The 17th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates took place from September 19 to 22 kicking off with a Youth Day on the 18th in Mérida, Mexico. The Summit is internationally recognized as the most important annual event in the field of peacemaking, attracting Nobel Peace Laureates, high-profile leaders, (youth) organizations, professors, and many students from around the globe.
Since 2004 KidsRights has been a proud contributor to the Summit. In that year, the International Children’s Peace Prize was launched at the Summit at the Capitol in Rome, chaired by Mikhail Gorbachev. The prize has been presented every year by a Nobel Peace Laureate since.
This year KidsRights travelled to Mérida together with International Children’s Peace Prize winners Mohamad Aljounde (2017) and March For Our Lives (2018), to promote the power of children and youth as changemakers for peace. Also International Children’s Peace Prize winners Chaeli, Kehkashan and Baruani did attend the World Summit.
For KidsRights this was a Summit as no other. We got to launch our new initiative the State of Youth; an ambitious non-political, non-religious digital “state” that transcends national borders and empower the global youth community (13-24) to act on the world’s most pressing issues. Marc Dullaert (Chairman and Founder of KidsRights) took the stage together with 2 Youth Board members of State of Youth, Isabelle Christina S. Silva from Brazil and Mariann Avila from Mexico. “If we don’t act now, there will be no future. Our time is today.” – Mariann Avila
Besides that KidsRights organized two workshops to inspire and mobilize the young attendees to become active changemakers. Mohamad facilitated the first workshop about how to become a changemaker and how to turn big dreams into concrete actions. The second workshop was all about creating a youth movement, led by Alex King and Ryan Deitsch from March For Our Lives. Both workshops were crowded with over 100 enthusiastic participants!

Closing off the Summit successfully, Mohamad won the Turner Social Change Prize in support of his project: A well-deserved global recognition of his unceasing effort to move the world!
KidsRights looks back at an inspiring, informative and empowering week!