7/27/2019 GVI Playa Del Carmen Monthly Achievements Report September 2013 2

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/gvi-playa-del-carmen-monthly-achievements-report-september-2013-2 1/2

September 2013

Playa del Carmen, Mexico 

 An overview of GVI’s participation on Peace One Day celebration

In 1999, Jeremy Gilley founded Peace One Day as a non-profit organization with the objective toinstitutionalize the 21st of September as a self-sustaining, annual day of global unity; a day o

intercultural cooperation on a scale that humanity has never known. And only 2 years on, the member

states of the United Nations unanimously adopted the first ever annual day of global ceasefire and non-

violence on 21 September – the objective was achieved on paper.

The only true achievement of this objective is if there was total participation from the people of the

world. To reach them, the Global Truce campaign involved the creation of a series of Peace One Day

coalitions, each with a lead partner: the NGO Coalition; the ‘Reducing Domestic Violence’ Coalition; the

Student Coalition; and the Schools’ Network in 2012. Organizations closer to people (including:  CocaCola, British Airways, Dior, Skype, Google, Lotus F1 Team, Innocent  little tasty drinks, Ocado and The

Execution charitable trust ) supported this as well.

Through detailed analysis conducted with the support of McKinsey & Company, the Peace One Day 2012

report found that, across the world there were approximately 280 million people in 198 countries aware

of Peace Day 2012 – 4% of the world’s population. Including one of the most staggering figure of 70%

recorded reduction in violent incidents on Peace Day in Afghanistan (source: United Nations Departmentof Safety and Security).

The report further estimates that approximately 2% of those people (5.6 million) behaved more

peacefully as a result.

Figure 1 Volunteers and children making pinwheels

To support Peace One Day 2013, GVI decided to share this wonderful message of peace with the children

of Mexico. With the creative combined minds of volunteers, the children made pin wheels in the coloursand patterns of flags from all around the world. Once completed, the children ventured into their local

community park and marched for peace.

7/27/2019 GVI Playa Del Carmen Monthly Achievements Report September 2013 2

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/gvi-playa-del-carmen-monthly-achievements-report-september-2013-2 2/2

A perfectly windy day showed off the children’s handiworks proudly as colours from all around the worldspun in harmony. Each little representative shouted “Queremos  paz!” which means “We want  peace!

Their loud voices echoed in the halls and captured the attention of any near bystander. And how could

they not ignore such a spectacle of cheers and colours.

“Peace for Cuba! Peace for China! Peace forAustralia!” the children sang all the

countries they had created until the sun

had set.

Experts expect figures of participation for

2013 to double aiming to inform 3 billion

people about Peace Day by 2016. Yes,

Peace One Day has been accepted by theUnited Nations, NGOs around the world,

global conglomerates and organizations,

even by Hollywood celebrities like Jude

Law. But without the participation of people from around the world, Peace One

Day would just be nothing more than a

great idea. So we started with a little (pun

intended); children spreading awarenessto their families and their communities.

Who knows, in 3 years time (or sooner), we

could be seeing big changes in this small community; and that will be an incredible achievement for GV

Mexico.

References:

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVo4lQe8MhQ  viewed: 9th October 2013

  http://peaceoneday.org/2013-celebration/  viewed: 9th October 2013

  http://peaceoneday.org/ viewed: 9th October 2013 

Figure 2 Showing off their work  

Figure 3 Marching around shouting for peace