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In Nicaragua the Martin Luther King Institute for Research and Social Action is publishing a review three times a year entitled Culture of Peace. The review is devoted to related themes in the context of that country's struggle for reconciliation and peace after the bitter civil war which tore the country apart in previous decades.
In Japan the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation works to ensure that nuclear weapons, which destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, are never again employed against people. The Foundation supports the efforts of the people of Hiroshima today to tell their story to the rest of the world and to urge them to abolish all nuclear weapons.
The Network 'Afrique Jeunesse', based in Burkina Faso, which publishes a bulletin of liaison for African youth organizations, has headlined a culture of peace in their 1995 issue and included a description of the UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme.
In Germany the Society 'Culture of Peace' (Gesellschaft 'Kultur des Friedens') held the First International Congress of a Culture of Peace in 1988 in T�bingen (former East Germany). Since that time they have initiated projects in education, culture and development for peace in many parts of the world, including in Chile, Colombia and the Republics of the former Yugoslavia. These projects include partnerships between schools in Colombia and Europe to combat the glorification of violence, and partnerships between European towns and communities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Second 'Culture of Peace' International Congress was held in 1995 in T�bingen and in Stuttgart where a concert featured a cantata for the culture of peace.
NGOs and the United Nations
Increasingly the energy and scope of non governmental organizations is linked directly to the United Nations System, both as a source of ideas and inspiration and as a powerful multiplier force for the universal principles of the Organization. The UNESCO Culture of Peace Programme has placed a priority on working with non governmental organizations especially those in consultative status with UNESCO and with the United Nations Organization. In Paris the Programme meets regularly with the Joint Group UNESCO/NGO 'Education for the rights of the person, education for tolerance, democracy and peace' as well as the work group 'Science and ethics' and takes part in the annual NGO Conference. In New York, the Programme has presented the culture of peace concept to the annual meeting of NGOs held by the UN Department of Information.
In recent years the summit meetings of the UN have become the opportunity for NGOs from around the world to gather together, exchange information and issue declarations from their own perspectives. The topics have included children's rights, the environment, population, social development and the status of women. In fact, the NGO Forums have become as important as the meetings themselves, often issuing complementary - or alternative - declarations of their own.
There has not been a UN summit conference on disarmament since 1988, but NGOs gathered together on the disarmament issue in the spring of 1995 in conjunction with the UN meeting concerning the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty.
Increasingly the energy and scope of non governmental organizations is linked directly to the United Nations System, both as a source of ideas and inspiration and as a powerful multiplier force for the universal principles of the Organization.