Category: Peace

In April 2025, the eyes of the global peacebuilding community turned to Seoul, South Korea. The World Summit 2025 — hosted at the Lotte World Hotel from 11 April — gathered political and religious leaders, scholars, and civil society representatives from 117 nations, under a theme that captured both the gravity of the current global moment and the urgency of its call to action: “Contemporary Challenges to World Order: Establishing a New Era of Peace and Prosperity.”

For UPF New Zealand, the summit was an occasion of particular pride: two distinguished delegates from one of New Zealand’s most historically significant indigenous Christian movements — the Ratana Church — attended as representatives of the Pacific nation, carrying the voice of Aotearoa into one of the most significant international peace gatherings of the year.

New Zealand at the Summit

UPF New Zealand was represented by:

• Tumuaki Manao Tamou — President of the Ratana Church
• Mr. Kamaka Manuel — Chairman of the Ratana Church

Their participation reflects the deep and longstanding relationship between UPF New Zealand and the Ratana Church — a relationship built on shared values of family, community, and the spiritual foundations of peace. The Ratana Church, founded in 1918 and rooted in the prophetic vision of Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana, has been a significant force in Māori spiritual and political life for more than a century. Its presence at a global summit on peace underlined the Pacific region’s rightful place in international conversations about the world’s future.

Opening the Summit: A World at a Crossroads

The summit’s opening ceremony set a tone of clear-eyed urgency. Dr. Charles S. Yang, Chairman of UPF International, welcomed the assembled delegates with a sobering assessment of the current security situation — particularly on the Korean Peninsula, which has remained divided for 80 years since the end of World War II, in the same year that the United Nations was founded.

“Without peace on the Korean Peninsula,” Dr. Yang said, “there can be no peace in Northeast Asia. Nor can we achieve world peace.” He called for North and South Korea to resolve their hostile confrontation and create a cooperative relationship of mutual dependence and coexistence — and for the international community to support that process with consistent, principled engagement.

The 80th anniversary of the United Nations, observed in 2025, gave the summit additional significance. The UN was founded with the goal of preventing the catastrophic wars that had devastated the world in the first half of the 20th century. Eight decades on, that goal remains unfinished — and the question of how to renew and strengthen the institutions of international peace was a central thread running through the summit’s discussions.

Faith, Leadership, and Global Crises

Dr. Paula White-Cain, Senior Advisor to US President Donald Trump for the newly created White House Faith Office, spoke to the growing recognition of faith’s role in diplomacy and public policy. She noted that more than 1,000 faith leaders from diverse religions had visited the White House since January 20 to help shape policy, conduct faith diplomacy, and defend religious liberty — a striking indication of the renewed interest in what faith communities can contribute to the work of governance and peacebuilding.

The summit addressed two overarching crises facing the global community:

• The contemporary climate crisis — understood not merely as an environmental issue, but as a symptom of humanity’s broken relationship with the natural world and with one another
• Humanitarian crises including hunger, displacement, and the ongoing suffering caused by armed conflicts across multiple continents

These crises, the summit argued, are not separate problems demanding separate solutions. They are interconnected expressions of a deeper disorder — a world that has yet to find the shared values and the institutional architecture needed to live in genuine peace and mutual prosperity.

The Opening of Cheon Won Gung

Summit participants were also invited to attend the opening of the Cheon Won Gung on 13 April — a new Interreligious and International Peace Palace built on the slopes of Cheonseong Mountain at Lake Cheongpyeong, South Korea. The palace spans 125,000 square metres with 82,000 square metres of floor area, and is designed as a global centre for peace education, cultural exchange, and interreligious dialogue.

For delegates from New Zealand, the scale of the facility was a tangible expression of UPF’s long-term vision — a physical home for the kind of international, interfaith work that has been at the heart of the organisation’s mission since its founding in 2005.

A Pacific Voice in a Global Conversation

UPF New Zealand is proud to have contributed a Pacific voice to this global gathering. The presence of Tumuaki Manao Tamou and Mr. Kamaka Manuel in Seoul was a reminder that the Pacific region — so often spoken about in international forums rather than heard from — has its own wisdom, its own perspective, and its own stake in the future of world peace.

The lessons and connections of the World Summit 2025 will be channelled back into UPF New Zealand’s ongoing work across Aotearoa — in the monthly meetings at the Peace Embassy, in the annual events that bring Auckland’s communities together, and in the quiet, daily work of building a culture of peace one relationship at a time.

On Saturday 21 September 2024, UPF New Zealand joined communities around the world in marking the United Nations International Day of Peace. The commemoration was held at the Te Tuhi Centre of Art in Pakuranga, East Auckland — a space well suited to an event that combined civic ceremony, cultural celebration, and quiet reflection. At its peak, more than 80 people attended the three-hour programme.

This year’s gathering carried particular weight. 2024 marked the 25th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace — a milestone document that reframed peace not merely as the absence of armed conflict, but as an active, lived commitment in families, communities, educational institutions, and governments. A quarter-century on, the declaration remains as urgent as the day it was signed.

Co-Sponsorship with IKPACT

The event was co-sponsored by UPF New Zealand and the Indian Kiwis Positive Aging Charitable Trust (IKPACT) — a partnership that reflected the multicultural character of both the event and the community it served. MC Garpreet Singh guided the programme with skill and warmth, creating an atmosphere in which distinguished guests and community members alike felt genuinely welcome.

Distinguished Guests

The occasion drew several notable civic figures whose presence underlined the event’s significance:

• Hon. Jenny Salesa, Member of Parliament, who offered a congratulatory message recognising UPF New Zealand’s contribution to Auckland’s peace and interfaith community
• Morrin Cooper, former Mayor of Howick, whose long civic career in East Auckland gave particular resonance to his presence at a Pakuranga venue
• Ms. Adele White, Local Board Representative, who brought the voice of local government to the occasion
• Harjit Singh, Chairman of IKPACT, who offered formal greetings on behalf of the co-sponsoring organisation

A Culture of Peace: Diversity, Harmony, Unity

UPF New Zealand’s presentation at the event focused on the values at the heart of a genuine culture of peace: diversity, harmony, and unity as one family of humanity. These are not slogans — they are descriptions of what UPF believes is actually possible, when communities choose to invest in the relationships and the institutions that make shared life good.

The team shared on the importance of service learning and healthy families as the practical building blocks of a culture of peace — grounding the afternoon’s reflection in the conviction that peace is not merely a diplomatic achievement, but a daily practice cultivated in homes, schools, and communities across Aotearoa.

Cultural Performances

The programme was enriched by a series of performances that brought the cultural diversity of Auckland’s community vividly to life:

• Chinese traditional and modern song and dance — showcasing the beauty and range of Chinese cultural expression, from classical forms to contemporary performance
• Indian traditional and modern performances — bringing the colour, energy, and spiritual depth of South Asian arts to the Te Tuhi stage
• A meditation practice — offering all attendees a shared moment of stillness and inner reflection, a reminder that peace begins within before it extends outward

19th Anniversary of UPF’s Founding

The event also coincided with a significant milestone in UPF’s own history. The Universal Peace Federation was founded on 12 September 2005 in New York, by Rev. Dr. Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, in the presence of 1,200 leaders from around the world — including current and former heads of state. The 2024 UN Peace Day event marked UPF’s 19th anniversary: nearly two decades of working, across more than 100 countries, to build the institutional and relational foundations of lasting peace.

As New Zealand’s own Foreign Minister, Rt Hon Winston Peters, told the UN General Assembly during September 2024: the structures of international peace need accountability and reform. UPF’s vision — of a renewed, more effective international architecture grounded in shared values and genuine interdependence — has never been more relevant.

Peace Begins Here

Looking at the world in September 2024 — ongoing conflict in Europe and the Middle East, tensions in the Indo-Pacific, environmental pressures bearing down on Pacific Island nations — it would be easy to feel that gatherings like this are too small to matter. UPF New Zealand’s conviction is precisely the opposite: that the culture of peace is built exactly here, in rooms like this, among people like these, choosing relationship over division and hope over despair.

More than 80 people did that on a Saturday afternoon in Pakuranga. It was enough. And it always will be.

Peace, at its most basic, is a practice. It is something we do — in our homes, our conversations, our choices — not just something we declare. On Saturday 16 September 2023, UPF New Zealand gave that conviction a very literal expression: more than 30 people walked together through the streets of Parnell to mark the United Nations International Day of Peace, embodying in movement what they believed in word.

The Peace Road Walk was a reunion of sorts. After a couple of years without an in-person UN Peace Day gathering, the return to a shared public act of peacemaking felt meaningful to all who participated. The mood as people gathered at the Peace Embassy, 24 St Stephens Avenue, Parnell at 10:30 am was one of quiet joy — the particular warmth that comes from doing something simple and good, together.

Opening Programme at the Peace Embassy

Before the walk began, participants gathered inside the Peace Embassy for a 30-minute opening programme — grounding the morning in the spiritual and civic values that give peacebuilding its depth.

The programme was co-emceed by two young members of the UPF New Zealand community: Deogsoo Pogoni, representing FFWPU youth, and Do Hie Kim, who guided the group with warmth and clarity throughout the morning. Their presence as co-emcees was itself a statement — that the next generation is not merely the beneficiary of peace work, but its active practitioner.

A video presentation showcased Peace Road events happening worldwide in 2023 — a reminder that what was happening in Parnell that morning was part of a global movement of communities choosing to walk toward peace rather than away from it.

Kenji Watanabe, Chairman of UPF New Zealand, offered opening remarks, setting the day’s walk in the context of UPF’s broader mission and the particular significance of the UN International Day of Peace.

Daniel Rubin: The Power of Walking for Peace

The guest speaker of the morning was Daniel Rubin, an organiser of Peace Run programmes both in New Zealand and internationally. Daniel has spent years channelling the simple act of running — and walking — into a vehicle for community and connection across cultural, national, and religious divides.

He spoke with genuine enthusiasm about the power of movement as a form of advocacy — about what it means to carry a message of peace through public space, and the conversations that happen along the way. His own work and UPF’s Peace Road Walk, he noted, were driven by the same conviction: that peace is contagious, and that it spreads most readily when people see it, in person, moving through their neighbourhood.

Amon Watanabe, another youth representative, then shared reflections from his own experience of travelling the world — and the surprising ways in which a commitment to peace can open doors and build friendships across the most unlikely divides.

The Walk to the Museum

With the opening programme complete, the group set off into the Parnell sunshine — a procession of around 30 people moving through the leafy streets toward the Auckland War Memorial Museum, approximately a 20-minute walk away.

Several people on the streets offered their support as the group passed — a small but encouraging sign that peace walks do not happen in a vacuum. The presence of a purposeful, peaceful gathering in public space invites curiosity, conversation, and occasionally, quiet solidarity from strangers.

At the Auckland War Memorial Museum

The group gathered in the square in front of the museum — a building whose very purpose is to hold the memory of those lost to war, making it a fitting destination for a day dedicated to peace. The formal programme at the museum included four acts:

• A group photograph — a shared image of community united in purpose
• The UPF Peace Statement for the International Day of Peace 2023, read by Geoffrey Fyers, Secretary General of UPF New Zealand
• A one-minute silence — offered in memory of all those who have lost their lives to conflict, and in solidarity with communities living with war today
• A communal singing of the New Zealand National Anthem, “God Defend New Zealand” — a prayer as much as a patriotic declaration

The silence, in particular, held a weight that words cannot easily describe. In 2023, the world had watched the war in Ukraine grind into its second year, and news of the Hamas attacks on Israel would break just weeks later. The minute of quiet at the Auckland War Memorial Museum was a small but sincere act of solidarity with all who suffer under violence.

Closing Karakia and Community BBQ

The group returned to the Peace Embassy, where Matapa Shelley, President of WFWP New Zealand, offered a closing karakia — grounding the morning’s walk back in the spiritual soil of Aotearoa and the Māori tradition of prayer as both opening and closing of gathered community.

Then came the BBQ. In the backyard of the Embassy, amid the smell of food and the sound of conversation, the Peace Road Walk found its natural conclusion — not in formality, but in fellowship. It was, as one participant described it, “delightful.” The scale was small. The impact, in the lives of those who walked and talked and ate together, was not.

On Friday 24 February 2023, UPF New Zealand hosted a Peace Kingdom Building Seminar at the Fickling Convention Centre, Lynfield Room, 546 Mt Albert Road, Three Kings, Auckland. The seminar ran from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm and drew participants from across UPF New Zealand’s network of Ambassadors for Peace and community leaders.

The theme — “Peace and Security in the Pacific Region” — was chosen in direct response to a rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape. In the months preceding the seminar, the Pacific had become the focal point of intensifying competition between major world powers, raising urgent questions about what kind of future New Zealand and its Pacific neighbours were building together.

The Context: A Pacific Under Pressure

The seminar took place against a backdrop of significant international tension. The announcement of a security deal between China and the Solomon Islands had shocked the region — including New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and the United States — and prompted a renewed scramble for strategic influence across the Pacific Islands.

US President Biden had been invited to visit the Pacific following a summit at the White House, and leaders of Kiribati, Palau, Nauru, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia were actively navigating the competing pressures of two global superpowers. The question for small Pacific nations was increasingly stark: how to maintain sovereignty, cultural integrity, and peace in an era of intensifying great-power rivalry?

For New Zealand, the question was equally pointed. As UPF New Zealand Chairman Kenji Watanabe wrote in a reflection circulated at the time, New Zealand’s voice in Pacific affairs had grown quieter even as the stakes had grown higher — and it was time for that to change.

A Values-Based Response

The seminar presented UPF’s framework as a principled alternative to ideological competition. Rather than choosing sides between left-wing and right-wing geopolitical blocs, the Pacific community was invited to return to its deeper common heritage — as peoples of the Blue Pacific Continent, sharing lands, oceans, and a profound spiritual inheritance.

Kenji Watanabe’s keynote reflection articulated this vision clearly: “Peace and security in the Pacific have to be built on common faiths, cultural values, and traditional knowledge in the region — that is, a God-centred individual, family, society, and nation.”

The UPF framework of interdependence, mutual prosperity, and universally shared values — what the co-founders of UPF called “Godism” or Head-Wing Thought — was presented not as an abstract ideology, but as a practical guide for navigating the tensions that Pacific nations face. The goal is a society that transcends the hatred, hostility, and self-centredness that fuel geopolitical rivalry, and that instead builds cooperation from the ground up — beginning in families, and expanding outward to communities, nations, and the region.

New Zealand’s Responsibility

A central theme of the seminar was New Zealand’s particular role and responsibility in the Pacific. As one of the closest neighbours to Pacific Island nations, and as a fellow member of the Blue Pacific family, New Zealand has both the cultural connections and the institutional capacity to serve as a genuine partner — not merely a proxy for outside powers.

The seminar noted that Australia and New Zealand had long supported Pacific Island nations through the Pacific Islands Forum, guided by a shared vision of peace, harmony, security, social inclusion, and prosperity. That vision, the participants affirmed, must be renewed and strengthened — not because it is strategically convenient, but because it reflects a genuine kinship and a shared moral commitment to the wellbeing of all peoples in the region.

Looking to Seoul

The seminar was timed to complement the World Summit 2023 in Seoul, scheduled for May, under the theme “Contemporary Challenges to Global Order: Toward a World Culture of Peace.” The Fickling Convention Centre gathering was UPF New Zealand’s local contribution to that global conversation — a reminder that peace is not only made in conference halls and diplomatic corridors, but in community rooms where ordinary people commit to extraordinary values.

Participants left the seminar with a renewed sense of their own agency. The Pacific’s future is not determined only by the decisions of great powers. It is shaped, day by day, by the choices of families, communities, and organisations like UPF New Zealand that refuse to cede the language of peace to geopolitics.