Context: From Vienna, we have just come from the first Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. There, we have heard many times, from the representatives of the 65 attending countries and from many other observers, that this has been a historic meeting. From this city, WwWV take one more step towards the 3rd World March, as was announced in Madrid at the closing of the 2nd WM. Now we advance in its concretion, but first we are going to make a brief review of some of what has been done so far.

Background:

  • In 2008 we announced that the 1st World March would depart from Wellington (New Zealand) on October 2, 2009. More than one year later, after carrying out activities in more than 90 countries within a tour that lasted 93 days, we finished that major action in Argentina, in Punta de Vacas Park, on January 2, 2010.

  • In 2018 we announced that there would be a 2nd World March. That it would also depart on October 2, but in 2019 and from Madrid (Spain). In that 2nd WM, activities were carried out in more than 200 cities from 45 countries during 159 days circling the planet to end up again in Madrid on March 8, 2020.

  • In addition, Regional Marches were held: The Central American March through 6 countries of the region in 2017; the South American March that left Colombia and reached Chile after carrying out activities in 43 cities from 9 countries in 2018, the Western Mediterranean March, by sea, in 2019 and the Latin American March for Nonviolence from September 15 to October 2, 2021, which carried out activities in 15 countries.

Call: To all the organizations that have supported the different marches and especially to the activists of World without Wars and Violence, as well as to the coordination teams and collaborators who were the main supporters of the marches in the different countries.

Topic: We are going to carry out the 3rd World March that will begin on October 2, 2024.

The first thing we need is to define the city where this 3rd World March for Peace and Nonviolence will begin and end. We open a 3 months term (from today June 21, 2022 until September 21, 2022) for the reception of proposals. Hopefully the activities will involve not only the city and country, but also the countries in the area. The chosen city/country will be disclosed on October 2, 2022, two years before the start of the 3rd WM.

With a view to diversifying the regions, we aspire, if possible, for the new proposals to come from cities in Asia, America or Africa.

Upcoming topics: Once defined where the 3rd WM will begin, we will open the reception of initiatives by cities from December 21, 2022 to June 21, 2023. The trunk route will be designed and the duration of the 3rd WM determined after the information arrived in those 6 months. This information will be announced on October 2, 2023, one year before the start of 3rd WM.

News: The 3rd WM will have an expanded Base Team that will include members aged from 18 to 30. They will make up an area called the “Junior Base Team”. The Junior BT will have the same functions as the EB.

Decision-making: The decision-making area will be made up of some participants from the Base Teams of the carried out marchers and will consult the WwWV World Coordination Team and the main organizations that support this 3rd WM.

Moment: Although the aspiration of the World Marches is to create awareness about nonviolence, we aim that, at some point, wars between humans in the world will end. This looks like a long-term project but, according to the drift that events are taking, we see that the actions that propose peace and the cessation of armed confrontations are today more necessary than ever. Hopefully, as Galeano announced, this 3rd World March for Peace and Nonviolence deserve millions and millions of feet to support its journey around the planet.

3rd WM for Peace and Nonviolence Coordination