Sydney, Australia—UFP-Australia celebrated the UN International Day of Peace 2018 at the Oceania Peace Embassy on October 1. The evening event also commemorated the 70-year anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Around 50 people attended the celebration, which featured three presentations and a beautiful song by the UPF Choir.
Ms. Jynene Helland was emcee for the evening. Presenters included Gregory Stone, secretary general of UPF-Oceania, who spoke about UPF’s efforts to mobilize parliamentarians and religious leaders from all over the world to work together to address the critical challenges of our time. UPF’s new Summit series was introduced, and guests were excited to hear about the upcoming Asia Pacific Summit in Nepal to be held from November 30 to December 3, 2018.
Hon. David Clarke, Ambassador for Peace and member of the Legislative Assembly of the Parliament of New South Wales gave the next presentation. Honorable Clarke offered an inspiring appraisal of the impact of the work of UPF around the world.
This was followed by a lovely testimony from Dr. Vasugi Sitharasenan, an emergency medicine specialist at Gold Coast Hospital, who attended the most recent International Leadership Conference (ILC) in Korea. She was so inspired by the ILC that her enthusiasm was felt by the entire audience. In her PowerPoint presentation, she showed a photo of two doves and explained that they represented UPF’s founders, Reverend Sun Myung Moon and Dr. Hak Ja Han Moon, who have been working tirelessly for world peace.
The evening concluded with a moving presentation of the song “Fix You” by the UPF Choir. The room was buzzing with warmth as the audience remained chatting with each other long after the formal proceedings concluded.