September 21: Peace One Day

Posted on Sep 21, 2009 by Susie Collins in Blog, Media/Videos, Social Justice, Susie Collins

Doing well by doing good is a new paradigm

The Day After Peace is a film about a quest by a brave young Englishman, Jeremy Gilley, who has a vision of creating an annual global “Peace Day” where all warring nations across the planet will participate in a 24-hour ceasefire every September 21st. Launching his dream in 1999, he spent years of frustration working with the United Nations and political leaders across the globe, until he finally sees a glimmer of his dream come true in war torn Afghanistan, where, in 2007, the Taliban guarantees peace and safety on Sept. 21 for 10,000 health care workers on a polio vaccination mission.

This young man’s dream of a peaceful world is not that far from the dream of people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, who want nothing more than a clean, pristine environment in which to thrive. At one part in the film, he meets with Ray Anderson, CEO at Interface, a model for corporate sustainability. “Doing well by doing good is a new paradigm,” says Anderson. “We’re not going to create a sustainable peaceful world with a snap of the fingers. It’s a journey, a very long, long journey; begins a step at a time.”

While I found this film very inspirational, I winced a bit when I saw Peace Day in 2007 included the distribution of insecticide treated mosquito netting to combat malaria in the Congo. I was struck by the complexity of our world, where toxic chemicals are considered necessary when fighting disease and are included in Peace Day.

Two wings up for this film.

Peace One Day is working to manifest an annual day of global unity; a day of intercultural cooperation on a scale that humanity has never known. The next stepping stone on this journey is to reach 3 billion people with the message of Peace Day by 2012.

Link to Peace One Day.

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Tags: Children's Health, Environment, MCS, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Pesticides, Policy, Video