NEW YORK | In observance of International Peace Day on September 21st, the UN held a Student Observance conference with 800 high school & middle school students and non-profit representatives from the east coast of the US.
Two members of staff and seven Seeds attended the conference, which was focused on the theme “Peace and Human Rights” and featured addresses by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and UN Messengers of Peace Michael Douglas, Dr. Elie Wiesel, Dr. Jane Goodall, and Ms. Midori Goto.
The gathering was also engaged in a videoconference discussion between the Messengers of Peace, students at the UN headquarters, and UN peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan, Liberia and Sudan. The groups in these countries gave moving presentations about the human rights situations in their respective countries.
In addition to the presentations by the Messengers of Peace and a few student groups, students in attendance (as well as those in attendance via videoconference) had the opportunity to ask questions of the Messengers of Peace about how the UN was working towards achieving equality and human rights.
In response to a question from a student at UN headquarters about the challenges to achieving peace and human rights objectives, Dr. Wiesel responded that one of the greatest challenges to achieving peace is indifference.
“The opposite of life is not death. It is indifference to life and death.”