Global Peace Festival Asia Pacific 2010

An estimated ten thousand young people gathered at Jakarta’s Gelora Bung Karno Stadium for the Global Peace Festival Asia Pacific 2010 on October 17. They came from area campuses engaged in GPFF sponsored service projects and from the youth branch of Nadhlatul Ulama, the largest Muslim in Indonesia with a membership of 50-60 million, which is partnering with GPFF for the festival and Global Peace Leadership Conference. Nahdlatul Ulama supports an extensive network of social support and education with 18,000 boarding schools across Indonesia.

The interfaith conference held in the Indonesian capital broke new ground for GPFF. It was the first time that the organization had collaborated so closely with a major Muslim organization, an important step in advancing the interfaith component of GPFF’s program.

The GPFF-backed Power of Rupiah campaign has been taken up on many Jakarta-area campuses. The campaign encourages students to give small amounts of money on a regular, even daily basis, to help less fortunate children, especially street kids. The campaign creates an awareness of poverty and its human impact among the student donors and teaches the habit of helping others.

At the October 15-18 Global Peace Leadership Conference, sponsored jointly by NU and GPFF, Indonesia’s Vice President Dr. Boediono affirmed the need for Indonesia’s commitment to religious tolerance and cooperation in his remarks at the opening plenary. “We must not let the symptoms of radicalism and the perception of a clash of civilizations to flourish,” he said. “Once we let radicalism take over our train of thought it will lead us to destruction.”

• GPF Asia Pacific 2010 photo gallery
• Global Peace Volunteers in Indonesia - photo gallery