Good music, good food, diversity of culture, race and ethnicity, deliberations on youth empowerment, values and peace-building, sounds too good to be true?
India, a country that is home to various beliefs, ideologies, ethnicities, cultures, food habits, and the birthplace of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’- a Sanskrit phrase meaning 'whole world is one family,' was the venue for the Global Peace Leadership Conference, 2023 in Delhi. This vision created the platform for the conference organized by Global Peace Foundation and partners, who have been advancing the shared vision “One Family Under God." The conference brought the vision to life.
It was my privilege to be invited to speak at the Youth Empowerment and Values- Based Peace-building track on day 1 of the conference. What made this experience even more special for me was that my family attended this conference with me and connected with our larger global family. It was heartening to see how warmly my family mixed with friends from Nepal, USA, and Africa .
I spoke about the importance of service as a tool for peace-building in the context of the work that my organization, Nirman is doing with Global Peace Women International. In my experience, service is a powerful tool to uplift and recognize the inherent value of every person, men and women, elderly and youth. I was delighted to speak alongside Dr. Aditi Narayani Paswan, Ms. Gail Hambleton and Ms. Sharleen Tomobe in the session.
The session introduced the Peace-Hub campaign of the Global Peace Foundation. It is one thing to talk about peace-building and another thing to actually work on-ground and make genuine efforts to build peace. After the session, Ms. Hambleton and Ms. Tomobe organized a fun activity for all participants where we had to discuss the values that were the most important to us and accordingly, share personal accounts/stories of living that value. This was a truly heartening exercise as it brought the entire room together. People of different countries, cultures, race, ethnicity, religions, all connected with each other on a purely human level. We truly felt like we were one family under God.
The two-day conference gave an opportunity to so many youngsters to volunteer and connect with experienced professionals. One could see these volunteers working tirelessly along with the Senior staff of the Global Peace Foundation to make the event a success. This group comprised of people of different countries and backgrounds but together they were one team working with a common goal in mind.
It was my pleasure to re-connect with my colleagues from all across the world and introduce them to Indian culture. The closing plenary of the conference also ably presented Indian beliefs, values and traditions, and towards the end we were all one family under god- waiting to reunite again to build peace.
Read more about the Global Peace Leadership Conference Indo-Pacific 2023 and view the GPLC 2023 activities gallery.
.jpeg)
