Hampshire Chronicle reporter, Luke Addison, travelled to Mexico to attend the 19th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates with PeaceJam. In the feature below he speaks about his experience. 

The 19th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates opened on Monday, September 16 with a youth programme of 1200 students from 57 countries, in the city of Monterrey, Mexico.

I attended the summit with two other young colleagues, Fay and Matty, we each ran workshops and joined the youth programme. In order to get to the summit, we needed to raise around £4,000 to pay for their flights and hotels, we managed to raise £2,000, received a grant from Winchester Rotary Club, plus a donation from Leon Warner, a senior leader at Utility Warehouse.

Leon kindly helps many Rotarians save money on all their home bills (energy, broadband, mobiles and insurance), and by doing this was able to donate a sizeable amount to help us on our way to Mexico.

Nobel Peace Prize Laureates on stage at the opening ceremony (Image: Luke Addison) The summit in Mexico began by introducing the history, founded in 1999 by the summit’s presidents, Ekaterina Zagladini and Mikhail Gorbachev. This first summit took place in Rome and continued there until 2007. Then, the secretariat decided to take the summit across the globe.

The next few years saw Paris, Berlin, Hiroshima, Chicago and Warsaw become homes of the summit before again, running in Rome in 2014.

This constant travelling around the world and spreading the strong message of peace picked up quite an audience and allowed the summit to gain an enormous following. At each summit, delegates would hear talks from global humanitarian NGOs, and initiatives and, of course, meet recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.

'I remember attending and feeling very overwhelmed by the size of the conference'

I was fortunate enough to be invited to my first summit in Rome, in 2014. I had just started working with a global peace education organisation, PeaceJam, which works alongside fourteen Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, including the Dalai Lama and late Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I remember feeling very overwhelmed by the size of the conference, the number of delegates and the high-profile guests that were there.

I truly embraced the opportunity and found myself talking with the organisers, attending talks and workshops and learning more about the inner workings of the summit.

It was a particularly special summit, the organisers had put together the youth programme, ‘Leading By Example’, this allowed them to hold a special first day which was for the youth participants only. This was the fourth summit with a youth programme and it was incredible to see the energy and excitement from the young people taking part in this opening session.

My best memories of Rome were being invited into an exclusive Q&A session with His Holiness the Dalai Lama and being able to explore the ancient city. 

Luke Addison with 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Kailash Satyarthi  (Image: Luke Addison) The following year, I was, again, incredibly fortunate to be invited to the next summit which was held in Barcelona. This summit saw an even larger youth programme with a wider series of sessions, talks, panels and activities. By this point, I had become quite familiar with how the summit was organised and was asked to deliver a workshop on behalf of PeaceJam, as I have a background as a drama and peace-education teacher.

The next few years followed similarly, I attended the summit in Colombia in 2017, Mexico in 2019 and then South Korea in 2022, after a long break due to Covid-19.

By South Korea’s conference, I was in charge of the youth programme, welcoming the global youth, coordinating the schedule and facilitating sessions and panels. It’s an experience that will stay with me forever.

Now, fast-forward to September 2024, the summit team delivered what was the biggest summit since before the pandemic

Named “Peace and Progress’, the programme continued to use the PeaceLab initiative which offers youth participants the opportunity to submit applications for their own social action projects and action plans related to global peace in the hope of winning a generous prize of funding for their project. 

The summit received 400 individual projects from over 57 countries, focusing on key areas from environmental issues, community development, mental health, women's and children’s rights, technology, ecology and more

The Summit’s Academic Committee made up of international academics, had the difficult task of filtering through the projects to choose 10 from the two categories; 
Technologies for Progress and Peace & Social Transformation for Sustainability and Peace.

'Young people will be the ones that find solutions to so many of the problems we see today'

Luke Addison and youth from across the globe working on the 'Final Youth Declaration' (Image: Luke Addison) The summit itself was incredibly inspiring.

To welcome more than one thousand young people from all corners of the globe and to sit on the academic council, looking at 400 incredible social action projects, really gives me hope for the future that young people really will be the ones that find solutions to so many of the problems that we see.

The youth programme on September 16, featured a panel made up of five young activists, each working on their own human rights and humanitarian initiatives, I was the moderator for the panel and one of the most poignant moments was from one of the youth panellists, Melany Leal, from Monterrey, who stated that we needed “more love” in our day-to-day campaigning and actions.

One of the most important aspects of the youth programme is working on what is called the ‘Final Youth Declaration’, which is a powerful speech put together by young people at the summit which was read to all of the Nobel Peace Prize Laureates and the audience during the closing ceremony.  I worked alongside 50 young people over four days to put the declaration together and it was definitely one of the most powerful declarations that has been read at a previous summit.

The following day, we launched the programme for the wider summit which was an amazing opening ceremony of cultural displays. The first pane; titled “Global Peace Architecture” which featured Nobel Laureates Shirin Ebadi, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Mohamed Fadhel Mahfoudh, and Peter Grohmann, Resident Coordinator of the UN System in Mexico.

We then had a ‘Nobel Inspiration’ speech from Nobel Laureate, Yemeni journalist and politician Tawakkol Karman followed by a second panel, “Peace for Progress” which saw Nobel laureates Leymah Gbowee, Pres. José Ramos-Horta, Ouided Bouchamaoui and Houcine Abbasi focus on practical solutions to environmental challenges, emphasizing soil regeneration.

The rest of the week followed similarly, with powerful speeches by laureates and global activists, followed by engaging panels and activities, before ending on Saturday, September 21, the international day of peace, with a march through Monterrey, led by several Nobel Peace Laureates, including Kailash Satyarthi, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 ‘for the struggle against the suppression of children and young people and the right of all children to education’.

'I feel a great sense of optimism for the world'

Returning home after the summit, I feel a great sense of optimism for the world, that this global conference brings so many people from all backgrounds together to focus on education around issues but, most importantly, solutions for them. There are already talks about where the next Summit will be and I will be fortunate enough to lead the youth programme again.

To find out more about Leon’s initiative click here or drop Leon a text directly on 07866 15 604 and simply say you’re interested. It could help you AND help another good cause either here at home or abroad through their local Rotary group.

You can learn more about the summit at nobelpeacesummit.com