Cities Across the World

The United Nations has given those who love peace a great and profound gift — International Day of Peace, commemorated on September 21st of each year. Since the U.N. Resolution in 1981, awareness of this gift has traveled around the world to impact the lives of individuals and families on every continent. Many use Peace Day as a time of reflection on what needs to be done to change our culture to one of peace. Many use it for educating about the many ways to work for more peaceful communities. Still others focus on celebrating the precious peace we have won from the voices of violence. There are many examples of families, neighborhoods and entire cities embracing the gift of Peace Day and hope every person and community across the globe will add to the momentum. – Fred Arment: Founder, International Cities of Peace

CITIES Peace Team  The Cities Peace Team is a global group of Peace Day organizers that supports the United Nations in increasing active and meaningful observances of the International Day of Peace (IDP), September 21, in cities across the world. The CITIES Peace Team works collaboration and coordination with the IDP NGO Committee at the UN. It is Co-Chaired by representatives of International Cities of Peace (ICP), and Peace Day Philly.

International Cities of Peace is an organization uniting cities around the UNESCO concept of the Culture of Peace. International Cities of Peace™ is dedicated to connecting, promoting, and encouraging the global cities of peace movement. ICP fosters peace as a consensus value in Cities of Peace around the world. Its mission is to network, encourage, document, and provide resources and information for leaders and organizations working to make peace a consensus value through the global Cities of Peace movement. For an overview video by ICP’s Executive Director, CLICK HERE

Peace One Day is a global organization founded by documentary filmmaker-turned-peace-activist Jeremy Gilley. Gilley successfully campaigned for a second United Nations Resolution in 2001 assigning a fixed calendar date, September 21, to Peace Day and specifying it as a day of global ceasefire and non violence. POD has built global coalitions related to Students, NGOs, Domestic Violence, Faith and Corporations, and has developed, in collaboration with Scholastic, free Peace Education resources that have now been translated into a number of languages are being distributed worldwide. For more about Peace One Day, visit their website.

Mayors for Peace is a global association of over 5,800 Mayor’s offices in ities across the world. MFP supports the abolition of nuclear weapons and observing Peace Day with a minute of silence at noon. For their 2013 letter of support for Peace Day, CLICK HERE. For their 100 Day Countdown Message, CLICK HERE

Peace Day initiatives in cities across the world

Kosmos Journal’s Peace Day Event highlights for 2014

Highlighted US City – Chicago, IL, USA: Chicago Build the Peace Committee

Chicago has the longest standing Peace Day observance, which began even prior to the first UN Resolution in support of Peace Day in 1981. The Peace School founded Chicago’s Peace Day in 1978 and was named a UN Peace Messenger in 1987. The School formed the Committee in 2008. Annual Peace Day activities include a downtown outdoor celebration (public officials, speakers, live music, world flag ceremony, Minute of Silence). Chicago Build the Peace also provides suggested peace activities to the Chicago public school system in order to engage children and youth across the city in the day. You can access the activities on their WEBSITE. Other events have included programming at Chicago Children’s Museum, neighborhood workshops and family activities.

Highlighted US City – PEACE DAYton

An association of nearly 70 organizations throughout the Dayton Region mount around 50 peace week events designed to the needs of their specific constituencies. PEACE DAYton’s vision is to encourage and highlight each organization’s year-long efforts to build a more peaceful community through efforts to increase safety, prosperity and quality of life for the Region’s children and families. To encourage all peacebuilding organizations to participate, peace is defined as the consensus values of increased safety, prosperity, and quality of life. All sectors of the Dayton community participate, including the arts, wellness, civic, faith-based, academic, commerce, safety & security, sports and recreation, service, and environmental groups.

Cochin, India – Society For Compassion And Peace (SCAP)

SCAP participated in the International Day of Peace with events including Peace Poster distribution among students in various schools in the city, Peace gatherings in selected schools where parents were also invited, chanting peace slogans, taking peace pledge by the community followed by peace messages. Peace Day 2013 will include Peace Posters, Candle for peace, a Peace gathering, Peace pledges and peace messages.

Dublin, IRELAND: Instruments of Peace

The “World Peace Weekend Festival” in 2013 connected three counties in Ireland: Wexford, Dublin and Cork. Celebrations began at a Community School Wexford at 12 noon on Friday, 20th September and closed at 12 noon on Sunday in Cork City. At 12 noon on Friday 1,555 students at a school observed Holding of One Minute of Silence in a spiral of joined hands. On Saturday, 9/21 there was a walk to the National War Memorial Gardens. Doves will be released after the MINUTE OF SILENCE – MOMENT OF PEACE at noon, and participants signed the 2013 PEACE DAY Banner. Instruments of Peace also launched their EDUCATION FOR PEACE PROJECTS in Secondary Schools.

Eugene, Oregon: Eugene Peace Team

The Eugene Peace Team organized about 18 events for 2013. These included: a public reading of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, rally and social mixer, an interfaith breakfast with keynote speech, dance performance, storytelling, inspirational speeches, mayoral proclamation, moments of silence repeated on the hour in unity with other time zones, choirs, Nonviolent Communication education, Dances of Universal Peace, group singing, martial artist discussion of inner peace, café style group discussions of local activism effectiveness. The Eugene Peace Team is currently working on a documentary series of chapters on the life story of Avon Mattison, founder of Pathways to Peace and co-creator of the 1981 United Nations Resolution that established the International Day of Peace. Another project is “Peace Is the Only Gold: A Global Education Initiative,” a program developed by two-time Olympic Pentathlete Marilyn King.

Honokaa, Hawaii – Peace Day Parade

Honoka‘a, Big Island of Hawaii hosts the premiere Peace Day event in the State of Hawai‘i, a Parade and Festival demonstrating unity in support of peace, compassion and awareness of interdependence. Hundreds of participants from over 30 groups will perform or exhibit in a unique parade, described as a “moving stage” of music, dance and entertainment-with-a-message. PA Day of Mindfulness, Read for Peace for schools and 5K Run for Peace are other Peace Day events in this city. Join their Facebook page HERE.

Hebron, PALESTINE: Volunteering for Peace (URI)

Volunteering for Peace Blog
Volunteering for Peace is a Palestinian NGO that aims to participate in establishing a bridge between the different faith and cultural groups in Palestine and bridge them with youth from different parts of the world. Annually organizes a Peace Day event in a different Palestinian city – in 2011 it was in Bethlehem near the nativity church and involved different interfaith groups. Volunteers for Peace plans a full day of peace activities including art and photography that reflects the perspectives of children as well as theater and a candle lighting ceremony.

Hong Kong, CHINA: Peace International Foundation

For 2013, the Hong Kong Peace Day Ceremony and ‘Education for Peace’ Youth Conference will be held at their beautifully built campus which can hold about 1300 people for the conference for three days. The Yew Chung Education Foundation are happy to have their schools to be the first chartered member of The Student Peace Club (SPC) and also to join the Academic Partnership team to jointly promote SPC and peace education to their own network of schools and other schools in the region. Some of the students from their sister schools will be coming to Hong Kong to attend the events to learn the process of replicating the same own schools next year. The event will be video live cast to all their schools with about 30 in all in Hong Kong and China, with one in the Silicon Valley. For details on the diverse events offered in 2012, CLICK HERE

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia: Call of Culture

Call of Culture is an innovative international cultural dialogue program, developing standards and media for individuals around the globe to build bridges and advance communication utilizing social media and other media outlets. For 2013, Call of Culture launched a magazine on 9/21 featuring guides to and articles about cultures of different regions of the world with an underlying theme of cultural awareness. This peace building media/tool is designed to advance communication and understanding between people of different cultures.
To video the “Peace N Music” edition of this magazine, CLICK HERE. For their Facebook page, CLICK HERE

Katmandu, Nepal: Peace for People

Peace for People was established in 2009 which acts as mediator for people and stakeholders of Peace. Peace for People organizes activities for Peace Day such as a dance program which aimed to help people understand peace through creativity, a Peace Conference and many community activities to raise the visibility of Peace Day.

Manchester, UNITED KINGDOM: World Peace Prayer Society UK

In 2012, organizations worked on projects leading up to Peace Day involving multiple schools as well as colleges. A World Peace Flag Ceremony involved at least 24 schools, and many representatives from the Education Department. WPPS has also developed an in-depth elementary school peace curriculum.

For an event outline for a Peace Day event involving multiple schools, click here.

Montreal, CANADA: Circle of Peace – Pacifest

Through the work of this NGO, the three levels of government in Montreal officially proclaim September 21 as “International Day of Peace.” For 2012 Montreal’s Mayor presided over a public event at City Hall on 9/21, including the minute of silence. The Mayor also worked with with Mayors for Peace to outreach to Mayors across the world, encouraging active participation in Peace Day. 2012 Peace Day activities actively took place at Dawson College in Montreal, where a peace garden serves as a model for other universities and communities. Click here for more about the Dawson Peace Garden.

New Haven, CT, USA: International Association of Peace Messenger Cities (IAPMC)

VIDEO: Peace Day New Haven
The International Association of Peace Messenger Cities was established to recognize and encourage the role and responsibility cities have in creating a culture of peace. One Peace Day 2011, New Haven involved about 1,200 students from every New Haven public school in a public event that included public officials, music and video streaming with their sister city in Kragujevac, Serbia. As part of the event, students made over 3,000 Pinwheels for Peace. For 2012, IAPMC reached out to cities across the world to urge their participation in Peace Day 2012, especially in terms of involving children, and organized a live streaming of events in multiple cities for Peace Day.

Providence, Rhode Island

Observing the Month of Peace in Rhode Island is an expansion of their celebrations of the United Nations International Day of Peace events for a number of years. The Peace Flag Project (PFP) has been the primary organizer of the UN Peace Days in Providence. 2013 events throughout the week of Peace Day included a peace flag workshops, a peace art exhibit, several concerts, films, silent walking mediation and a non violence training for public officials. For more information about Peace Day activities in Providence, and specifics about the Peace Flag Project, CLICK HERE.

Rockford, IL Peace Day initiative – CLICK HERE

Vienna, Austria

For an overview of Peace Day 2012 activities at Vienna’s United Nations, CLICK HERE

Winnipeg, Manitoba – Peace Days

Peace Days will be celebrated from September 15 to 21, showcasing over 20 events throughout the city. People can choose from a wide array of events occurring during the day and each evening, be it music, meditation, speaker series, activities and Concert for Peace.