By Lee Gyu-lee

MANILA, Philippines — This year’s Global Peace Convention (GPC), hosted by the Global Peace Foundation (GPF) — a non-profit organization — commenced its five-day event in the the Philippines with a youth festival at the Cuneta Astrodome in Manila, Sunday.

The GPC’s Global Peace Youth Fest 2023, which commenced with a special performance by Japanese drummer Takeshi Chiyozono, invited younger generations of the country to empower them to become global peacebuilders and support a free and unified Korea.

“It’s dreamers that change the world in which we live. So take the opportunity through events such as this to become the owners of the greatest dream of all,” Hyun Jin Preston Moon, the founder and chairman of GPF, said during the keynote speech, encouraging the young attendees to dream big, emphasizing their potential to shape a better world.

The festival featured five sessions, covering topics such as Peaceful Coexistence in a Digital Age and Weaving Unity in Diversity to educate the young atendees on leadership, peacebuilding and essential life skills. It aims to inspire young people to become moral and innovative leaders and highlight their potential contribution to peace and social development.

Moon noted the important role of Filipino youth in bringing peace to the Korean Peninsula, mentioning the similarities of the two countries.

“There is only one nation in this world that has not thrown off the shackles of the tragedies of the 20th century; that is the nation of my homeland Korea,” he said.

“It was a nation whose people had experienced the travesties of that experience and yet was able to overcome it at the end of World War II with the potential of liberation and the hope of building a new nation, very much like the Philippines. Yet once again, that hope was tragically taken away as the Cold War divided that peninsula.”

He called the younger generations to action, referencing the history of the Korean War (1950-1953), when the Philippines sent military aid to Korea, and emphasized the importance of a belief in God to bring their dreams to fruition.

“If you participated in peacebuilding very much like your grandfather’s and your great grandfathers’ that came to the aid of the embattled Korean people during the 1950s, imagine what that would mean for you and your generation and for the station of the Philippines. You will plant the seeds for a new civilization of peace in this world,” Moon said.

“Remember that everything that is good in this world that humanity has achieved has always come from God. It is based upon the spiritual principles that are absolutely unchanging and immutable that allows us to achieve the heights of human potential.”

The convention is a biannual assembly of policy experts, educators and political and civil society leaders sharing and discussing strategies in various areas, including peacebuilding, education, entrepreneurship and sustainable development. This year, the conference, under the theme, One Family under God: Vision for National Transformation and Civilization of Peace, runs through Dec. 14 in Manila, the Philippines.