MEMO

Date: 2/ 11/ 11

To: 1311 Students

From: Michael Gallinar

RE: University of Peace

Our current efforts to achieve peace are without progress. The United Nations have been trying to tackle this issue for many, many years and it seems like every time we, as citizens of this earth, take a step forward we end up taking two steps back. It is insane to believe that War is the correct path to arriving at a world without violence and finding ultimate peace. Violence only begins more violence. Today's efforts include, but not limited to, disarmament of other countries. The problem with this is it is an ongoing process that ultimately leads to nowhere, especially when there are weapons manufactured every day in secret.

In response to this issue the United Nations mandated a school be created for the soul purpose of "promoting... the spirit of understanding, tolerance and peaceful coexistence..." according to their mission statement. This graduate school of peace and conflict studies is the University of Peace (UPeace). The idea was to attack the problem at the source and start embedding the concept of peace in people through education. If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. If you teach that same man how to fish, he'll eat for a life time.

The president of Costa Rica during 1980, Rodrigo Carazo, encouraged the idea for UPeace, so it was only befitting to have the primary campus located in his country. On December 5th, 1980 the general assembly of the U.N. adopted resolution 35/55 and the University of Peace was born. There are seventeen members of council who govern the university: ten members appointed by the Secretary General of the U.N. and seven ex-officio members. Now, there are more locations all over the world including an office in New York, Geneva, and Central Asia. Their website, http://www.upeace.org/, gives contact information for all locations. They also give you a list of classes and academic programs you can register for along with a link to their library and other peace oriented organizations.