Jane Goodall Institute celebrates UN Peace Day

The  Jane  Goodall  Institute  Executive  Director, Dr Panta Kasoma   and  Staff   joined   the  rest  of  the   World  on Monday  to  celebrate  the  United  Nations  International  peace day  In Entebbe.

The function   started  with a peaceful match from the JGI head  offices   through Entebbe town  to  St. Thereza  primary  school  with hundred of school  pupils.

Every  year  thousands of  people across  the world  celebrate   this  special  day  with  the Jane Goodall  Institute  founder  and  UN peace messenger, Dr. Jane  Goodall   because  of   her  peaceful  campaign for  world  peace.

 Her  global  speech  reads  “ Our  hearts  go  out  to  all  the  hundreds of thousands  who  have  been killed, wounded  or  forced  to  flee  from  their homes.  With  the  ever widening  gap  between  the  “haves” and  the  “have  nots,”  there  is  a  huge number  of people  whose basic  needs  are not  being  met,  whose  voices  are not  being  heard.

When  they  become  desperate and  sometimes  violent,  unscrupulous leaders  can  then  exploit  them  for  their  own political gains.

Perhaps  we cannot influence soldiers to lay down their weapons or governments to ground their missiles; but we can take the opportunity of the International Day of Peace to think about it, talk and make our views known.

  And  what  about  our  right to live in peace with the natural world? We can think about how we live our own lives.

Are we doing our best to live in harmony with nature? Do we care about the size of our ecological footprint? This matters, because lasting peace between people will never come about unless we learn to respect and live in harmony with nature.

Natural resources such as timber, wildlife and plants are not infinite, and our wasteful and thoughtless abuse of these resources is causing horrendous damage to the environment and endangering the lives of the future generation.

As Gandhi said, “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s needs, but not every man’s greed.” If people are starving with no way out of poverty, they will hardly join our fight to protect the natural world for the benefit of humans’ ― and other animals’ ― for generations to come. At the Jane Goodall Institute, we believe that every one of us can make a difference.

Our programs help people to struggle out of poverty on the one hand, work to curb the excesses of the wealthy on the other, and try to find ways to slow down human population growth.

Together, let us help humanity move to a future when “The Right of People to Peace” becomes more than a slogan, but rather the foundation of a culture of peace for all.