Tuesday: Good News!

Gerson Andrés Flórez Pérez

My sister, Bucksnort, was talking to me today about society's need to hear bad news over good, and we were trying to figure out just why that is. Think about it--what we mainly hear on the "news" is the kind of stuff that makes us shudder, or say, "Oh, no!"

Well, it's time for some good news. Starting today, and continuing for future Tuesdays, I will feature some bit of good news that I have found on the Internet (or in real life, too, of course!). Please consider doing the same on your blog. We could all do with some inspiration and glad tidings!

Today, I would like to tell you about a young man who was born in Bogota in 1986. Gerson Andrés Flórez Pérez has been working for world peace since he was 11 years old, when he heard about some tragic land mine explosions that had killed some children. He later wrote:

"These events overflooded my sense of humanity. Yes, in the deepest of my being, a great challenge set root; a challenge which in that moment perhaps only was nostalgia, but which day by day turned into my most important objective—the objective which I fight for today. An objective liberated from peace rhetorics, but filled with humbleness and novelty provided by God, who has always guided me.

"At my young age and with my innocence, I understood that for many adults peace is as a good of a business as war, and that only when it is born from our interior, will we be able to bring peace to our fellow beings. I understood that true peace is provided by God, and that it is our duty to maintain it for the well-being of all humanity."

Young Gerson wrote out and publicized a proposal called Children for Peace and said,

I received news from the President as well as the First Lady of the Republic that they would allow a humble child from southern Bogota (however a boy with lots of will to fight for national reconciliation) to take part in the National Peace Council. This is where the lights of hope will reunite, the lights of hope reflecting the people who are looking for a national flame, in order to leave all the violence behind once and for all.

According to Building a Culture of Peace: The [Children for Peace] proposal eventually attracted considerable media attention, and led to a national referendum. 2,700,000 children all over Colombia voted, expressing their desire to live in harmony.

After selling pins to raise the money for the journey, Pérez and his father traveled to the Hague Appeal for Peace in the Netherlands. He continues to work for the abolition of antipersonal landmines. In 2002, he became the youngest law student at the Universidad Nueva Granada in Bogotá.

Pérez won the 1999 Global Youth Award for Peace and Tolerance. He and the Children's Movement for Peace were also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.

To read more about this young hero (and others), please go to The My Hero Project, Building a Culture of Peace for the Children of the World, and to The Global Community Communications Alliance.