A project aimed at bringing about world peace has been launched in Lampeter.

The Guerrand-Hermès Foundation for Peace (GHFP) Research Institute and University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD) have launched the Global Humanity for Peace Institute.

The Institute will be dedicated to the promotion of collective healing, social justice and conflict resolution. The partnership between both organisations was announced by Prof Medwin Hughes, UWTSD’s Vice-Chancellor and Sharif I Horthy, chairman of GHFP Board of Trustees during the university’s Founders’ Day celebrations held at its Lampeter campus on the 18 November.

During the evening Dr Scherto Gill, was named as the Institute’s founding director. Dr Gill is a Senior Fellow at GHFP, an international research institute based in Brighton. She directs the UNESCO/GHFP partnership initiative on Collective Healing and chairs the G20 Interfaith Forum’s Education Working Group.

Dr Gill delivered the Founders’ Day lecture, Peace: The Imperative of Global Humanity, which focused on challenging the dominant conception of peace as an absence of violence, advancing a positive understanding of peace as being well, living well and becoming well.

The lecture also explored how global humanity must embrace an ethic of love to engage in our diversity as a pathway to collective flourishing in harmony with the thriving of other beings on the planet.

In welcoming Mr Horthy and Dr Gill to the university, Prof Hughes said: “I’m delighted that we are launching the Global Humanity for Peace Institute here in Lampeter and to do this on our Founders’ Day.

"Two hundred years ago, Bishop Thomas Burgess established a college in Lampeter that instilled in its students a deep understanding and respect for the Humanities - the study of human impact on the world.

"Lampeter has developed an international reputation for multi-cultural and inter-faith dialogue where harmony, spirituality, respect for others and the environment is valued and promoted.”

Through the Global Humanity for Peace Institute, GHFP and UWTSD will work together to further the aims and core objectives of UNESCO and will explore opportunities to collaborate with UNESCO activities and projects in the areas of Social and Human Science.

Sharif Horthy, chair of Guerrand Hermes Foundation for Peace noted: "We are so pleased to be here in Lampeter signing a Letter of intent with UWTSD, and in the near future a partnership agreement, to jointly establish a new Global Humanity for Peace Institute.

"The new Institute will work towards building peace across the world through inspiring and empowering a new generation of young people and providing for them the necessary skills and understanding."

Tabue Nguma of UNESCO said: “I am so pleased I was able to make the journey from Paris to be here tonight at this special event, to witness the beginnings of such an important partnership between the University of Wales and the Guerrand Hermes Foundation. Together I am sure we can do important work to address social injustice, systemic racism and intolerance across the world."