“The World Peace Game is about learning to live and work comfortably in the unknown.” John Hunter

Musician, teacher, filmmaker and game designer, John Hunter has dedicated his life to helping children realize their full potential. His own life story is one of a never-ending quest for harmony. As a student, he studied comparative religions and philosophy while traveling through Japan, China and India. In India, inspired by Ghandi’s philosophy, he began to think about the role of the schoolteacher in creating a more peaceful world.

As his online biography says: “Accepting the reality of violence, he would seek to incorporate ways to explore harmony in various situations. This exploration would take form in the framework of a game – something that students would enjoy. Within the game data space, they would be challenged, while enhancing collaborative and communication skills.”

In 1978, at the Richmond Community High School, Hunter led the first sessions of his World Peace Game, a hands-on political simulation. The game has now been played around the world, on a four-tiered board. It’s the subject of the new film World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements.

Social media helped activists organize peaceful protest movements in cities across the globe—in Tunis, in Cairo, in Madrid, in New York, and in cities and towns across the globe—at times in the face of violent repression.

It has been a year like no other for human rights. Human rights activism has never been more topical or more vital. And through the transforming power of social media, ordinary people have become human rights activists.

Human rights belong equally to each of us and bind us together as a global community with the same ideals and values. As a global community we all share a day in common: Human Rights Day on 10 December, when we remember the creation 63 years ago of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

On Human Rights Day 2011 we pay tribute to all human rights defenders and ask you to get involved in the global human rights movement.

See event details and online live streaming on the official Human Rights Day website

Nearly three years after Kenya’s worst election violence, which left 1,500 dead and hundreds of thousands internally displaced, Kenya is a nation in search of its identity. Picha Mtaani aims at providing a platform for national reflection and building local reconstruction consensus through photo exhibitions and conversation. This project aims at organizing target communities to play their part in the reconciliation and reconstruction process.

Through an exhibition set of images taken during Kenya’s 2007/2008 post-election violence, we hope that by staring at the horror we inflicted on each other, we can steer the individual towards personal reflection, towards a willingness to have honest dialogue, and we also hope to create a space for community healing and reconciliation.

The Picha Mtaani national peace building initiative and exhibition tour, has successfully visited ten election violence most affected towns including Nairobi, Nakuru, Eldoret, Kericho, Kisumu, and has enjoyed tremendous support from the Kenyan public; this was illustrated by the participation of over seven hundred thousand (700,000) young people, the submission of over thirty thousand completed questionnaires (30,000) and the subsequent signing of over sixty-one thousand peace pledges (61,000) in our exhibitions series throughout the country.

Most recently, October of 2011 marked the launch of Heal the Nation, the documentary film chronicling Picha Mtaani’s journey across the country. Through this independently produced film, Picha Mtaani intends to bring this experience to an even greater audience. The film is available online on YouTube.

Moving forward, Picha Mtaani targets to reach out to at least two million additional young persons in Kenya working in the 210 constituencies, mobilizing young Kenyans into the Kenya Ni Kwetu (Kenya is Our Home) movement.

Next, Picha Mtaani is launching a creative hub social enterprise, which opens its doors in December. PAWA 254 will be an innovative, new, collaborative office for visual creatives in Kenya. PAWA 254 derives its name from a combination of “power” in Swahili and the Kenya country code, a symbol of national unity. This new workspace – a community facility and studio – will bring together established and aspiring young photographers, cartoonists, animators, video & filmmakers, as well as entrepreneurs and activists, to work, learn, and share in an environment that inspires creativity and efforts to bring about social change.

We hope you will join us in supporting this initiative: see more

View the Picha Mtaani e-Book here The Price of Tribal Politics

(Recorded at TEDGlobal 2011, July 2011, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Duration: 16:55.)