HUA in The Hill: Preventing conflicts and atrocities must be our legacy

Read the full op-ed by HUA president Randy Newcomb in The Hill.

When receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, Elie Wiesel ended his lecture with a plea: “Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures, it is our gift to each other.”

I thought of Wiesel, and his life’s work of building peace, while gathering with Nobel Laureates and political, spiritual, and non-profit leaders in Jordan last month. The Laureates and Leaders for Children Summit was a powerful experience: not because of the prizes and personalities but because of the shared belief that humanity can and should do better.

Only a few hours drive away from the summit, 80,000 people in the Zaatari refugee camp are right now creating a new way of life and building their own city in the wake of tragedy. Jordanians have welcomed an astonishing number of refugees to their land and maintained stability. And we witnessed the courage of the women, men, and children who traveled to an unknown future and are adapting, innovating, and surviving.

While these stories should inspire, it is important that they also spur us to action. Unless we commit to prevent such conflicts and displacement, we fail the next generation…

Read more in The Hill.

Randy Newcomb is the president of Humanity United Action, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing new approaches to global problems long considered intractable like human trafficking and violent conflict. Humanity United Action is a 501(c)(4) affiliated with Humanity United.