In 1999, filmmaker Jeremy Gilley dreamed that one day all the countries of the world would unite in recognising one day in the year as a day of ceasefire and non-violence. In 2001, the 21st September was officially ratified by the U.N. as International Peace Day and adopted by its 192 member states.
In the days leading up to Peace Day 2009, for the 3rd year in a row, over 1 million children in Afghanistan were vaccinated against polio, in areas that are usually inaccessible to humanitarian workers. All offensive military operations in Afghanistan were halted on Peace Day itself.
Jeremy’s latest film, ‘The Day After Peace’ has been screened in over 90 countries, and the 2008 Peace One Day concert, held at the Albert Hall, has been seen by an estimated 250 million people. The next major objective is to introduce 3 billion people to Peace Day by 2012. Jude Law and Angelina Jolie are just two high profile celebrities who publicly support Jeremy and his team.
Steve Bolton, Nick Carlile and Richard Davies are all Patrons of the charity, and Steve sits on the Executive Board as lead Patron. Our first major venture with POD has been finding new commercial premises for the charity and raising finance to facilitate completion, which is happening at the end of February 2010. Moving forward we will be holding a variety of profile and fund raising events, so please keep visiting this site to keep up to date.
The charity itself has been working tirelessly to bring the core messages of peace and unity into schools around the world and has a bank of free resources and materials, which can be accessed worldwide.
You can help Jeremy achieve his goal simply by making everyone you know aware that the day exists and marking it every year, in even such a small way as lighting a candle.
Latest News….
Launch of Peace One Day’s new U.S.A online education resource
Webcast: Friday 19th March, 1pm
This new online multi-media resource is being distributed, in association with Scholastic, to over 16,000 schools in 11 east coast states, including Washington D.C., and being underwritten by POD’s long-term supporters Ben and Jerry’s.
The launch will take place at the Scholastic Global Headquarters in New York City on March 19, 2010 at 1 p.m. EST, where Jeremy Gilley will be joined by sponsors, special high profile guests and 150 school children. Jude Law will also be a part of the event, joining in via live link from London.
Jeremy will be fielding a question and answer session with the school children, centered on the POD education resource, exploring issues such as conflict resolution, shared responsibility and personal Peace Day commitments. Peace One Day’s long term goal is to provide access to free POD education materials for every school on earth, inspiring a generation to become the driving force behind the vision of a united and sustainable world.
The event will be broadcast via a live webcast at 1 p.m. EST at http://www.scholastic.com/peaceoneday/ to classrooms nationwide.