About 10,000 participants from all over the Visayas will attend the Global Peace Festival in Dumaguete City on October 21 and 22, during the annual Buglasan Festival of Festivals of Negros Oriental.

Director Pedro Dibdib of the Universal Peace Federation-World Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles local chapter, said the festival aims to find out how to achieve lasting peace.

The UPF is a non-government organization in special consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, with the W-CARP, comprising 194 founding nations, as its international partner, Dibdib said.

He said that the UPF started in the country in 2006 and has been holding lectures and leadership seminars in quest for peace, and other activities such as clean-up drives, tree-planting, and visits to orphanages.

A one-day leadership conference was held recently in Dumaguete attended by representatives from the youth sector, academe, local officials, police and the army on the theme, “The Need for Vision and Leadership at a Time of Global Crisis: Building Partnerships among Governments, Faith-Based Organizations and NGO’s towards the realization of One Family Under God.”

The peace festival will take place simultaneously in 12 venues in the country, Dibdib said.

Its highlights include a coastal clean-up on Oct. 20, a regional leaders’ conference on Oct. 21-22, and an Interpretative Dance for Peace in the evening of Oct. 22.*JG

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