The IFS Board of Directors recently agreed to endorse a large international effort that calls for the end of war and nuclear arms, and the elimination of violence of all kinds. This effort is being led by an organization entitled World Without Wars.
It will be the first World March to circle the earth and is being planned by
countless organizations and individuals who are ready to travel the planet to ask for an end to wars, nuclear weapons and the elimination of all forms of violence. On the way it will gather all those who are calling for peace, all those who feel that beyond nations, beyond ethnicities; today there is a need to give rise to a worldwide social consciousness in favor of a non-violent culture.
It will begin in New Zealand on October 2nd 2009, the anniversary of Gandhi’s birth declared the “International Day of Non-Violence” by the United Nations. It will conclude in the Andes Mountains in Argentina on January 2nd, 2010. It will cover six continents and 90 countries over 90 days.
There will be a core group of 75 international marchers who will travel the full route of the march; in addition there will be numerous feeder marches and, in each city where the march passes, hundreds of locally-organized actions (rallies, community forums, workshops, cultural events, film festivals, etc.) highlighting the work being done around peace and non-violence/non-discrimination by thousands of organizations, educational institutes, community groups, etc. I think it would be a great opportunity for settlements to participate, individually, in clusters, or as part of larger coalitions, to frame the work they are doing under the banner of non-violence and to show the connection between work done at the base and work done at a global level. This connection is an important one and who better than the settlement movement, with its history and its deep roots, to make it.
Specific details can be found at www.marchamundial.org