Q: What is Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL)?
Ans: Heavenly Culture, World Peace, Restoration of Light (HWPL) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization with the goal of achieving world peace and the cessation of war. With over 70 branches in Korea and another 100 branches around the world, HWPL, in conjunction with the International Women’s Peace Group (IWPG) and the International Peace Youth Group (IPYG), is actively working to bring all wars to an end.
Q: What is about Heavenly Culture?
Ans: Heavenly Culture is to live according to the principles and values of heaven, a place that gives light, rain and air without boundaries. It is also to live according to the Creator, who is the foundation of all creation. With peace and respect for life as its core values, HWPL is engaging communities all over the world with a spirit of love and harmony, helping to resolve conflicts and building bridges between individuals and communities, by sowing a message of peace to all corners of the earth.
Q: How about the Harmony Transcending Culture and Religion?
Ans: HWPL transcends culture, religion, ideology, and boundaries to achieve peaceful harmony in the global society. HWPL is actively interacting with world leaders to pursue avenues for realizing world peace and working alongside its Peace Advisory Council, Publicity Ambassadors, and International Law Peace Committee. Through the proposal of agreements between religious communities and by opening the World Alliance of Religions’ Peace (WARP) Offices worldwide to foster deeper understandings amongst various faiths, HWPL is achieving religious harmony – the basis of world peace.
Q: What are substantive results in realizing world peace?
Ans: HWPL initiated peace agreements with world leaders around the globe to cease all conflicts and ensure cooperation. HWPL has dedicated itself to conflict resolution and the peace-building process. In the case of the 40-year conflict of Mindanao, Philippines, HWPL began the process through signing a peace agreement between representatives of the Catholic and Islam faiths in the region and also through an international peace walk. HWPL also hosted the World Alliance of Religions’ Peace (WARP) Summit in the Republic of Korea in 2014, attended by 200,000 participants who were comprised of religious, political, women and youth leaders, in order to bring global recognition of the value of peace as an inheritance to our future generations and call for substantive actions at a global level.
Q: What about the Chairman HWPL?
Ans: Hee Lee is Chairman HWPL and a Korean War Veteran. He has not forgotten the suffering he and his fellow soldiers endured in their youth during the war. He recalls the atrocities committed against the youth the midst of war and vowed to bring an end to military conflict. On 25 June 2010, he hosted the Special Memorial Event for the Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of the Korean War at Sejong Center, Seoul. 2,000 people from the Korean War Veteran Association, Korea Disabled Veterans Organization and other veteran-related organizations participated in this event. Chairman Lee’s keynote speech raised awareness of the consequences of wars still embedded in the Korean society and enlightened the participants to cooperate for peace.
Q: What about Lee’s desire for Declaration of Unification of Korea?
Ans: To commemorate the 65th anniversary of the independence of Korea, Chairman Lee proclaimed the Declaration of Unification of Korea before 33 government representatives of South Korea. Through this declaration, Lee stressed the desire of the Korean people towards unification and the duty of leaders to ensure the peaceful lives of their citizens. His peace initiative is clearly expressed in the Declaration of Unification of Korea, which guided the efforts of the leaders of Korea to protect peace in both the Korean peninsula and Asia.
Q: What is Law for Peace?
Ans: HWPL has foremost duty in today’s world to establish peace as a firm foundation and make this world a better place to live, which will be left as a legacy for our future generations. In the face of devastation of lives of our family, an international law that protects global citizens’ brutality of wars needs to be established.
Q: What is world peace initiative of HWPL?
Ans: One approach of HWPL’s initiatives to world peace is to establish an enforceable law that can be adopted by every state. To pursue this goal, the Declaration of Peace and Cessation of War (DPCW) was proclaimed on 14 March, 2016 by the HWPL International Law Peace Committee made up of leading experts, inspired by Chairman Lee’s advocacy and efforts of building cooperation.
Q: What about Alliance of Religions and Interfaith Communication as well as World Alliance of Religions’ Peace (WARP)?
Ans: World Alliance of Religions’ Peace (WARP) derives from the WARP Summit in 2014 held by HWPL in Seoul, South Korea, with 200,000 participants from 130 countries of the world. As a global interfaith peace movement, the WARP Offices have been established as HWPL’s major project for peace through discussion on the role of religion in peace-building for the global community. According to the International Bulletin of Missionary Research (IBMR), there are 500,000 religions in existence and of the 7.2 billion people in the world over 85% of the population identify themselves as being religious. However, religious misunderstandings and the misinterpretation of religious texts due to different faiths has triggered religious hatred, persecutions, and conflicts involving physical violence.
Q: What about Women & Youth Activism; IWPG-IPYG, The Two Wings of HWPL?
Ans: The collective actions born from the voices of women and youth of the world have become the essence of power in HWPL’s role as the messenger of peace. The International Women’s Peace Group (IWPG) and the International Peace Youth Group (IPYG) cooperate with HWPL for the same goal – the achievement of world peace and cessation of war. These two groups are constructing a global network of individuals and organizations by opening branches throughout the world, and conducting peace projects.
Q: What is program titled ‘Youth – Leaders of Peace building beyond Victims of War’?
Ans: Youth is forced to be scapegoats standing on the forefront of wars and sacrifice their lives, which can never be compensated. Facing this reality, the youth are required to work together for themselves to form a common voice of demanding protection of their fundamental rights and creating a world where a better standard of living can flourish. Every year, youth from around the world gather their voices through peace campaigns led by IPYG. These campaigns are critical because they motivate world leaders to devise news plans and dedicate themselves to peace.
Q: What is project titled as Women – Power of a Mother?
Ans: Woman is also affected when wars break out as they bear the violence of war and lose their partners and children on the battlefields. The women’s role for peace lies in the miracle of the immense power of a mother-like heart to protect their children. In IWPG, the SHE CAN project is one of the social activities to develop peace movements led by the mothers of the world. Based on the global network of women leaders, the actions for peace of IWPG include education, volunteering, campaigns and the leadership of young female adults, which have been true materials of peace.
Q: What is Peace Education initiative?
Ans: Education is a powerful and effective source of human development, as specified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and has led many areas of the globe to strive to secure greater access to basic education in general. In order to protect and further enhance the priceless legacy of peace from great wars and consequent sacrifices, education must guide students to understand values such as human dignity, equal opportunity, democracy, etc. In that sense, peace education not only guarantees sustainable development for the future generations but also allows for coexistence and interdependence, the core values of today’s world, to flourish.
Q: What is Youth and Women Empowerment program?
Ans: Wars and armed conflicts have relentlessly led youths throw away their lives without having a chance to bloom. Atrocities of war continue to torment them for the lives of people. Family members, especially mothers, are also terribly afflicted with the loss of their beloved children. Recognizing that youth should take the leading role in protecting their own lives and women dedicate their lives to protect their children with the loving heart of mothers, HWPL with its two wings, IPYG (International Peace Youth Group) and IWPG (International Women’s Peace Group) aim to bring sustainable and universal peace.
Q: What about HWPL Peace Monument / HWPL Day?
Ans: HWPL’s creed – leaving peace as a legacy to future generations provides new impetus to global citizens to expand the work of peace at a local level with the spirit of peace presented by HWPL. Local governments around the world invest time and effort in building monuments to commemorate and appreciate the noble value of peace. Further, HWPL Day has also been established in order to support peace projects carried out by HWPL and seek cooperation from local citizens to take the role of peace advocate transcending barriers of gender, language, religion and nationality.
Q: Name a few Publications of HWPL?
Ans: HWPL delivers messages of peace movement in every corner of the world through HWPL Newsletter. Also, by HWPL World Alliance of Religions’ Peace (WARP) Office Journal, discussions in interfaith dialogues in 100 countries on offering vision of peace by religious leaders are covered with detail. Many forms of publications including DVDs, HWPL peace memoirs (records by HWPL Chairman), and leaflet, brochure and art books are in progress to send news of peace to every part of the world, even to the most remote regions.
Melange Report