Summer is here and festivals are all the rage. Ajay Rai went along to the launch of a new festival here in London and discovered that Peace has never been so Loud!

Hot off the press GPF UK 2008 will take place at London’s Excel on November 22nd. Building on last year’s successful pilot festival, the GPF UK Team have been busy gathering partners, activists and performers for Europe’s flagship GPF event.

To harness all this support the “GPF Launch” brought together dynamic performers, X-Factor finalists, grass-roots activists and radical visionaries. The finale of the evening was our very own GPF Soul brother, Ola Onabule who, together with his funky band, brought the 300 strong crowd to their dancing feet.

Apart from his musical contribution, Ola also gave his own message to the GPF partners: “Lets take the message with us because thats the only way it works…it has to be viral and it has to affect just about everyone you meet.”

Public speaking is considered to be high on the list of human fears, but that was the challenge to the project leaders of the current GPF UK FOCUS groups. For the speakers I imagine that never has two minutes ever felt so long! In some cases that was also true for the audience!! What was perhaps lacking in clarity, however, was more than made up in passion and committment. In fact this all seems to be part of the GPF Experience in that we are clarifying our stratgey and goals as we develop a better understanding of these issues by working with our partners.

“We accept this award with pride and will continue to work as the voice bearers of peace” said Azeda, as she and other outstanding Youth Ambassadors for Peace received the “Living for Others” award. This is the second year that the LFO awards have been running and if you would like to nominate a future Youth AfP, then please contact Juan Pique at the GPF UK office.

At the end of the evening I caught up with Simon Cooper, the executive Director of GPF UK, and he was buzzing! Nevertheless he didn’t get too carried away and was all too ready to acknowledge the improvements and “holes” that need to be filled as the festival gears up for not only 2008, but 2010 and 2012.

In fact the GPF UK Team are very quickly developing partnerships across London and hope to develop a One World Family spirit to support London as the host of the Olympics in 2012.

As Ola and the chorus of GPF partners sang on the night: “Ain’t no stopping us now…”

For more details about GPF UK 2008 go to www.gloabalpeacefestival-uk.org. To become a GPF UK partner just give us a great big hug (email will do) to bighugs@globalpeacefestival-uk.org and we will definately send a big hug back to you ^^

To see video highlights of this event please go to www.youtube.com/PEACEMN8