The International Day of Peace

The International Day of Peace was established in 1981 by the United Nations General Assembly. Two decades later, in 2001, the General Assembly unanimously voted to designate the Day as a period of non-violence and cease-fire. The United Nations invites all nations and people to honour a cessation of hostilities during the Day, and to otherwise commemorate the Day through education and public awareness on issues related to peace.

Resolution 2250 and the Role of Young People in Building Global Peace and Security

One half of the world’s population is under the age of 30 and of that 1.8 billion are between the ages of 11-24. Decisions are made every day that affect their lives in security and peace building matters. In December 2015, Resolution 2250 on youth, peace and security was unanimously adopted which encourages member states and leadership on all levels to have a seat in decision making processes for young people. It helps to shift the narrative to view young people as having a meaningful impact in driving change in peacebuilding and encourages financial and government investment in areas that are youth driven.

Now, thirty five years after the passage of Resolution 36/37 establishing the International Day of Peace and nearly three years in observance of the passage of Resolution 2250 on Youth, Peace and Security, the annual Peace Day Youth summit brings an opportunity to learn about actions being taken by government, business and young people toward the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and in particular, SDG16 – Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions.
 
 
 
 

A Vision of Peace

 
Innovation in the SDG Path

Innovation is serving as a cultural barometer for Global Citizens in addressing the SDGs. Art provides the opportunity to transfer public awareness into action for topics concerning the SDGs by harnessing the power to connect in transformative ways. Innovation provides a universally inclusive, accessible, and self-expressive platform that engages the creative community by allowing art and technology to become vehicles that address the targets of the SDGs. Additionally, social media platforms have become channels of activism inspired by creative expression. By amplifying youth voices to promote design-led innovation, the achievement of the 2030 Agenda through Global Citizen collaborations is on the horizon.
 
Business and Media in the Industry Matrix

The Sustainable Development Goals are a universal set of 17 targets that the member states of the United Nations agreed must be addressed by 2030. The SDGs serve as a comprehensive and systematic approach to complex problems of sustainable development on a global level. They also provide a framework for mobilizing companies and media to invest in sustainable development and provide SDG-led content in an ongoing and scalable way. Leadership in business should be exercised by all industries to consider the role and impact that their core operations, manufacturing and supply chains have on the SDGs. Discussions will focus on the creation of innovative models of action that drive businesses to consider how the markets reward sustainable corporate conduct, collaboration, and create incentives for corporate respect of the SDGs that are unrelated to corporate philanthropy and CSR activities. In considering that half of the world’s population is under the age of 30, media leadership is addressing the growing emphasis on youth-led content including the increasing focus on content on sustainability interests.
 
Coalition for Global Citizenship 2030

With the adoption of Agenda 2030, the international community ushered in a new concept of development – one which acknowledges the importance of Global Citizenship as a frame through which to understand our place in the world. In 2015, a group of like-minded organizations – now numbering 40 – came together to form a “Coalition for Global Citizenship 2030” in order to promote the recognition of humanity’s shared destiny and to pursue acts and advocacy consist with those ideals in and around the United Nations.
 
 
 

Permanent Secretariat of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates

The Permanent Secretariat to the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates Summits derives from a new and more broadly based collaboration between the International Gorbachev Foundation and the City of Rome for realizing the World Summits of Nobel Peace Laureates. The Permanent Secretariat, based in Rome, is a non-profit association without political aims.
 
 

 

• Robert Smith entered Wall Street with lessons passed down from four generations of family members who worked in the investment industry before him. Over the course of his career, he managed sales and trading teams at leading financial institutions, and built capital markets and international equities businesses. In 2014, Robert founded ICV to bring together his network of Family Offices and Fund Investors to evaluate opportunities that create a social impact beyond a financial return. He serves as Business Strategy Advisor to New Frontier Bio, a multi-asset holding company, which leverages the long-term involvement of the Kennedy family in healthcare, to identify, finance and develop novel medical technologies from inception through clinical proof of concept; he serves as a a member of the Presidential Advisory Board of Thomas Jefferson University and Jefferson Health, the largest academic medical center in Philadelphia and ranked #16 by U.S. News and World Report; and, Robert serves Senior Advisor to the Permanent Secretariat of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, a platform to consolidate peace efforts and strengthen global security, monitor and support the Nobel Peace Laureates, and engage the minds of young people and citizens on real matters that broaden vision and open up new horizons for more peaceful and compassionate thinking. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Chaeli Foundation, a nonprofit that focuses on growing more inclusive and empowered communities, especially through the inclusion of children, youth and adults with disabilities. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Childhood Cancer Kids, a nonprofit that increases childhood cancer awareness and elevates the spirits of children with cancer. Robert serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of The Children’s Village, a nonprofit that works in partnership with families to help society’s most vulnerable children so that they become educationally proficient, economically productive, and socially responsible members of their communities. He serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Tuesday’s Children, a response and recovery nonprofit organization that supports youth, families, and communities impacted by terrorism and traumatic loss. Robert serves as Vice President and a member of the Board of Directors of The Harmon Foundation, a private foundation established in 1922 by his great, great grandfather for charitable and humanitarian purposes, with an emphasis on “inspirational and tangible help for young people.”

• Telma Viale has decades of international public service dealing with mandates related to social justice and global development. She has served in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Central Asia. Until 2013 she was the Special Representative to the UN and Director of the International Labour Organization (ILO) Office in New York, and was Vice-Chair of the UN Development Group. Prior to that, she led the human resources department at the ILO Headquarters, and World Meteorological Organization Headquarters, as well as the ILO Training Center in Turin. Ms. Viale held various posts at the World Health Organization, at the UN Secretariat and the UN Development Programme, undertaking field assignments in Mozambique and Afghanistan. She represented the ILO as a Peace Laureate Organization at the 12th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. A Master in Organizational Psychology from Columbia University, she also holds a B.A. in Psychology and Romance Languages from CUNY.

• Louis Venturelli is the Youth Program Officer for the Americas of the Permanent Secretariat of the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. A champion of youth advocacy in international peace and humanitarian efforts, Mr. Venturelli has assisted in the recruitment of university students and young professionals for the annual World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates since he first attended the Hiroshima Summit in 2010. He helps to lead the coordination and facilitation of youth activities for the Leading by Example youth program, and assists in the coordination of the youth delegate alumni network following the conclusion of the summits. Mr. Venturelli has helped lead service trips of high school students to Nicaragua in partnership with the Rotary Club of New York. He received his bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Quinnipiac University, and a master’s degree in Higher Education Administration from Columbia University. Mr. Venturelli was recognized as a finalist for the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for his role in shaping education policy in January 2016.

Youth Program: Young people play important roles in our interconnected global society. Leaders who apply innovative approaches to reform systems, educate and create change to decrease suffering in the world discuss how they help children to become productive, independent citizens who will enrich their communities and their future.
 
 
 

Well-Being Inspires Well-Doing

In this talk, Bart Weejen shares how he developed detection rats technology together with a team of researchers at Antwerp University in Belgium and Sokoine University in Tanzania, and how this research effort developed into a global humanitarian operation. He provides an overview of the life saving actions of the so-called HeroRATs, how they are trained and what impact they had so far in supporting vulnerable communities affected by humanitarian detection challenges, to tackle these problems more independently. Bart also shares why and how he then got involved in the Wellbeing Project, and shares some significant findings of the Wellbeing Project’s research and what the social change sector can learn from this.

The New Era World Model

The New Era World Model has been formed to demonstrate practical ways of helping communities from across the globe to transform into economically empowered, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable entities that are enabled to maintain their cultural and natural identity while upgrading the human welfare aspect. The N.E.W. Model enables groundwork that incorporates the Sustainable Development Goals and disseminates successful roadmaps created. In addition, the N.E.W. Model works for the advancement and fostering of Sustainable Development as concept, practice and a way of life through direct community engagement and intellectual engagements at world forums. The ultimate goal of N.E.W. Model is to trigger a trend of a community oriented human welfare practice that bests the integrity of social service and dignity of the beneficiary communities and its members.
 

 

• Jamie Dougherty is a passionate humanitarian and advocate for sustainable development. With a strong sense of justice and a powerful will to make a difference, Jamie has evolved from the role of school teacher to change-maker, helping impoverished communities around the globe to upgrade the quality of education, drinking water supply, gender equality and nutrition. Jamie started by volunteering at the Home for Women, a safe heaven for sex traffic victims and rape victims in Thailand. She helped the home with counseling and empowerment programs like English class. Around the same time in Thailand, she involved 40 students from Ruamrudee International School who after raising enough funds, helped a local school in Northern Thailand install a drinking water supply system. Jamie has been teaching for the last 12 years with experiences from three different continents. She started the ‘Nepal Project’ at the United Nations International School: UNIS, New York, which has been ongoing for 4 years now involving over 120 students where they created and raise funds for meal programs in primary schools in Nepal and go there once a year to visit the schools. Recently, she headed the ‘Lanyard Project’ linking one of the most underprivileged groups of women from Nepal to the United Nations’ High Level Political Forum (Forum for Sustainability). The participants of the forum wore the lanyards for their ‘Name Tags’ and the Women’s Initiative was commended at the forum. Jamie’s interest in furthering the cause of sustainable development takes her to interesting places across the globe that present themselves as important case studies for understanding the process of change. She is the co-founder of New Era World Model, which is under registration process as a Non Profit in the USA.

• One of Nepal’s leading activists, Manoj Gautam has been working to protect the vulnerable wildlife, animals and people of his home country from a very young age. Growing up in a remote farming community, Manoj developed an innate understanding of the fundamental aspects of conservation such as community psychology, livelihood, ecological services. For 20 years he has been working to address the most pressing issues in natural resource management and human-wildlife conflict through his organization, the Jane Goodall Institute Nepal. Working with the communities which live closest to Nepal’s wildlife, Manoj seeks new ways to integrate conservation into peoples’ daily lives, for instance in 2005, on learning of the deaths of large numbers of vultures due to consumption of Diclofenac-poisoned carcasses, he developed the concept of ‘Vulture Restaurant’, where villagers can dump safe cattle carcasses for vultures (vulture nests increased from 3 to 27 in his region and the concept has been replicated across south Asia). Over the years he has built a network of several thousands of other young Nepalese who care deeply about the country’s biodiversity. From suing the government to uprooting the companies harming animals (including US funded breeding facilities exporting animals for experimentation) Manoj combines legal tools with public campaigns to change the hearts and minds of individuals and populations. His campaigns have changed the fate of thousands of animals in Asia and the mindset of thousands of people. His lessons from the field come from dealing with thousands of people across different communities in different circumstances. They are very simple and practical yet powerful. For his tireless and game-changing efforts Manoj has been awarded with many national and international awards including Jane Goodall’s Global Youth Leadership Award in 2008 and the Future For Nature Award in 2015.

 

 
At the 2017 High-Level Political Forum Lanyards (HLPF), participants including States Members of the United Nations and States Members of specialized agencies, inter-governmental organizations, United Nations system, major groups and other stakeholders wore the HLPF Lanyards (HLPF) that were handwoven by 16 Nepalese women. The women involved in the making of the 1,000 lanyards received training and a stipend which they used to support their family, namely their children’s education. The HLPF lanyards were then assembled by a group of about 20 students from the United Nations International School (UNIS) Nepal Club who wholeheartedly volunteered almost three days of their time to complete the assembly. The HLPF lanyards were generously supported by ICV. The weaving together of the HLPF Lanyards, much like the weaving together of multiple stakeholders to create positive change, is an example of the great work being done by The New Era World Model.

 
 
 

A Focus on Youth

Young people play important roles in our interconnected global society. Leaders who apply innovative approaches to reform systems, educate and create change to decrease suffering in the world discuss how they help children to become productive, independent citizens who will enrich their communities and their future.

 

• Jeremy Kohomban, Ph.D., President & CEO of The Children’s Village, President of The CV Institute and its Center for Child Welfare Research, and President of Harlem Dowling. He is an author, advocate and expert in child welfare and juvenile justice. His leadership has been recognized by The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR and other publications. Most recently, he testified before the United States Congress, Senate Finance Committee and elaborated on the need for finance reform that supports children, families and communities. City Limits magazine identified him as a leader with a “clear vision for the future.” In his book, From Pariahs to Partners, How Parents and their Allies Changed New York City’s Child Welfare System, author David Tobis describes him as “one of the most parent-focused, reform-minded, and effective administrators in the field of child welfare”. In 2013, Dr. Kohomban was honored by the Child Welfare League of America for Exemplary Innovative Service Resulting in Positive and Successful Outcomes for Children and, in 2011, by the Alliance for Children and Families with the Samuel Gerson Nordlinger Child Welfare Leadership Award for his dedication and effectiveness in the child welfare field. Dr. Kohomban serves and served on various boards including NYC’s Child Welfare Watch, Child Welfare Organizing Project, The Alliance for Strong Families and Communities, Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Center for Effective Family Services and Systems, Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies (COFCCA), the Washington D.C. based American Youth Work Center which publishes the periodical Youth Today, Iraqi Children Foundation, and Charity Navigator’s Advisory Panel. He has earned a reputation as a leader who effectively blends human services with accountability and a pragmatic business sense.

 
 

A Journey of Inclusion

The Chaeli Foundation was established in July 2017 through the collaboration of like-minded community and business leaders whose common goal is to grow more inclusive and empowered communities, especially through the inclusion of children, youth and adults with disabilities. The Chaeli Foundation is inspired by the work of The Chaeli Campaign and works in partnership with the Campaign on a local, national and global level to advocate for communities that grow capacity, empower and provide opportunities for children, youth and adults with disabilities to implement meaningful societal change.
 

Chaeli Campaign A Journey of Inclusion

 
Since its founding in 2014 as a grass roots organization, The Chaeli Campaign has attracted the trust and support of international organizations like the KidsRights Foundation, World of Children Awards, King Baudouin Africa Fund and the Turner Prize with total grant funding amounting to nearly $3 million. Through this generous support, The Chaeli Campaign has positively impacted the lives of more than 44,000 children in need in the Sub-Saharan African region by providing 400 assistive devices, establishing a youth leadership program for 800 children from 120 schools, and raising ability awareness through Chaeli’s participation as a speaker at nearly a dozen international conferences. More than 18,000 people are now aware of the importance of being ability-focused and the right to inclusion through the four professional theatre pieces created through the inspiring work of the The Chaeli Campaign and the brave families impacted through these projects.

Programs

All children have the right to live a full life; where they know that they belong; where their talents and skills are affirmed so that they may take a rightful place in their family, community and society; where they know that they belong, they are valued and they can make a meaningful contribution to their community.

 
 
 

Musical Performance: Papua New Guinea Music Foundation

The dancers of the Papua New Guinea Music Foundation will share their indigenous traditions with the world and help spread the message of peace through dance and music.
 

 
 
 

Tuesday’s Children: A Long-Term Healing Model

Tuesday’s Children provides a lifetime of healing for those whose lives have been torn apart by terrorism and traumatic loss. Our Long-Term Healing Model for disaster recovery and healing through community has been compiled as a training curriculum and valuable resource for local and global community providers, governments, funders and professionals. Through this time-tested approach, Tuesday’s Children keeps the promise to assist all those impacted by 9/11; serves and supports our nation’s Military Families of the Fallen; and builds resilience and common bonds in communities recovering from tragedies.

• Terry Grace Sears is the Executive Director of Tuesday’s Children, a nonprofit family service organization that has made a long-term commitment to serve and support those impacted by the events of Tuesday, September 11, 2001 and other incidents of terrorism and war worldwide. Long devoted to the challenges faced by children, families and communities in the wake of traumatic events, Terry served as the Chairman of the Board of Tuesday’s Children since it’s founding early in 2002 until 2005 when she assumed the role of Executive Director. Terry successfully led the organization through the 2008 recession and the milestone 10th and 15th anniversaries of the September 11th. She has been pivotal in Tuesday’s Children’s evolution from a 9/11-focused organization to a nationally focused nonprofit serving the 9/11 community, military families of the fallen and other communities impacted by traumatic events and mass-scale tragedies. A graduate of Fordham University, Terry serves on the Board of the Sarita Kennedy East Foundation and the Santa Maria Foundation. She is a former Board Member of the Grace Institute in Manhattan, NY, and Our Lady of Grace Montessori School and the Schools of St. Mary in Manhasset, Long Island. Terry and her husband Richard, along with their four children, are lifelong residents of Manhasset, NY a community that was heavily impacted by losses on September 11th.

• Sallie Lynch is the Senior Program and Development Consultant of Tuesday’s Children. She has over 15 years experience serving families of September 11th victims, responders and survivors. She is the principal researcher and author of Tuesday’s Children’s evidence-based Long-Term Healing Model, a training curriculum, toolkit and compilation of lessons learned on community healing and resilience in the 15 years since 9/11. She previously coordinated a collaborative research and intervention program with Columbia University School of Social Work and the FDNY Counseling Service Unit. Sallie is a co-author of the book FDNY Crisis Counseling: Innovative Responses to 9/11 Firefighters, Families and Communities (Wiley, 2006). Sallie holds an MA in Anthropology from Columbia University and a BA in Cultural Studies from Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic.

Kindest Kid in America Inspires Children with Cancer

Childhood Cancer Kids is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, seeks to increase childhood cancer awareness and to provide resources to and elevate the spirits of children with cancer.
 

• Sierra Preveza, Founder of Childhood Cancer Kids, is a survivor of kidney cancer who was diagnosed at the age of 6. A Wilms’ tumor stage 2, the size of a grapefruit, grew rapidly inside of Sierra. She was very fortunate; she underwent surgery at Boston Children’s Hospital and the tumor was removed. A year after her experience and strong recovery, Sierra decided she wanted to give to other kids with cancer and founded Childhood Cancer Kids. She has three missions: to fundraise for places that support childhood cancer, to provide yoga relaxation techniques for kids going through and recovering from cancer, and to raise the level of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month in September. The Today Show named Sierra the Kindest Kid in America and she is the Sprout Network’s Chief Kindness Officer.