By Dani on September 15th, 2008 in Talk

Tags: aid, ceasefire, dalai lama, day of peace, film, immunizations, jeremy gilley, killing, kofi annan, peace, peace day, poverty, september 21, somalia, sri lanka, united nations, unity, violence, war

Back in 1998, filmmaker Jeremy Gilley witnessed, as we all do, the world’s condition: The poverty, the killing, and the war. But he decided to get up and do something about it. He set out to make a film about peace. Yet finding no official day of peace on the calendar, his mission soon became to make one. Gilleys traveled around the world, from Somalia to Sri Lanka, and met with the likes of the Dalai Lama and Kofi Annan to stop the violence for one official 24-hour slot on September 21^st of every year.

“If we want to move from a culture of war to a culture of peace then we are going to have to unite”

Not only did he advocate a day that would promote unity and a worldwide ceasefire, but he discovered that on this day, instead of fighting, children could be immunized, aid could be distributed, and lives could be saved.

To think that one man pushed the first domino that saw every member state of the United Nations sign on for Peace Day is incredible. I always think of the calendar as this be-all-and-end-all written in stone. Not as something I could actually influence. Yet Gilleys, demanding the ideal for peace on our planet, walked up to the calendar with a permanent marker.

What are your thoughts on Gilleys and Peace Day? Did you know Peace Day existed?

To visit the website, go to: www.peaceoneday.org or to watch the YouTube video, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FmEIP46B-E

Image credit: jcolman