International Day of Peace

The International Day of Peace was established in 1981 by a resolution of the UN General Assembly. In 2001 the date was fixed on September 21. This message came from Secretary-General Kofi Annan on The International Day of Peace in 2005-

“Dear friends around the world- Peace is the paramount United Nations mission. It is the basis of our existence. The essence of our identity. The cause that animates everything we do. September 21, the International Day of Peace, is a day on which we reaffirm our commitment to this quest.... It is meant to be a day of global cease-fire, when all countries and all people stop all hostilities for the entire day. And it is a day on which people around the world observe a minute of silence at 12-noon local time. Twenty-four hours is not a long time. But it is time enough for combatants and political leaders to consider the destruction they are visiting on their people, and on their lands. And it is long enough to look over the barricades, or through the barbed wire, to see if there is another path.”

Peace Day Agenda:

1. Vow: 

"I vow to live in peace and cease all hostilities for this entire day."

2. Journal: 
Consider and list ways I can work for peace this fall and winter. 
How can I teach peace? How can I express peace in my art?


3. Raise Awareness: 
Each year I choose a project to spread the word about Peace Day. One year we made peace flags; one year I invited friends to watch a video about Peace Day. This year we made this poster:

Peace poster by Mia, Neci, Grace, Olive, Viv, and Cynthia

4. Train Myself for Peace: 
I’ve made an ongoing commitment to working at being peaceful myself, in thought and deed. I have taken several Alternatives to Violence workshops, and now I am reading the book Non-violent Communication by Marshall B. Rosenberg. Here is a quote:

"To practice NVC, it's critical for me to be able to slow down, take my time, to come from an energy I choose, the one I believe that we were meant to come from, not the one I was programmed into. I start the day with a remembering of where I want to be."

5. Observe silence: 

At noon today I was just ending an hour of silent worship with my Quaker community. The children all filed quietly in to be with us and we stood and held hands, observing another minute of silence, united, sending our prayer for peace to all who suffer from violence. It was lovely.