Make a diff erence 2/friends ‘You deliver food. I deliver peace.’ s
imple, isn’t it? And the perfect way to describe the work and respective passions of Jason Gissing and Jeremy Gilley. But the relationship between one of the co-founders of Ocado (Jason, near right) and the man
behind a global peace movement (Jeremy, far right) is as surprising as it is inspiring. ‘Jeremy went to school with my wife when they were
in their early teens,’ Jason explains. ‘I met him through her in 1999 when he had just started Peace One Day and I was just leaving my previous career in banking.’ Over the intervening years, the world has changed
pretty wildly and the friends are now joining forces to support Global Truce 2012, which takes place on 21 September and is the result of more than a decade of grassroots peace projects spearheaded by Peace One Day. Jeremy’s hope for the day – supported by worldwide events ‘in schools, offi ces, playgrounds, football pitches, dance fl oors, as well as in homes and communities’ – is to see the largest reduction in domestic and international violence ever recorded. ‘I think we’ll see the biggest gathering of human beings involved in peace and sustainability that’s ever been counted.’ So just how does one go about ‘delivering peace’ on such a scale? ‘Education is where it’s at,’ Jeremy says with
undeniable conviction, and the example that follows puts this statement into sharp relief. ‘If I had £100 in my pocket and could spend it on someone who was about to pull a trigger, or on a young person who might one day pull a trigger, I’d spend it on the young person,’ he says, clearly not for the fi rst time. ‘We’ve got to give the tools to young people so that
they can become changemakers and peacemakers. We’ve got to empower them, inspire them, let them know that they can make a diff erence and that they
really do have the power to change the world.’ When you hear Jeremy say this, you can’t help but believe it. In 2011, Ocado underwrote Peace One Day’s UK
Citizenship Resource for schools, which provides learning support materials about issues related to peace, non-violence and inter-cultural co-operation for pupils aged 11-16. ‘We couldn’t carry out this work without Ocado,’ says Jeremy. ‘I’m immensely grateful to Jason, to the organisation and to the staff for enabling us to continue this work. It’s everything.’
FAMILY CONNECTIONS But working towards educating a more peaceful younger generation is not the only thing that binds the two men. ‘I’ve known Jeremy all this time and didn’t know about how we were linked by Japan,’ says Jason, whose fundraising appeal aſt er last year’s earthquake and tsunami devastation in his mother’s home country has so far injected more than £285,000 into on-the- ground relief projects. Jeremy’s late grandfather was a prisoner of war in Japan and saw the atomic bomb go off in Nagasaki in 1945. The date of 21 September is signifi cant too: ‘Twenty-
one was my grandfather’s favourite number,’ says Jeremy, ‘because only 21 of the young men in his regiment came home out of the 700 who leſt . This is an interesting link for me and Jason, because of course his family has roots in Japan, and the fact that he and I have come together to create a resource to inspire and empower young people to be a driving force for a more peaceful world is exactly what my grandfather would have wanted to see happen.’
What makes Jeremy and Jason smile? Jeremy: ‘My daughter.’ Jason: ‘My wife, and my children when they’re playing music or sports.’
ABOUT PEACE ONE DAY
The idea for Peace One Day was born at a music festival. ‘I was lying in a fi eld at WOMAD looking up at the many fl ags fl apping in the sky and thought how inspiring it was that all these people from diff erent countries had come together with a common, peaceful purpose.’ So Jeremy Gilley packed up his tent, picked up a video camera and started travelling to confl ict zones. To date, POD’s most notable achievement was receiving a letter from the Taliban committing to ceasing violent activity on 21 September 2009. This enabled crucial relief to reach ordinary Afghan people. Find out how you can get involved in Global Truce 2012 at
peaceoneday.org
BARE YOUR TEETH FOR YOKO
Artist, musician, author and peace activist Yoko Ono will be encouraging everyone to SMILE at the Serpentine Gallery [
serpentinegallery.org] in June 2012 with her fi rst exhibition at a public London institution for over a decade – and you can be involved. Upload your smiles to become a part of an international anthology in a project that aims to promote global connection. Ono hopes that ‘all of the smiles that are collected will be kept by the Serpentine Gallery as a record for the planet Earth’. The exhibition is part of the London 2012 Festival, a 12-week long celebration of the arts starting 21 June 2012. Visit
london2012.com/festival
> The Global Truce 2012 concert, headlined by Elton John, will take place on 21 September at the O2 as part of London’s Cultural Olympiad <
PHOTOGRAPHY: HARRY BORDEN
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