Today, the 100-Day Countdown to 21st September 2013
Peace!
Dear Friends of Peace, Greetings from Dublin! This message below will hopefully be posted today on our Blog and sent out as our Newsletter. But with my right wrist still enclosed in a double-steel splint, I may not succeed. We are going on the streets of Dublin at 12 noon to Launch the countdown and then we head off to Cork for the Social Justice Seminar. At the weekend we will be dedicating a Farmhouse into a Peace Home in Waterford. A busy few days ahead. So, just to be sure, I am sending this out to you from my own email account directly. Let me begin with this 30-second video of school children: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmVbTqjO7bA&feature=youtu.be Today, 13th June, we begin the 100-Day countdown to 21st September, the International Day of Peace. These 100 days are a great opportunity for us to consciously unite our small and big efforts to spread the awareness of the fundamental need to create a culture of peace wherever we are, starting with our families and friends, communities and cities. The video above is a heart-warming initiative of a school that is promoting this Peace Awareness among students. The theme of this year's celebration is Education for Peace. As the U.N. Secretary General will launch this 100-Day Countdown at the U.N. Headquarters in New York today, we reflect on the imperative that: "It is not enough to teach children how to read, write and count. Education has to cultivate mutual respect for others and the world in which we live, and help people forge more just, inclusive and peaceful societies." Here in Ireland, our public campaign for the observance of this World Peace Day has gone from strength to strength beginning with our first-ever Peace Concert at The Helix, "Four Seasons of Peace". From a one-hour concert, to a one-day international conference, to a weekend festival. We were very glad to have managed to pull it through together last year despite all the challenges, so that now we can just build on the first World Peace Weekend Festival for our annual celebrations. This year, 2013, our World Peace Weekend Festival will connect three counties in Ireland: Wexford, Dublin and Cork. We will begin at 12 noon on Friday in the biggest Secondary School in Ireland with 1,500 students breaking the Guinness Book of Records for the Holding of One Minute of Silence in a spiral of joined hands. We will be organising buses of people connecting these three cities. Our celebrations will close at 12 noon on Sunday in Cork City. On Saturday, 21st September, we will start the day with a Breakfast Briefing - Breaking Bread together, Heralding Hope. Then we will have the Global March for Peace and Unity to culminate in a large public place where all the Peace Walkers will join hands to hold the One Minute of Silence for Peace at 12 noon. The registered participants will then hop into buses to head to Cork City where we will have the peak of our celebrations: Sunday morning, we will have the young lead us to Flash-mob Peace Dances (weather permitting), or indoors, in Peace Arts workshops ... We will close the Peace Festival with another Circle of Peace --- a chain of hands holding the Minute of Silence at 12 Noon on Sunday, 22nd of September in Cork City. That's the general structure of our 2013 World Peace Weekend Festival, Connecting Cities. As the 100-Day preparations unfold, we will be bringing you more information. We will need all the volunteers we can find. Talents and skills, especially of organising public events are a great boost to us. We are just a handful of passionate peace lovers, so we welcome as many talented people as the winds would send us, with wide open arms. We'd love it very much if you can join us in spirit wherever you are in the world or if you'd volunteer your talent to help us produce the Second World Peace Weekend Festival in Ireland. I look forward to hearing from you. In deep Peace and much Love, Rosemarie Lucero Executive Director Instruments of Peace Instruments of Peace Suite 1211 Fitzwilliam Centre 77 Sir John Rogerson's Quay Dublin 2 Republic of Ireland Email: ex...@instrumentsofpeace.ie Mobile: +353 86 8181868 **********************************************************************
(UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon 100-day countdown message to the International Day of Peace)
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