Three SBCC students representing the Santa Barbara delegation of “2020 A Year Without War” (AYWW) were invited by the United Nations to participate in the International Day of Peace celebrations in New York in September.
Their presentation outlining a social experiment that details how the year 2020 might exist as “a year without war” was selected as one of three projects to be presented to the U.N. General Assembly.
SBCC sophomore Lorenzo Marchetti delivered a speech, alongside his AYWW teammates Stefano Roland and Sofia Silva, to attending representatives from nonprofit organizations, universities and international organizations.
“Attending the International Day of Peace at the United Nations was, so far, our greatest achievement,” says Marchetti. “It required time and effort but that gave us our first international stage, which was very important.”
Thanks to their outstanding presentation at the U.N., the group was invited to attend the next Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Summit in Bogotà, Colombia, in February 2017.
In an excerpt from his U.N. speech, Marchetti said, “Already our ‘2020 A Year Without War’ movement has over 40,000 followers from over 120 nations. Today ‘2020 A Year Without War’ is a global whisper. But tomorrow, we must turn our whisper into an urgent global voice demanding a one-year global truce in 2020.’”
An international student from Italy, Marchetti moved to Santa Barbara in August 2014. He plans to transfer to an East Coast university in 2017 and major in international relations. He was initially encouraged to get involved in 2020 AYWW by SBCC philosophy professor Joe White, and never looked back.
“I always wanted to change the world and make it a better place,” Marchetti said. “2020 AYWW represented the best option for me, because it combines the field I study with my desire for change in the world.
“I also define myself as an active player. When I take on something, I do not want just to wait to see if it happens — I make it personal and do my best to make it happen.”
“What a wonderful job our 2020 AYWW students did in New York while also bringing contacts with a number of Embassies along with the World Forum of Nobel Peace Prize Winners,” said White.
2020 A Year Without War is a nonpartisan, nonreligious, dedicated and engaged community of anti-war activists with a simple, clear mission: to stop war in 2020. It is a social experiment that uses new technologies to give voice to a growing global community to prevent war for an entire year.
The organization believes that living in peace is not simply the absence of war, but that the absence of war is the first essential step to living in peace.
It has now been five years since 2020 AYWW launched at SBCC. Any adults interested in participating may contact brooks@ayww.org. Any interested students may contact Lorenzo@ayww.org.
Link to Marchetti’s U.N. speech: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYnJ2bS9bjc.
— Luz Reyes-Martin for SBCC.