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Reflections on Peace Day 2009
The Day really is working.
Perhaps no other thought entered my mind more than that on Peace Day 2009.
I spent the day in New York. And as I moved between various Peace Day events and press conferences, I received phone calls every hour with updates of all that was taking place: the reports that children all over the world were doing things in their schools in support of Peace Day; that with the support of PUMA.peace, we had successfully coordinated One Day One Goal football matches in all 192 member states of the United Nations; that more than a million people had gathered at Revolution Square, in Havana, Cuba, for a music concert with Colombian-born singer, Juanes and Miguel Bos; that humanitarian organisations were using the day to carry out massive vaccination campaigns in countries around the globe.
I could go on for pages trying to recount all of the amazing stories from the Day. But suffice it to say that each of these stories was inspiring in its own right, and each one offered further proof to the idea that the Day is working.
That night, I attended an event held in honour of Peace One Days 10th Anniversary, and it gave me an opportunity to thank just a few of the many people and organisations who have supported Peace One Days efforts over the years: people like Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben & Jerrys Ice Cream, who helped to sponsor the evenings event and who recently made a long-term commitment to working alongside Peace One Day, particularly in terms of our education initiatives; people like Jude Law, who has faithfully served as Peace One Days Ambassador and who has helped spread awareness of Peace Day by journeying with me to places such as Afghanistan; and, people like Ahmad Fawzi, the head of News and Media in the UNs Department of Public Information.
For me, there was something very profound, very meaningful in sharing the day with Ahmad, who had been with me when Peace One Day was officially launched at Shakespeares Globe Theatre, on 21 September 1999. To be together with him again and to hear the stories of the many life-saving activities and other initiatives that had occurred in the name of Peace Day was to recognize that a very simple idea had blossomed into something extraordinary in just ten short years.
Throughout the evening, Ahmad and I discussed what was undoubtedly one of the greatest achievements of Peace Day 2009 the news that, for the third year in a row, more than one million children in Afghanistan (in areas of the country that are usually inaccessible by humanitarian organisations) had been vaccinated against polio in the days leading up to 21 September.
To know that something like this continues to take place gives me great hope that we are moving closer toward making the Day truly self-sustaining. This is what we must do across the world: we must institutionalise Peace Day; we must make it self-sustaining.
In closing, I wish to share with you one final moment that I will remember from Peace Day 2009. It occurred only a few days ago, on a lake just outside of London, where a group of wakeboarders had gathered to ride their wakeboards on honour of Peace Day and to raise money for a local charity.
The event was not organised by Peace One Day. I was not there to give a speech or to show one of my films. In fact, nobody there seemed to have any idea who I was, which made it all the better because it allowed me to sit and watch all of these young people, many of whom were walking around with Peace One Day emblazoned on their chests. And I could see that all of them were not only proud to be wearing it but were proud to be taking part in the event, to know that they were doing something in the name of peace.
I could not help but smile and think, Its completely theirs! There is total initiative and total commitment on their part, and they have done this all on their own!
To see young people doing something like this is truly inspiring to me. And the reason that this is so inspiring to me is because it is not simply the heads of state and others my age that will give the world a day of unity and intercultural cooperation on a scale that humanity has never known. If we are to ever achieve such a day on a global scale, it will require the efforts of young people. It is the young people who hold the key to making Peace Day self-sustaining.
So I thank each and every one of you. It is because of your commitments and your actions that we are able to look at Peace Day 2009 and to say, The Day is working.
And I hope that you will join me as we begin our efforts for 2010. By working together, there will be peace one day.
In peace,
Jeremy