Jeremy Gilley is an English actor, filmmaker and founder of the charity Peace One Day.
Disturbed by the images of violence and destruction in every day life, Gilley had an idea: What if there was one day when the world stopped fighting? A worldwide ceasefire – a non-violence day? A Peace Day? He decided to find out if that was possible, and to document his efforts along the way. He was aware that if he failed, it would at the very least make an interesting film, showing a world unwilling to change.
In 1998, Gilley began to make the Peace One Day documentary. He spoke to students, peace negotiators, NGOs, government representatives, heads of state, United Nations’ officials, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson, Secretary General of the League of Arab States Amre Moussa, Nobel Peace Laureate Shimon Peres, former Costa Rican President and Nobel Peace Laureate Oscar Arias Sanchez, Nelson Mandela and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. Through all of his talks and meetings, Gilley realized that the best way to achieve an annual Peace Day was to obtain a UN resolution.
With help from family and friends, he was able to send thousands of letters, make hundreds of phone calls and travel the equivalent of 7 times around the world. In 2001, Gilley achieved his goal: a UN GA resolution, put forward by the UK and Costa Rican Governments, was unanimously adopted to establish the first ever day of global ceasefire and non-violence fixed in the calendar as 21 September annually.
Gilley managed to gather a diverse mix of UK celebrities including Annie Lennox, Jimmy Cliff, Faithless, Neneh Cherry, One Giant Leap, Zero 7, Badly Drawn Boy, Joseph Fiennes, Sir Richard Branson and the late Mo Mowlam to join him in promoting Peace Day. With the help of friends and family, Gilley managed to pull off two concerts at Brixton Academy, London, on 21 September 2002 and 2003.
In 2004, the Peace One Day documentary premiered at the Edinburgh Film Festival, then the BBC aired the documentary in September of the same year. On the other side of the Atlantic in 2005, Angelina Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller hosted the North American Film Premiere to highlight Peace Day.
Lynne Kosky, education minister for Victoria (Australia), encouraged Gilley to create a resource for young people. He thought of the children he had met and how much they had encouraged him with their enthusiasm for a day of peace. In May 2006, the Peace One Day Citizenship Resource Pack was launched after conversations with over 30,000 young people and teachers from every continent in the world. Gilley wanted to create a resource for use in UK secondary schools with its core message from Kofi Annan’s words to Gilley, "Individuals can make a difference, and collectively we can make a major contribution”. In 2007, a second edition of the Citizenship Resource Pack has been sponsored by Ecover, so that every secondary school in the UK can receive a free copy.
Gilley produced and filmed a second documentary The Day After Peace, in association with the BBC. The film documents the first ever life-saving activity on the day – polio vaccinations on 21 September 2007 in insecure regions of south and east Afghanistan – something that will highlight the very practical opportunities and benefits that the day offers to individuals. The film also documents the process of getting the message of Peace Day to every human being on the planet. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. In May 2008 Jeremy Gilley received the award Campaigner of the Year. In early September 2008 Gilley and Jude Law travelled to Afghanistan to screen The Day After Peace there, meet Hamid Karzai, and document preparations for the polio vaccination on 21 September 2008 of 1.85 million children under 5 years old, in seven Afghan provinces where conflict has previously prevented access.
No comments:
Post a Comment