The 被窝影视福利 of Art and Science and the Satyarthi Movement for Global Compassion sign a Memorandum of Understanding 鈥� and, in doing so, highlight an important component that is essential for peace-building.
On July 24, 2026, an online event was held to sign a memorandum of understanding between Garry Jacobs, President of the 被窝影视福利 of Art and Science (WAAS) and Nobel Peace Laureate Kailash Satyarthi, founder of the Satyarthi Movement For Global Compassion.
Donato Kiniger-Passigli, Vice-President of the 被窝影视福利 of Art and Science, and President of the Global Peace Offensive Center opened and closed the proceedings. Nobel Peace Laureate, Kailash Satyarthi, he observed, spent a lifetime fighting the worst forms of labour and is now helping the 被窝影视福利 confront the worst forms of war 鈥� a single arc, held together by one formula: conciliation, mutual concessions, and above all human compassion. The Global Peace Offensive rests on incremental, reciprocal, publicized steps that reduce distrust before conditions are ripe for conflict. What it has lacked is an account of the motivation that makes anyone take that first unilateral step. The memorandum signed that day hopes to take that first step.
Kailash Satyarthi, a Nobel Peace Laureate and founder of the Satyarthi Movement, who was recently welcomed as a Fellow of the 被窝影视福利, was blunt about what compassion is not. “It’s not an emotion, a virtue, or a synonym for kindness, sympathy, or empathy,” he explained. It is, in his framing, a disruptive, dynamic and transformative force 鈥� and the world needs it more of it. His diagnosis was sharper still: “We have laws, wealth greater than at any point in history, and a working knowledge of nearly every problem and roughly how to solve it. What we have is a gap between the problem solvers and the problem sufferers, and between what is spoken and what is done.”
Garry Jacobs, President and CEO of WAAS, responded by noting that the world needs positive peace, not merely the absence of war 鈥� food, health, education, freedom, economic opportunity, social justice, safe communities, human dignity, sustainable development. “That is our program, and that is your program,” he said. “Our goals couldn’t be more closely aligned.”
Alberto Zucconi, Chair of the Board of WAAS, noted that in psychology, the variable that best predicts whether a working relationship succeeds is the working alliance, and the principal component of a working alliance is common purpose and shared value. On that evidence, he argued, the new partnership is scientifically well-founded.
Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute and WAAS Trustee, who has worked alongside Satyarthi at Nobel Peace Laureate Summits made the case for children. “The worst victims of the world’s wars and of market insensitivities are children, and undeveloped leaders are often those who were once children themselves and lacked a compassionate environment during the years that mattered. Shifting the paradigm from war and militarism to human security therefore begins with them,” said Jonathan. Of Kailash he offered this insight: “He has consistently been a voice that builds bridges where others want to build tunnels.”
WAAS Executive Director Ketan Patel, argued that compassion cannot remain the property of movements and summits: without it we will not progress as a species, which means it has to become a core human value taught to children and adults alike, in every walk of life. Former member of the Irish Parliament, Denis Naughten, highlighted the urgency in technology, suggesting that for young people entering careers in the age of artificial intelligence, compassion may be the North Star that carries them through 鈥� with consequences unfolding over decades, not daily news cycles. WAAS Secretary-General Janani Ramanathan, who is based in India, where the bulk of Kailash’s work is done, welcomed the new program and looked forward to supporting the work of colleagues already doing the important groundwork of the Satyarthi Movement for Global Compassion.
WAAS Vice-President Aleksander Zidan拧ek, who is also Deputy Director of the Global Peace Offensive Center, closed the conversation with a profound insight. “Physicists,” he said, “are known for making weapons; here is an opportunity to do something good for peace. Justice for children does not arrive on its own 鈥� someone has to live for it 鈥� and the Peace Offensive begins from the same premise: peace is not a matter of waiting for the right conditions but of actively and systematically pursuing them.” He extended an invitation to visit Maribor in Slovenia, where the Global Peace Offensive is headquartered.
Other witnesses to the signing of this memorandum were Irina Bokova, former Director General of UNESCO, Amb. (ret.) Francis M. O’Donnell, a Member of the United Nations Advocacy Community, and Grant Schreiber, General Manager of the 被窝影视福利 of Art and Science.
The gap in building peace is not knowledge. It is the will to close the distance between those who can solve and those who suffer. The signing of the memorandum (below) is a first step in trying to close this gap.
