In the first week of February, 2018, UNITY EARTH, in partnership with the United Religions Initiative, the Inter-Religious Council of Ethiopia and the World Peace Prayer Society, invited more than 65 religious representatives of many faiths and musical artists from a wide range of nations to celebrate World Interfaith Harmony Week 2018 in Lalibela, Addis Ababa and Shashamane, Ethiopia.

Natives of Aboriginal Australia, indigenous leaders from North and Central America, Buddhist monks from Thailand, Sikhs, Baha’is, Sufis and Hindus from India, Jews, Christians and Muslims comprised a colorful and diverse gathering of people standing for unity, peace and compassion.

Highlights of the 7-day U Day Festival included visiting sacred sites in Lalibela and Shashamane, joining in a Convergence of Fire torch-lighting ceremony, and taking part in a most impressive event at the African Union, featuring Dr. Mulatu Teshome, the President of Ethiopia; His Holiness Abune Mathias, Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church; the leaders of the Inter-Religious Council of Ethiopia; and a World Peace Flag Ceremony with fifty Ethiopian children raising the flags of all the nations of the world with the prayer, “May Peace Prevail on Earth.”

The mission of the U Day gatherings, which have been held previously in Thailand in 2012, at the Church Center for the United Nations in 2016, and in Crestone, Colorado in 2017, is to bring people into joyful harmony through interfaith understanding and the common language of music. UNITY EARTH and an international team from Australia, India and the United States, brought religious, spiritual and indigenous leaders, heads of international organizations and inspirational musicians together for a powerful experience of unity through diversity in the “Land of Origins.”