Jul 142 min read

Rising Stars Warmed Up the Competition on Peace & Change

What does justice look like in your community? Does it look very different depending on which side we are on? If people are willing to kill or harm in order to achieve their version of justice, is the pursuit of justice justified?

These philosophical questions have been asked by many scholars since the time of Plato, and the question continues to haunt us today, from the civil wars in Yemen and Somalia, to the storming of the US Capitol in 2021, to the on-going wars in Russia-Ukraine and Arab-Israeli.

We want to ask our future leaders - what did the top peace activists of our time find out? Does it work? How can we do better?

To warm up, student representatives from around the world shared what "coexistence" looks like in the countries where they are from. We learned about the inter-religious efforts in Ethiopia, the intercultural celebrations in Brazil, the immigration policy debates in the USA, the neutrality of the Indian government on world politics, the social inclusion systems in Norway, the foreign worker policies in Japan, the indigenous people act in Taiwan, the progress of gender equality in education in Pakistan, the initiatives against organized crimes in Ecuador, and more. The fight for coexistence and justice is complicated and evolving.

The top five scorers during the warm-up week are acknowledged for their ability to state their personal observations clearly, support their analyses with sound research, and more importantly, communicate with their teammates effectively: