For Immediate Release: June 12, 2020
Global Organizations Converge to Declare World UNITY Week
Almost one hundred civil society global organizations and initiatives have come together in an unprecedented alliance to declare World UNITY Week from June 20-27, 2020. Beginning on the mid-year solstice June 20 with an Indigenous-led day of prayer, following a global series of free online events, World UNITY Week concludes on June 27th with a celebration of the 75th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter.
World UNITY Week is an online global Convergence, a series of interactive events that are intergenerational, cross-cultural, interdisciplinary, and international. Global organizations that have come together to declare World UNITY Week as a matter of urgency include the Parliament of the World Religions, the United Religions Initiative, Pachamama Alliance, UNITY EARTH, UNEP Faiths for Earth Initiative, EcoPeace Middle East, Four Worlds International, WholeWorld-View, Unify, UPLIFT, The Shift Network and We, The World .
Ms. Audrey Kitagawa is Chair of the Parliament of the World Religions, an organization that dates back to 1893. Referring to the historic coming together of World UNITY Week Ms. Kitagawa said “civil society is the sleeping giant that has awakened to its power to create great global movements for the transformation of humanity.”
Rev. Victor H. Kazanjian Jr, Executive Director of the United Religions Initiative said: “at a time when the deep divisions and inequities that fracture the human community is being exposed, World Unity Week provides a way for us to reweave the fabric of our interconnectedness with people of all beliefs and cultures and with our planet while we continue to address the challenges we face.”
The 2020 Solstice will be like none other. Beginning with an Indigenous-led global Opening Ceremony that follows the sun starting on Friday, June 19, 10:00 PM EDT and leads to a World Unity Ceremony that includes over 100 NGOS and all the Interfaith and Inter-spiritual voices of Mother Earth on June 20, at 8:00 PM EDT.
The solstice broadcast and the week-long program are being carried by media platforms such as Unify, UPLIFT, the SINE Network, and Shift Network, comprising a potential audience of over 10 million people.
The Opening Global Ceremony, which opens World UNITY Week, is being facilitated by Hereditary Chief Phil Lane Jr of the Ihanktowan and Chickasaw Nations.
“On June 20, 2020, it will be crystal clear that our Indigenous Peoples, of Mother Earth, are spiritually rising and unifying, uplifting our Human Family, everywhere all at once, in unprecedented, unified action, as prophesied.” — Chief Phil Lane Jr.
Key conversations during World UNITY Week will spotlight such topics as collective climate action, partnerships for peace, global governance, interfaith harmony, interracial justice, sustainable and regenerative development, the role of business and economics, human rights, disarmament and other key elements of a new kind of future that we want to create.
Dr. Marty K Casey is a leader in the Black Lives Matter movement from St Louis who is holding a program inside World UNITY Week. Dr. Casey reflected “Unity is a creative collaboration that must be experienced by all!”
World Unity Week will include six Open Space Sessions in which participants self-organize into 60 minute sessions and focus on answering the framing question:
What is needed to mobilize a world unity movement?
Water is also a major theme of World UNITY Week. World UNITY Water Day will be celebrated on Wednesday June 24 and is devoted to water and water-related issues. EcoPeace MiddleEast is offering a special program during World UNITY Water Day, their Israeli Director Gidon Bromberg said “If we allow water to naturally flow we nourish the environment and all communities in its path. If we take all the flow we create enemies and degrade the environment with boomerang impacts that often bite us back.”
Visionary author Dr. Jude Currivan, co-Founder of WholeWorld-View commented “Love lies at the heart of a growing and collective perception of the inter-connectedness and innate unity of the whole world.”
World UNITY Week, is not intended to be a “one off” event, but is an open invitation for the global community to join in the monthly celebration of “The Global Days of Unity”, leading towards the 11 Days of Global Unity culminating in a large-scale global celebration across Peace Weekend 2020 (September 19-21), centered on the annual U.N. International Day of Peace (September 21).
Contact Us – if you would like to speak to any of the organizers or interview those quoted in this Press Release please write to info@unity.earth and/or Ben Bowler ben@unity.earth
Website: https://worldunityweek.org
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/worldunityweek/
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/538059070219416/
Promo Video: https://www.facebook.com/1unity.earth/videos/563623637631213/
Partner Assets: Including Banner, Slide Deck and Concept Note
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Z2F3kIk2W6HmmIk4Y9CQDOJq9WuhyR8u
Hashtags: #worldunityweek #answeringthecall #worldunitemovement and looking ahead to #peaceweekend2020