Reduce armed conflicts in the world through the education of future global peace leaders. This is the ambitious proposal of Rondine Cittadella della Pace that wishes to respond to the need for new guidelines capable of governing the challenges of today’s globalization in an increasingly divided world.
Rondine returns to the UN Headquarters, exactly one year after the official launch of its Leaders for Peace campaign, to revamp its peace message and introduce to all Member States the concrete output of the campaign itself: the Global Leaders School project. A high-level, highly specialized training opportunity for young professionals from all over the world, in line with the UN Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goal 4 and specifically 4.7 for quality, fair and inclusive education inclusive of knowledge and skills on human rights and the promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence.
The event took place on December 5th, 2019 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York. It was organized in partnership with the Permanent Missions and Delegations of Italy, Armenia, Jordan, Sierra Leone and the European Union to the United Nations, the Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary General for Youth, and featured speakers from OHCHR, the United Nations Department for Political and Peace Building Affairs and the University of Manitoba, Canada.
“One year after the launch of the Leaders for Peace campaign, Rondine returns to the UN headquarters to update its activities thanks to its main actors at play: the young students of the Citadel of Peace. They are tomorrow’s leaders. We are here to bring their proposals to tables that matter, those in which we decide how to face today’s challenges on a global level. Rondine is a source of inspiration and example because it places young people on center stage. Peace and peaceful coexistence are based upon openness to dialogue and understanding of one another; values that these young people – despite having lived through dramatic experiences – have made their own through the Rondine Method . Today, and precisely in these rooms, we are positively reminded of their importance”, stated Ambassador Mariangela Zappia, Italian Permanent Representative to the UN.
“For the first time in its history, Rondine is set at the center of an event promoted not only by our Country, but also by Representatives of other Member States and UN Agencies. This goes to show both the recognition and the strong potential expresses by the methodology it proposes. A potential also reconfirmed by the interest shown by the American and Canadian academic world ” quoted Franco Vaccari, President of Rondine Cittadella della Pace, adding: “We face a global challenge: to redesign the future of relationships between governments and society. A challenge in which we want to involve countries by asking to support the Leaders for Peace campaign and actively participate in the creation of the Global Leaders School in order to consolidate its effective educational tool, open to the youth of all nationalities who wish to be trained as leaders in the field of politics, business and training“.
One year ago, exactly seventy years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Rondine’s young students launched at the UN in New York the global Leaders for Peace campaign by asking heads of state to allocate a symbolic amount of their defense budget – corresponding to the cost of one weapon – in order to finance peace leadership scholarships and set the specific focus on human rights, in their national education programs.
After Italy’s commitment thanks to Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte’s signature on the Leaders for Peace campaign, Rondine intends to make its own method available to the world. One based on twenty years of experience in educating the younger generation in conflict resolution, second-level diplomacy and the promotion of peace and human rights with the aim of defusing conflict, through dialogue, and turning it into an opportunity for the growth and development of society. A Method that was also the focus of a tour of lectures and meetings, held by President Franco Vaccari, in the most prestigious Canadian and American universities, including St. Michael’s College, University of Western Ontario and King’s College, Manitoba University, St. Paul’s College , in Canada, the George Mason University and the American University of Washington, the National Center for Truth and Reconciliation and the Center for Human Rights Research and, finally, the prestigious Harvard University.
Overall, the objective is to build a leadership model that can become an effective instrument of peace as well as a model that responds to the specific global needs that will emerge from the reflection started at the United Nations working table.
