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Timeline

1991 - Daiskau Ikeda - Philosopher, Educator, Peacebuilder
In 1991, Daisaku Ikeda encouraged a group of young people from the United States to form a Youth Peace Committee (YPC) with the mission of supporting the United Nations and fostering youth leaders of the 21st century.

March 1999 – Daisaku Ikeda - Philosopher, Educator, Peacebuilder
Mr. Ikeda provides the founding vision for Victory Over Violence (VOV) while encouraging a group of young people from the United States to promote the values of nonviolence in their communities and raise awareness of gun violence in U.S. schools.

April 1999 - Columbine Shootings (Littleton, Colorado)
After the high school shootings in Columbine Colorado, on April 20, 1999, many people desperately sought to identify the root cause of youth violence and its solution. Mr. Ikeda expressed his concern about Columbine:

“The tragedy in Colorado shocked educators, students and parents around the world. But we must not look away from the issue that this painful incident symbolizes. How can we transform disregard for life, which has been deeply rooted in the minds of children through war and violence that plagued the 20th century? This is the most important issue for us as we stand at the threshold of the 21st century.”

August 1999 - Launch of the Victory Over Violence (VOV) Initiative
The YPC, together with additional young people from the United States launched the VOV initiative in August 1999. The objective was and continues to be to spark dialogue and heighten awareness regarding nonviolent activism and to provide opportunities for youth to become nonviolent activists.

September 1999 - Grand Youth Culture Festival (Pasadena, CA)
In September 1999, VOV supporters from throughout the United States sponsored a Grand Youth Culture Festival dedicated to peace with 700 youth performers.

September 1999 - U.N. Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace
On September 13, 1999 the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted by consensus the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace (A/RES/53/243).

In response, the VOV commitment to nonviolent activism entered the global arena by adopting the cause of raising awareness of the United Nations 1999 Declaration and Program of Action on a Culture of Peace as a core component of the VOV initiative. In this regard, VOV strives to foster global perspectives that view violence as a worldwide illness and identify and connect the root causes of violence underlying conflicts from the personal-level to the local-, national- and international-levels based on the eight action areas of the UN "Culture of Peace" initiative.

March 2000 - Education for Sustainable Development
The mission of education for sustainable development projects such as the Earth Charter Initiative is to promote the transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework that includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace.

In March of 2000, a consensus was reached on the Earth Charter Initiative by the Earth Charter Commission at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris and later officially launched at the Peace Palace in The Hague.

In response, the VOV initiative adopted the cause of promoting education for sustainable development and raising awareness of the Earth Charter initiative as another example of how to identify and connect the root causes of violence underlying conflicts from the personal-level to the local-, national- and international-levels.

January 2009 - 10th Anniversary of the Victory Over Violence Initiative
In January 2009, the 10th anniversary of the Victory Over Violence initiative was celebrated and the initiative was re-launched with an new interactive website and an updated pledge written by a committee of young people from the United States and members of the new Victory Over Violence Honorary Advisory Board. The VOV initiative re-launched with a renewed focus on accelerating the transition from a culture of war and violence to a culture of peace and non-violence starting at the human scale of daily life interactions.

September 8, 2009 - Building Global Solidarity Toward Nuclear Abolition
Daisaku Ikeda has been a vocal opponent of nuclear weapons for more than 50 years. On September 8, 2009, he issued a five-point plan titled Building Global Solidarity Toward Nuclear Abolition outlining concrete steps toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. He stressed that we now have a unique opportunity to build grassroots solidarity, propel political processes and break out of the stagnation which has dogged nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation efforts.

In response, the VOV initiative adopted the cause of promoting the abolition of nuclear weapons by helping the world’s people to clearly manifest their will for the outlawing of nuclear weapons and draw a cognitive connection between the political threat of nuclear weapons to the authoritarian tendency within human nature to want to bend others to one's will. 

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