One Young World - Counsellor - Desmond Tutu

If anyone can be said to be an inspiration for One Young World, it is Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Campaigning tirelessly for justice for all South Africans, his was the loudest voice calling for the release of his friend Nelson Mandela. His example in establishing and presiding over the agonies of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa gave the world a revolutionary new template for conflict resolution which has been emulated in many of the world's trouble spots from Northern Ireland to Kosovo to Rwanda. In 1985 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.


His clear and dramatic call to every person in the world is best expressed in the words of his acceptance speech: “Because there is global insecurity, nations are engaged in a mad arms race, spending billions of dollars wastefully on instruments of destruction, when millions are starving. And yet, just a fraction of what is expended so obscenely on defense budgets would make the difference in enabling God's children to fill their stomachs, be educated, and given the chance to lead fulfilled and happy lives. We have the capacity to feed ourselves several times over, but we are daily haunted by the spectacle of the gaunt dregs of humanity shuffling along in endless queues, with bowls to collect what the charity of the world has provided, too little too late. When will we learn, when will the people of the world get up and say, enough is enough. God created us for fellowship. God created us so that we should form the human family, existing together because we were made for one another.”