Initiative to bring warring factions into dialogue and reconciliation. Drawing upon human values that transcend ethnic, religious, and cultural divisions, the Global Peace Convention presents a unique opportunity for building a critical mass and global force for lasting peace.

Kenyan President His Excellency Mwai Kibaki is patron of the 2010 Global Peace Convention which will be convened No- vember 17-20 at the Kenyatta International Conference Center. The Global Peace Convention will be co-joined with an Africa Global Peace Festival and International Young Leaders Sum- mit. For more information visit www.globalpeacefestival.org.