MEDIA

Largest World Peace Event for Students in History

In the great spirit of peace making, the World Peace Foundation continues to move forward. 8 000 of the brightest and most talented students from around the world and over ten countries came together in Mumbai, India, in 2013.

The events, conferences, and activities lasted for several days and saw major Bollywood stars and members of Indian Parliament take part along with our young global peace ambassadors. When we called for students to join us in a peace march throughout Mumbai, nearly 10.000 followed our call!

Students from all over the world had been preparing for this event through various educational initiatives at their schools: essays, projects, seminars, workshops, research, film contributions, speeches, and cultural initiatives.

WPF Mumbai Event – https://india.world-peace-foundation.org

World Peace Festival Berlin – “Most influential peace gathering in history” (Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu)

For the inaugural World Peace Festival in Berlin in August 2011, Tom Oliver managed to successfully unite – for the first time in history – global leaders from areas as diverse as the military, peace, business, film, philanthropy, media, Silicon Valley, politics, the arts, finance and the UN to put together and address a holistic and sustainable global peace agenda involving all stakeholders.

The inaugural WPF was pre-opened by famous photographer and filmmaker Russell James with his NomadTwoWorlds exhibition, together with designer and philanthropist Donna Karan and the actor Hugh Jackman.

The WPF lasted for over a week comprising art and cultural exhibitions, film festivals and conferences. It garnered fantastic media support from leading German publications such as “Die Welt” and “Capital”, the most powerful blogs in the world such as the “Huffington Post” and international media such as the BBC.

UN ambassadors from different regions in the world submitted the outcome of the WPF conference as an official contribution to the UN General Assembly in September 2011.

Michelle Bachelet, President of Chile, greeting World Peace Foundation

Michelle Bachelet is President of Chile and was the first Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women. Under Ms. Bachelet’s leadership, UN Women leads, supports and coordinates the United Nations’ work on gender equality and the empowerment of women at the global, regional and country level.

Ms. Bachelet most recently served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010. A long-time champion of women’s rights, she has advocated for gender equality and women’s empowerment throughout her career. As President, she invested significantly in pension reform, social protection programmes for women and children, and research and development. During her Presidency, the number of free early child-care centres for low-income families tripled and some 3,500 child-care centres were established around the country.

Berlin World Peace Festival 2011 Interviews

PEACE STARTS WITH ME – in partnership with puma.peace

“Mastering the Matrix” – Scenes from the interviews with Tom Oliver

“Peace leads to better business”

November 2010: “Peace leads to better business” – Tom Oliver (Founder & CEO of World Peace Partnership) in interview with World Bank at European Parliament:

“We have to adopt the belief that life is based on cooperation and not on cutthroat competition. Since the major challenges we are facing today are global we have to actually cooperate on a global scale in an unprecedented way to solve these challenges. That means that the cooperations that are learning now to cooperate will be the ones coming out on top in the future.

We can actually see that peace leads to better business, which in turns leads to higher national wealth. As studies have shown the per capita GDP increases the more peaceful the country becomes. What does it mean for a company to be ethical? Well it means to be ethical all across different levels; ethical towards the consumers and ethical towards the leadership of a company but also ethical towards the company’s employees. And it’s actually fascinating what happens when a company is focusing on the happiness of its employees.

In Africa there is a famous handshake which is called Ubuntu and that actually means I am because you are. That’s a fascinating inspiration for us all how to live in harmony if you adopt that way of thinking.”

“The most influential peace gathering in history”

Nobel Peace Prize Most Rev. Dr. Desmond Tutu speaking about the World Peace Festival Berlin 2011

“In August 2011 the World Peace Festival will take place in Berlin. This will be the largest and most influential peace gathering in history, bringing together the best artists, musicians, teachers, celebrities, athletes, business leaders, military generals and peace builders to work together with you and me. We shall not only be building a new community of people around the globe active on peace initiatives and a new vision for living in peace but working on the nuts and bolts the tools needed to carry it out. This great event is a milestone for our times, a turning point in the efforts of hundreds of thousands people worldwide to transform violent conflict. It merits your whole-hearted support.”

“Invitation to the World Peace Festival”

2010: Tom Oliver (Founder & CEO):

“The World Peace Festival will be a celebration of peace for people of all ages. It will also, however, inspire and empower people to be more at peace with themselves, others and their environment. As long as we believe that war is inevitable we will continue to have war. As long as we believe that it’s right to use violence to further our goals we will continue to have violence. The purpose of the World Peace Festival in Berlin is to shed light on one of mankind’s most current challenges and most pressing problems: the urgent need to put an end to war and to attain a genuine state of global peace. This is what we’ll do: we will demonstrate that this path to peace can be taken by every individual. We will give the individual tools, practical tools. We call them tools for peace. Those will be simple, practical exercises anyone can do to be more at peace with themselves, others and the environment. What is an attainable path, a practical path to global peace then? Well, if you reach a critical mass of people, who are practical idealists, who believe that the ends do not justify the means, if we reach a critical mass of individuals that refuses to go to war for the sake of peace, religion or politics, we can have peace. If we reach a critical mass of mothers who refuse to send their sons to war for the sake of peace, politics or religion, we can have peace. If we as individuals become the change we want to see in the world, we can have peace. We now invite you to become part of this unique event.”