Dr. Gail Reyes-Galang, CPE Associate, and Sophia Dianne C. Garcia, CPE Project Officer, attended the 2019 PyeongChang Global Peace Forum held at PyeongChang Alpensia International Convention Center, Gangwong-Do Province, South Korea on February 9-11, 2019.

More than a hundred participants from diverse backgrounds and various parts of the world attended the forum which is also in celebration of the first anniversary of the PyeongChang Winter Olympics, a historic moment where North and South Korea formed a unified Korean Women’s Hockey Team and marched under a Korean Unification Flag. The topics that were covered during the forum ranged from peace and its relation to disarmament, sustainable development goals (SDGs), the environment, gender, human rights, governance and religion.

Dr. Galang was one of the panelists in the session on Peace Education. She shared with the audience how Peace Education is integrated in the Miriam College curriculum and the initiatives led by CPE that upholds the values of truth, justice, peace and integrity of creation.

Sophia, on the other hand, was one of the panelists in the session on Youth, Peace and Security. She spoke about the role of youth and how they can engage in building a culture of peace. She shared with the audience her involvement as project officer in CPE and as coordinator of the Young Women+ for Peace and Leadership, a program under the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders in partnership with CPE. Sophia also moderated one of the roundtable discussions which is a platform for the participants to identify ways forward in realizing the goals of the PyeongChang Agenda for Peace 2030 both internationally and locally. She was also chosen to deliver the closing speech in the forum on behalf of all of the participants where she said that she looks forward “to see everything that has been discussed in the 3-day forum to be turned into reality in the coming years.”