UNESCO’s Activities on the International Day of Peace 2004

Through resolution 55/282, the United Nationals General Assembly designated 21 September as the “International Day of Peace”, inviting Member States and international organizations to commemorate it each year in an appropriate way. On 21 September 2004 – in addition to the activities of individual UNESCO Field Offices – the Organization held two different events at its headquarters in Paris:

From 10:00 am to 12:45 pm, UNESCO’s Culture of Peace Coordination organized a special film screening for 270 adolescents from the Parisian suburb of Creteil, organized in cooperation with the Cinémas du Palais Armand Badéyan, a local cinema. The film, entitled “The Wooden Camera” and shot by the South African director Ntshavheni Wa Luruli, tackled youth violence, discrimination, poverty, whilst affirming the power of creative activity. It had previously been awarded a Crystal Bear at the 54^th International Film Festival in Berlin. Subsequent to the film screening, the school students discussed several aspects of the film with its producer Olivier Delahaye, its screenwriter Yves Buclet, and Seraki Matsebe from the Embassy of the Republic of South Africa.

At 2:30 pm, the ceremony for the 2003 Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize took place in room I of UNESCO’s Fontenoy building. The Prize was awarded to the Grand Mufti of Bosnia, Mustafa Ceric, and to Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, former president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Numerous religious representatives as well as academics, political and cultural personalities will attend the ceremony. The Chairman of the Council of Ministers from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Adnan Terzic, representatives of Heads of State, and ministerial delegations also participated, along with the former President and the former Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire, Henri Konan Bédié and Alassane Dramane Outtara. The Félix Houphouët-Boigny Peace Prize was created in 1989 by UNESCO’s General Conference at the instigation of 120 countries and is awarded annually to honour individuals, organizations and institutions that have contributed significantly to the promotion, research, safeguarding or maintaining of peace, in keeping with the United Nations Charter and UNESCO's Constitution.