Monday, September 21, 2020

By Othman Moqbel, Chief Executive Syria Relief

Today, September 21st, marks the International Day Of Peace. I reflect on this by being, possibly the only Chief Executive, who wants their organisation to go out of business. I am actively willing for myself and all my colleagues to be out of a job, one day.

For, we are needed, because of conflict. We respond to the human need and desperation caused by war. I long for when every day in September, every day in every month in every year is an international day of peace.

Across the world, extreme poverty is falling, hunger is dramatically reducing, child labour is on the decline, life expectancies are rising, child mortality is at historically low rates in almost every country, death in childbirth is becoming rarer and more people are receiving access to healthcare and education – however, whilst this is the case for most of the world, unfortunately there a few countries who are going backwards in most, if not all, of these measurements. Countries like Syria, Yemen, DRC – nations ravaged by conflict and where today is not a day of peace. In fact, they have not had a day of peace for years.

Syrians have not had a day of peace for over 9 and a half years. Yemenis marked 6 years of conflict on Wednesday, there has been no day of peace for them.

Humanity can not truly progress until peace is the norm and that NGOs like Syria Relief, who are needed to address the humanitarian needs are out of business.

Let us, on this day of peace, dream of a generation of peace and work towards a future of peace.