Barahona, Dominican Republic - On September 21, the UPF Dominican chapter celebrated again the International Day of Peace in Barahona city. This time it took place in the new auditorium and campus of the Regional University Center in Barahona. Barahona is at 200 km west of Santo Domingo. It is the main city of the southwest region of the Dominican Republic with a population of around 90,000 people.
Dr. Isaías Zorrilla, the Center Director, asked us to come again to this city and supported the celebration by offering the partnership of the Regional University Center. He gave the welcoming remarks to the attending public.
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Before the program started, the auditorium was totally full (388 people). We had to open the balconies for some additional guests. At that time we played some inspirational music and showed a video presentation of the theme song of football's World Cup in South Africa sung by the popular Colombian singer, Shakira.
The main focuses of our program were the two messages of peace for the day: the one of the UN Secretary-General and our own UPF Declaration. All the speakers’ words and comments referred to the content of these messages.
We showed three videos in our program: our UPF 2010 review of activities, our Founders' World Peace Tour 2011, and Fred Nassiri’s “Love Sees No Color” introduced at the International Leadership Conference in Seoul in February 2011 in Seoul. One local Christian singer, Mrs. Kenia Nova, sang two songs about peace, and the event was closed by an artistic presentation of a group of students, followed by three cheers.