PROFILE OF DR. K.A. PAUL 

Dr. K.A. Paul, founder of Global Peace Initiative (GPI), was born into a traditional Hindu family in India in 1963.  His spirituality, compassion, and interest in serving people led him to pursue a practical career in business and politics.  He soon realized, however, that the existing business, social, and political infrastructures in the developing countries were so overwhelmed with pressing needs that they were simply incapable of quickly affecting real change.  It became obvious to him that a radical new approach was needed.

Five years after starting an effort to rescue street children on his own, Dr. Paul met Mother Teresa and realized the unlimited potential of just one committed individual to change lives, social structures, and entire nations for the better.  A simple mission was born in his heart.  Fully embracing that mission, Dr. Paul dedicated himself to humbly serving others—especially those suffering because of economic, social, political, or natural conditions beyond their control.  Today, that simple mission has grown into a worldwide grassroots movement spanning dozens of countries and many different religions.  More than 600 world leaders, including presidents and prime ministers, legislators, and governors, have heeded his call and joined this effort to dignify every human being with peace, good health, security, and social justice.  The number of people who personally hear Dr. Paul’s simple—yet radical—message of service to one’s neighbor has grown to more than 10,000,000 annually—an audience of historic proportions.

The results have been phenomenal.  Through GPI, hundreds of thousands of families—many of limited means themselves—have committed to adopt street children; and tens of thousands of these children already have been placed in their new homes.  The “Little Teresas” movement has inspired more than 120,000 impoverished women to adopt the mission of Mother Teresa to serve the hurting and needy in their communities.  More than 10,000 of these women now receive material support from GPI.  When 10,000 children were suddenly orphaned and left homeless last year after a catastrophic typhoon in Orissa, India, GPI quickly set up a tent city survival center where the children were provided food, clothing, shelter, comfort, and love until they could be placed in new homes and families.

Today, GPI maintains schools, children’s homes, medical care facilities, and rescue centers throughout many of the world’s most needy regions.

The mission and work of Dr. Paul and Global Peace Initiative is a testimony to the power of the human spirit when it accepts the challenge to confront evil with good; hate with love; and suffering with compassionate service.  By promoting love and service to others, GPI has created an unprecedented groundswell of personal involvement by millions, leaving a legacy of peace and security in its wake.

MISSION, VISION, AND GOALS

Mission: 

To challenge communities worldwide to defeat evil with good, hatred with love, and suffering with compassionate service.

Vision: 

Global Peace Initiative (GPI) is devoted to mobilizing grassroots movements within communities—especially those in developing countries—to resolve conflicts and local human crises with practical, community-based solutions. 

Inspired by the work of Dr. K.A. Paul, GPI vigorously champions human dignity by creating ongoing initiatives that inspire local support for suffering people—especially women and children—who are victims of social, economic, cultural, political, or natural destructive forces.  Through public peace rallies, education, and a challenging call to serve, Dr. Paul inspires and fortifies the conscience of the community, encouraging them to embrace and aid their most vulnerable residents.  The resulting unprecedented groundswell of involvement by millions of concerned people quickly and radically changes the suffering and the conditions that caused it in the first place.

The strategy of GPI is not superficial or political; it is simple—yet radical.  GPI intends to unleash a powerful concert of human spirits moving collectively to create an avalanche of good to displace evil, love to overcome hate, and compassionate service to the ease suffering.

Goals:

By 2005,

·         To place the entire population of street children—estimated at 10,000,000 in 2001—in homes

·         To provide food and medicine to children in crisis in the 100 most needy countries

·         To provide a monthly stipend for all the impoverished, elderly women who participate in the Little Teresas Initiative

GPI FOR GLOBAL PEACE

Born in Cairo in 1929, Yasser Arafat was named chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization 40 years later. From this post, he was at the forefront of years of violence, border disputes and the Palestinian liberation movement, all centering on neighboring Israel. Arafat signed a self-governing pact with Israel in 1991, at the Madrid Conference, and together with Israeli leaders made several attempts at lasting peace soon after, notably through the Oslo Accords (1993) and the Camp David Summit of 2000. Stemming from the Oslo Accords, Arafat and Israel's Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres shared the Nobel Peace Prize, but the terms were never implemented. Arafat ceded his PLO chairman post in 2003, and died in Paris in 2004. In November 2013, Swiss researchers released a report containing evidence suggesting that his death was the result of poisoning.

The year 1964 was seminal for Arafat, marking the founding of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which brought together a number of groups working toward a free Palestinian state. Three years later, the Six-Day War erupted, with Israel once again pitted against the Arab states. Once again, Israel prevailed, and in the aftermath Arafat’s Fatah gained control of the PLO when he became the chairman of the PLO executive committee in 1969.

The year 1988 marked a change for Arafat and the PLO, when Arafat gave a speech at the United Nations declaring that all involved parties could live together in peace. The resulting peace process led to the Oslo Accords of 1993, which allowed for Palestinian self-rule and elections in the Palestinian territory (in which Arafat was elected president). (Around this time, in 1990, Arafat, at 61 years of age, married a 27-year-old Palestinian Christian, remaining married until his dying day.)

In 1994, Arafat and Israel’s Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin all received the Nobel Prize for Peace, and the following year they signed a new agreement, Oslo II, which laid the foundation for a string of peace treaties between the PLO and Israeli, including the Hebron Protocol (1997), the Wye River Memorandum (1998), the Camp David Accords (2000) and the "roadmap for peace" (2002).

“The message of peace resonates with everybody,” he says. “Go to the Middle East. Go to Israel and Palestine. You’ll see how many people want peace. It is the leaders that need to be changed.”

Paul supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but says he isn’t sure that will ever happen “because now, nobody trusts American leadership. Without proper American leadership, it’s not going to happen.”

In 2000, when Ehud Barak was Israel’s prime minister and Arafat was the Palestinians’ leader, Paul says he “had hopes” that peace was achievable. I ask Paul for his impressions of Arafat. He responds, “Why talk about a dead man? But [he was] a very unique person. That’s all I can say right now.”

Paul has also met several times with Mahmoud Abbas, the current Palestinian leader. Asked if he believes Abbas is committed to peace, Paul answers, “He really wanted to get the peace deal [with Israel] done. He’s caught in a very unique spot between the West and the East. All the fanatics and extremists in the Muslim community hate him, and all the right-wing Western leaders say he doesn’t do enough. So it’s very hard.”

It’s mandatory for every Christian, Paul explains, “to pray for Israel every day, support Israel in every way, because a young man—a good-looking boy called Jesus—2,000 years ago died for all humanity and shed his precious blood, and commanded all of us to pray for Israel.”

Given the stakes, Paul argues that it’s “a sin” for Christians to fail to vote in the 2016 election. Paul says he’s “asking God if He wants me to campaign in this country,” and unless “God shuts the doors,” the evangelist vows to continue to rally support for “anybody but Hillary.”

“I’m not a typical evangelist, one-sided,” says Paul. “I look out for peace, because millions of innocent people are dying and starving and suffering. My passion on the ground is that I am a practical person. Do what is right, and ask God for guidance.”