SOUTH AMERICA

Gerson Andrés Flórez Pérez

Colombian Youngster Leads Children’s Peace Movement

“I have always thought that peace is more than absence of war…We can’t speak of peace when our people day by day become poorer and poorer and have less opportunities to manage in life.”

Gerson Andrés Flórez Pérez was born in 1986 in one of the poorest areas of Bogotá, Columbia. When he was 11 years old he saw a TV news story about a girl who was killed by a landmine. A few weeks later he read about another dead child and was inspired to do what he could to end the armed conflict in his country.

In June 1997 he wrote a peace proposal which he called "Children of Peace," asking that the voices and needs of children be considered. The proposal eventually attracted considerable media attention, and led to a national referendum. 2,700 000 children all over Colombia voted, expressing their desire to live in harmony.

After selling pins to raise the money for the journey, Pérez and his father traveled to the Hague Appeal for Peace in the Netherlands. He continues to work for the abolition of antipersonal landmines. In 2002, he became the youngest law student at the Universidad Nueva Granada in Bogotá.

Pérez won the 1999 Global Youth Award for Peace and Tolerance. He and the Children's Movement for Peace were also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999.