It is one thing to hold an event. It is another to hold it twice — and watch it grow. On Saturday 9 November 2024, the second annual Youth and Family Peace Day opened its doors at the Due Drop Events Centre in Manukau, South Auckland, and over 300 people came to be part of it.
The venue was the same as the inaugural event in 2023 — a deliberate choice. Due Drop has become the home of Youth and Family Peace Day, and its familiar halls carried the memory of what had been built there a year earlier, even as the 2024 programme brought new energy, new partners, and a new theme: “Communities United for Fostering Peace, Strengthening Families, and Empowering Youth.”
Opening the Day
The opening programme began at 11:00 am in the main hall. The day started, as it had in 2023, with a karakia — this year offered by Tokorima Aperahama, Ratana Church youth representative, who has become a familiar and beloved presence at UPF New Zealand events. His family joined him in a hymn that grounded the morning in the spiritual values of Aotearoa.
Ruth Cleaver, a senior member of UPF New Zealand and former President of the Auckland Interfaith Council, served as MC for the opening session — acknowledging the partner organisations whose presence filled the exhibition hall next door with information, resources, and community goodwill.
Kenji Watanabe, Chairman of UPF New Zealand, and Geoffrey Fyers, Secretary General, delivered opening remarks and presented the Resolution of the National Family Day Petition — reaffirming the campaign’s call for the New Zealand Government to recognise 11 November as a dedicated national family day, and inviting the assembled community to add their voices to the movement.
Distinguished Guests
The event was again honoured by the presence of distinguished guests whose welcoming remarks lent the occasion civic weight and warmth:
- Hon. Jenny Salesa, Member of Parliament — returning for her second consecutive Youth and Family Peace Day, her presence a sign of Parliament’s growing recognition of UPF New Zealand’s contribution to Auckland’s community life
- Mr. Keu Mataroa, Consul General of the Cook Islands — representing the Pacific community’s stake in the values of family and peace that the event embodies
- Mr. Joe Fatuleai, Stake President of Redoubt, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — bringing the voice of one of South Auckland’s most active faith communities
Keynote: The Family as the School of Love
The keynote address was delivered by Greg Stone, Secretary General of UPF Oceania — returning to the Youth and Family Peace Day stage for the second year running. His keynote built on the theme he had introduced in 2023, deepening the community’s understanding of the relationship between family life and societal peace.
Greg’s central message was one that his audiences find both challenging and liberating: “The family is not just the building block of society — it is the school where we learn to love, to forgive, and to live for others.”
This is a claim with practical implications. If the family is where we learn to love — or fail to — then the health of families is not a private matter. It is the most public of all concerns, because every family that succeeds in raising children with the capacity to love and serve is making a contribution to the peace of the society those children will inhabit and lead.
The Exhibition Hall: Resources for Real Life
One of the most distinctive features of the 2024 Youth and Family Peace Day was the expanded exhibition hall, where faith groups, social service organisations, government institutions, and NGOs set up information tables offering practical resources on:
- Healthy marriages and relationship skills
- Parenting with purpose and positive family values
- Youth leadership and character development
- Interfaith cooperation and community belonging
Partner organisations from across Auckland — spanning Pacific Island churches, South Asian community groups, mainstream social services, local government, and civil society — contributed information, performances, and presentations throughout the day. The exhibition hall was, in many ways, the most democratic part of the event: a space where visitors could wander at their own pace, pick up a resource that spoke to their situation, and have a conversation that might change something for them.
A Growing Movement
More than 300 people came to the Due Drop Events Centre on 9 November 2024. They came from different parts of Auckland, different cultural backgrounds, different faith traditions, and different generations. They stayed for different lengths of time and took away different things — but they all came.
The steady growth of Youth and Family Peace Day — from 350+ across a full-day programme in 2023 to 300+ through a refined and deepened programme in 2024 — reflects not a decline, but a maturing: an event that has found its form and is growing in depth as it grows in reach. The third annual Youth and Family Peace Day is already being planned for November 2025, and UPF New Zealand is looking forward to welcoming even more families, young people, and community leaders to what has become one of Auckland’s most distinctive annual peace gatherings.
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