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Category: Community

  • Monthly Meeting — June 2025 Report

    On the last Saturday of June 2025, members and Ambassadors for Peace gathered at the Peace Embassy, 24 St Stephens Avenue, Parnell for UPF New Zealand’s monthly meeting — a regular rhythm of reflection, review, and planning that keeps the organisation’s work grounded and forward-looking throughout the year.

    The agenda reflected the full breadth of UPF New Zealand’s commitments: from global geopolitics to local community events, from the practical logistics of upcoming programmes to the strategic questions of how to grow the National Family Day Petition campaign. It was a full morning — and a productive one.

    1. UPF Statement on the Escalation Between Israel and Iran

    The meeting opened with a topic of international urgency: the recent escalation of tensions between Israel and Iran. The Middle East had once again become a focal point of global anxiety, with the potential for broader regional conflict weighing on the minds of leaders and communities worldwide.

    UPF New Zealand reaffirmed its dedication to dialogue, peaceful resolution, and the importance of upholding international law and human rights in all circumstances. Members reviewed and endorsed a draft statement emphasising the need for restraint and constructive diplomatic engagement — and expressing UPF’s support for all efforts aimed at de-escalation and lasting peace in the region.

    The statement was grounded in a conviction that UPF holds consistently across all conflicts: that wars begin with the breakdown of relationship — between individuals, between communities, between nations — and that the path back to peace runs through the same territory. Dialogue is not naivety. It is the only road that actually leads somewhere.

    2. UN Family Day Event Review

    Members turned with warmth to a review of the UN International Day of Families event held the previous month. The gathering at Kelston Community Centre had been a success by any measure: around 60 attendees, a thoughtful programme, inspired presentations from Mrs. Anne Degia-Pala QSM and Chairman Kenji Watanabe, and musical performances that had lifted the afternoon.

    Positive feedback from participants was shared — and the committee discussed ideas for building on this year’s programme in 2026. The question of venue, of outreach, and of how to deepen the partnership with organisations like IKPACT and FFWPU Youth was explored with enthusiasm. Each iteration of the UN Family Day event has grown more connected and more reflective of the community it serves.

    3. Planning for UN International Day of Peace — 21 September 2025

    Early planning discussions were held for UPF New Zealand’s commemoration of the UN International Day of Peace, scheduled for 21 September 2025. Ideas under consideration included collaborative prayer for peace and reconciliation with local faith and community groups — an acknowledgement that in 2025, with conflicts active in multiple regions of the world, a day set apart for reflection and recommitment to peace carries particular weight.

    The committee agreed to reach out to the various faith and ethnic communities with whom UPF New Zealand has established relationships, inviting them to participate in what it is hoped will be a gathering that reflects the full diversity of Auckland’s community.

    4. Youth and Family Peace Day — 8 November 2025

    Early planning for the third annual Youth and Family Peace Day — scheduled for Saturday 8 November 2025 — was also discussed. Building on the success of the previous two events (350+ attendees in 2023 and 300+ in 2024), the committee reaffirmed the importance of the event’s core vision: empowering families, fostering a culture of unity and mutual respect, and giving young people a genuine stake in the peace they are being asked to build.

    The discussion touched on venue logistics, programme development, and the question of how to expand the exhibition element — which has consistently been one of the most popular features of the event, giving community organisations the opportunity to share their resources and connect with new audiences.

    National Family Day Petition Promotion

    The meeting concluded with a review of strategies for promoting the National Family Day Petition — the ongoing campaign to establish 11 November as a dedicated national family day in New Zealand. Key actions discussed included:

    • Increased outreach through social media platforms, including personal stories about the positive impact of strong family bonds
    • Collaboration with community organisations and schools to broaden the petition’s reach
    • Engaging local politicians and community leaders as vocal supporters of the campaign
    • Hosting informational sessions and Q&A forums in different parts of Auckland

    The meeting concluded with a renewed sense of purpose — and the particular kind of energy that comes from a group of people who share a vision and have the plans to pursue it. UPF New Zealand meets monthly at the Peace Embassy. All Ambassadors for Peace and interested community members are welcome to attend.

  • National Family Day Petition: Relaunching the Campaign

    Eleven eleven. The date carries history in New Zealand — and in much of the world. At the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918, the guns of the First World War fell silent. Armistice Day has been remembered ever since as a day of gratitude, grief, and the stubborn human insistence on peace.

    For UPF New Zealand, 11 November holds an additional meaning — one that does not diminish the solemnity of remembrance, but deepens it. The organisation has spent years building the case that this date should become Aotearoa’s National Family Day: a day to affirm that the foundations of lasting peace are laid not in battlefields or peace conferences, but in the families where the next generation learns to love, to serve, and to live for others.

    In early 2025, UPF New Zealand officially relaunched the National Family Day Petition — with renewed energy, new outreach strategies, and a broader community campaign that invites all of Aotearoa to get involved.

    Why a National Family Day?

    The question deserves a direct answer. New Zealand already recognises a wide range of national commemorations and celebrations. What would a National Family Day add?

    UPF New Zealand’s answer is grounded in a conviction about the relationship between family strength and national wellbeing. Strong families produce resilient children, connected communities, and a society better able to navigate the pressures of a changing world. Conversely, family breakdown — whatever its causes — contributes to a cascade of social challenges: loneliness, educational disengagement, mental health struggles, and the erosion of the community bonds that hold us together in hard times.

    A National Family Day would not, by itself, build stronger families. But it would send a signal — a statement of national values — that families matter to New Zealand, that the work of building them is honoured, and that the Government and the community stand behind the men and women doing that work every day.

    As Chairman Kenji Watanabe has written, the proposed National Family Day reflects a vision for New Zealand grounded in four values that resonate deeply with both Māori and Pacific culture:

    • Whanaungatanga — strengthening bonds of relationship between people, across cultural and generational lines
    • Kaitiakitanga — caring responsibly for one another and for the natural world we share
    • Manaakitanga — supporting communities with dignity, generosity, and genuine hospitality
    • Kotahitanga — uniting across cultures, faiths, and backgrounds toward a shared purpose

    100 Days of Serving Community

    Alongside the petition relaunch, UPF New Zealand announced a complementary initiative: the “100 Days of Serving Community” campaign — a three-month programme inviting individuals, families, and organisations to take concrete actions of service in their own neighbourhoods and communities.

    The proposed activities are deliberately accessible:

    • Environmental clean-ups in local parks, coastlines, and public spaces
    • Supporting local food shelters, community centres, and social services
    • Organising family activities that bring communities together across cultural lines
    • Social media sharing with the theme: “Build a New Zealand that honours families”

    The 100 Days campaign reflects UPF New Zealand’s conviction that the petition is not merely a legal or political exercise — it is the visible tip of a much larger cultural project. The goal is not just a date on the calendar, but a shift in the values that shape how New Zealand thinks about family, community, and the common good.

    Signature Campaign

    The SNS National Family Day Signature Campaign launched in early 2025, with targeted outreach through social media, community organisations, and local leaders. UPF New Zealand is calling on like-minded politicians, community influencers, faith leaders, and everyday Kiwi families to lend their voices — and their signatures — to the cause.

    To sign the petition and add your voice, contact UPF New Zealand at secretariat@upfnz.org or attend one of our monthly community meetings at the Peace Embassy in Parnell, Auckland. Together, we can build a New Zealand that honours families — and in doing so, honour the deepest values of Aotearoa.

  • End of Year Celebration 2024

    There is a particular quality to the last gathering of the year. The urgency of the programme calendar has passed. The formality softens. People who have worked alongside each other through events, meetings, and initiatives find themselves simply together — sharing food, sharing stories, and finding in each other’s company the renewal that makes the next year’s work possible.

    On Saturday 14 December 2024, more than 50 people gathered at the Peace Embassy, 24 St Stephens Avenue, Parnell for UPF New Zealand’s annual End of Year Celebration. The format was a potluck dinner — everyone contributing a dish from their own cultural tradition, and the table becoming, in miniature, a picture of the community UPF New Zealand has spent the year building.

    The evening ran from 4:00 pm to 7:00 pm and brought together Ambassadors for Peace, family members, longtime supporters, and new friends — a gathering that was at once a farewell to 2024 and a quiet anticipation of 2025.

    A Year Worth Celebrating

    Kenji Watanabe, Chairman of UPF New Zealand, and Geoffrey Fyers, Secretary General, offered thanksgiving reflections on the year — a year that, by any measure, had been one of UPF New Zealand’s most active and impactful.

    The highlights were many:

    • The second Youth and Family Peace Day at the Due Drop Events Centre in November — welcoming over 300 people under the theme “Communities United for Fostering Peace, Strengthening Families, and Empowering Youth”
    • The UN International Day of Peace commemoration at Te Tuhi Centre of Art, Pakuranga, marking the 25th anniversary of the UN Declaration on a Culture of Peace
    • The UN International Day of Families at Te Tuhi Art Centre in May, featuring an interfaith panel and cultural performances from across Auckland’s communities
    • The co-organisation of the 2024 World Sport Fishing Tournament in the Waitemata Harbour — 71 teams from 15 nations, with 900 kilograms of the catch donated to a South Auckland marae
    • Continued momentum for the National Family Day Petition, with growing community support for the establishment of 11 November as a dedicated national family day

    Behind each of these events lay months of planning, partnership-building, and the quiet, unglamorous work of community organisation. The end-of-year dinner was a chance to acknowledge all of that — and the people who had made it possible.

    Welcoming a New Ambassador for Peace

    The evening included a formal ceremony that stood as one of its most meaningful moments: the recognition of Ms. Reeta Arora as a newly appointed Ambassador for Peace.

    The title of Ambassador for Peace carries genuine significance within the UPF community. It is not an honorary title bestowed at a distance — it is a commitment to live by the values of living for the sake of others: promoting universal values, strong family life, and interreligious cooperation in one’s own sphere of influence. Ms. Arora joins a growing network of Ambassadors for Peace across Aotearoa who are carrying that commitment into their communities, their professions, and their families.

    Looking Ahead to 2025

    As the evening moved toward its close, conversation turned naturally to the year ahead. 2025 would bring major milestones: the World Summit 2025 in Seoul in April; the UN International Day of Families in May; and the third annual Youth and Family Peace Day in November. The National Family Day Petition campaign would be relaunched with new energy and new outreach strategies.

    UPF New Zealand’s work continues across six areas of focus: interfaith peacebuilding, peace and security, UN relations, marriage and family, education and human development, and humanitarian and youth programmes. Each area connects to the others. Each is grounded in the same conviction that has driven UPF New Zealand’s work from the beginning: that family building is nation building, and that the foundations of lasting peace are laid not in parliaments or peace conferences, but in the daily life of communities that choose to live for one another.

    The potluck dishes were finished, the conversations were still going, and the Peace Embassy was filled — as it is at its best — with the sound of people who like each other, gathered around a shared purpose. It was a good ending. And the beginning of something even better.

  • 2024 World Sport Fishing Tournament

    It is not every fishing tournament that opens with a Minister of the Crown, features a symposium on international peace and security, and concludes with 90 anglers from around the world learning about traditional Māori culture at a South Auckland marae. But the 2024 World Sport Fishing Tournament was never merely a fishing competition.

    Co-organised by UPF New Zealand and the World Sport Fishing Federation (WSFF) New Zealand, the tournament ran from 8 to 12 March 2024, bringing 71 teams from 15 nations to the Waitemata Harbour — with competitors travelling from as far away as Uruguay, Kazakhstan, and Estonia to take part in what has become one of the most distinctive peace-oriented sporting events in the Pacific.

    Opening Ceremony

    The tournament opened on the evening of Friday 8 March with a ceremony at the Parnell Hotel and Conference Centre in Auckland. More than 200 people attended — a gathering that reflected the breadth of community and international connections that UPF New Zealand has built over many years.

    H.E. Keutekarakia Mataroa, Consul General of the Cook Islands, opened the ceremony formally, before Hon. Shane Jones, New Zealand’s Minister for Oceans and Fisheries, delivered keynote remarks welcoming the international competitors to Aotearoa. Minister Jones spoke to the significance of ocean stewardship as a peace-building endeavour — noting that how nations manage shared natural resources is one of the defining questions of our time in the Pacific region, where climate change, overfishing, and geopolitical competition increasingly intersect.

    Competition on the Waitemata

    The tournament itself was conducted with unique rules overseen by local and international judges and referees — a format designed to be as much about skill, patience, and respect for the ocean as about competitive sport. Five local tour boats were contracted to take the 71 teams out onto the Waitemata Harbour across multiple rounds, in what amounted to a floating international gathering of people united by a love of fishing and the sea.

    The tournament yielded approximately 1,000 kilograms of fish — a catch that, in the spirit of community service central to UPF’s mission, became something more than a sporting trophy. 900 kilograms of the catch was donated to a marae in South Auckland, to be distributed to families in need through KAI IKA, a local NGO focused on food redistribution. In a single gesture, a fishing competition became an act of community care.

    Symposium: Ocean Resources Management and Peace and Security

    On Saturday 9 March, a dedicated symposium on Ocean Resources Management and Peace and Security was held at the Parnell Hotel and Conference Centre, running from 10:30 am to 4:00 pm. This was the event within the event — the moment where the World Sport Fishing Tournament revealed its deeper purpose.

    Opening remarks were provided by H.E. Keutekarakia Mataroa, who brought the perspective of a small Pacific Island nation acutely aware of what the health of the ocean means for the survival of its people. Presenters came from Korea, Japan, Australia, and the Marshall Islands — nations with very different relationships to the Pacific Ocean, but a shared stake in its future. Local voices from LegaSea and Sea Cleaners brought the New Zealand dimension: the health of our coastal waters, the sustainability of our fisheries, and the responsibility of communities to care for what they depend on.

    UPF’s objectives for the symposium were clear: to address the management of fish resources; to explore the protection of fishing waters from the perspective of peace and security; and to work toward interdependence and mutual prosperity in the region based on common values. These are not merely environmental goals — they are expressions of UPF’s conviction that the way we treat the natural world reflects the way we treat one another.

    Cultural Exchange at the Marae

    On Monday 11 March, 90 tournament participants and staff were welcomed to the South Auckland marae that had received the tournament’s fish donation — for a day of cultural exchange that many would later describe as the highlight of their entire visit to New Zealand.

    For many of the international visitors, it was their first encounter with the living culture of Aotearoa’s tangata whenua. They were introduced to traditional Māori protocols, values, and ways of knowing — a reminder that the Pacific Ocean is not only a resource or a strategic asset, but a spiritual and cultural inheritance, tended for generations by the peoples who live alongside it.

    A Tournament with a History

    The World Sport Fishing Tournament was founded by Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon in 2002, with a vision of using sport as a vehicle for international friendship and environmental stewardship. Previous tournaments have been held in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Australia, and Spain. Auckland’s hosting of the 2024 edition reflects UPF New Zealand’s growing capacity as an organisation, and the city’s standing as a hub for international peace-oriented gatherings in the Pacific.

    More than just a fishing tournament, these events have always aimed to build friendships that break down barriers between cultures and peoples through a shared love of the ocean. In Auckland in March 2024, 71 teams from 15 nations found exactly that.