International Day of Peace

The International Day of Peace, celebrated on September 21^st, was established in 1981 by the United Nations. This year’s theme is Cultivating a Culture of Peace.

In the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, the UN recognized that peace “not only is the absence of conflict, but also requires a positive, dynamic participatory process where dialogue is encouraged and conflicts are solved in a spirit of mutual understanding and cooperation.”

The UN General Assembly laid out the values needed for a culture of peace which include: respect for life, human rights and fundamental freedoms; the promotion of non-violence through education, dialogue and cooperation; commitment to peaceful settlement of conflicts; and adherence to freedom, justice, democracy, tolerance, solidarity, cooperation, pluralism, cultural diversity, dialogue and understanding at all levels of society and among nations.

“The International Day of Peace has always been a time to lay down weapons and observe ceasefires. But it now must also be a time for people to see each other’s humanity. Our survival as a global community depends on that.”

Here are some activities you can consider and help raise awareness about peace and global goals:

Young people from all over the world find their way to CHV to escape war and violence. To honour this day, youth in the Crisis Program are working on an art project to decorate an office. You can see a couple of examples of artwork in progress, in the header image.

One youth wrote a story to share their thoughts on peace:

It’s funny how you can’t describe a simple word in this chaotic world, in our little space in this big universe.

We don’t realize that our bodies are connected to the stars, and sometimes they explode, just like us.

But in that chaos, we find redemption and we don’t have retention anymore.

Nevertheless, the darkness can trap us, can seduce us with what hurts us, changing ourselves, losing ourselves because we discern to be in conflict and can’t find a reason to live for.

And if we are so big, why do we choose the other face of the line?

We are just a decision, and we choose to be bad or good.

And that doesn’t let us shine because we don’t have inner peace.

We also can provide others peace.

And we aren’t perfect, we make mistakes.

We fail. We try and we fail, but a virtue is a constancy that we have to learn.

Because being well takes effort.

Remaining well takes effort.

Because it implicates loss and letting go of the things we love, since sometimes the things we love are not the things we need.

Why start war and let these difficulties win? These difficulties that end up poisoning us.

Peace is not that difficult to find, we just need to truly open our eyes to see what awaits us beyond what we can see.

Peace is in the air. Peace is in love, not in pain, and sometimes we can find it by staring at someone in the eyes, or in simple things like seeing the sunset by the sea.

Peace is a rose garden; the roses are us and the spines are our unique characteristics.

Peace is smiling and saying hi to strangers. Peace is giving up your seat on the bus.

Peace is listening to people’s problems and helping them find solutions.

Peace is everything and nothing all at once. And its enemy is hate; racism, economic interests, political dilemmas, and conversations that lead us nowhere.

Peace is not money. Peace is not materialistic.

Peace is a sensual silhouette and there is no one like her. And I could write an entire novel to describe peace, because that is my way to find it — by writing. We need to find what gives us peace.

Speaking up and crying to heal is another way of finding peace. The point is to want to do it, to keep pushing, and to never give up.

How will you honour International Day of Peace? Follow Covenant House Vancouver on Twitter @CovenantHouseBC, on Instagram @covenanthousebc, on LinkedIn, on Facebook, and on TikTok, and share your thoughts and activities in the comments.