The Culture of Peace Working Group of the United Nation's NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns (CSVGC) has been diligently putting together an event to be held October 21 at UN Headquarters as part of the second annual week of Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns. Co-chairing this effort has been my focus the last few months. 

United Nations Day, the anniversary of the 1945 signing of the UN Charter, is observed annually on 24 October and is part of UN Week, which runs from 20 to 26 October. In October 2007, in honor of the 60th anniversary of the UN, the CSVGC group declared the first annual week of Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns to coincide with UN Week. We coordinated a series of special, spiritually-centered events each day that week as a reminder of the often forgotten spiritual principles upon which the UN was founded. Because this observance was so well-received last year, we are planning a more globally-connected week-long gala now -- to follow this year’s 21 September International Day of Peace. Mark your calendar now, and start planning to be part of these worldwide peace fests. See www.csvgc-ny.org and www.internationaldayofpeace.org for details.

Human Rights Day this year (December 10) marks yet another famous UN milestone: the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The power of the Declaration - that all human beings have fundamental rights and freedoms - is undiminished today. Thus, the overarching theme of this year’s Spirituality Week is “The Spirit of the UN: Our Commitment to Making the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Come Alive.” Our particular October 21 event during that week is entitled “Advancing the Culture of Peace: Peace Is a Human Right.” The goal is to inspire greater understanding of the culture of peace and its relation to human rights. Since the program will feature our UN Department & Ministry of Peace Resolution Project, we are hoping this publicity will help move the resolution forward.

It has been thrilling working behind-the-scenes creating an event at the UN. Ambassador Chowdhury has been supportive and hoping to participate but will be out of the country at that time. Nevertheless, at our last planning meeting (see photo) he emphasized the importance of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, which was passed by the General Assembly in 1999.  He shared his long-held dream of having it printed in a pocket-sized booklet to distribute all over the world, as a means of raising culture-of-peace consciousness. CSVGC has taken on the challenge of making his dream come true by trying to have such booklets printed in time to debut at our 21 October Culture of Peace event. If anyone has resources or ideas on how to help us accomplish this grandiose and worthy task for peace, please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .