Secretary-General, in Anniversary Message, Lauds Efforts by Global Network

 

of Religions for Children to Focus Compassion on ‘Forgotten Places’

Following is UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s message for the tenth anniversary of the Global Network of Religions for Children (GNRC), delivered by Konrad Osterwalder, Rector of the United Nations University, in Chiba, Japan, today, 12 October:

I am pleased to convey my greetings and good wishes on the tenth anniversary of the Global Network of Religions for Children.

Over the past decade, the GNRC has built partnerships among organizations and individuals from among the world’s diverse religious traditions.  With compassion for the smallest and weakest among the human family, the GNRC has focused its efforts in some of the world’s forgotten places, where children are at high risk to the threats of poverty, violence and disease.  Through observances such as the World Day of Prayer and Action for Children — celebrated every year on the anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child – the GNRC has mobilized faith communities in support of the Millennium Development Goals.

The GNRC and its passionate supporters in Japan have done much to remind us all that children are an essential core of the development agenda, thereby reinforcing a fundamental truth:  the world’s great faiths share a common conviction to reach out to the most vulnerable and to expand justice, hope and opportunity for all the world’s children.

Please accept my best wishes on a decade of leadership and action.  May this milestone serve as an opportunity for people of faith everywhere to intensify efforts to build a better future for all the world’s children.

* *** *

For information media • not an official record