YUPEACE
What Is YUPeace?

THE YOUTH United for Peace, or YUPeace, is an alliance of youth and student organizations in the Philippines formed to launch activities in support of the brewing global movement for peace amidst the US-led retaliatory strikes against the people of Afghanistan disguised as a war on terrorism.

YUPeace is broad in scope, consensual in nature and pro-active in character.
Broad. It is open to all youth and student groups so long as they do agree with the coalition's principles and goals as it envisions uniting the Filipino youth in a single movement to attain peace with social justice.

The alliance should cater to all kinds of youth organizations. From religious to political, councils to publications, socio-civic to environmental, traditional to cultural, in and out of the campuses.

Consensual. Required with its broad scope is its consensus-seeking nature. It aims, not just to unite the youth, but to link their arms, in every decision making, at a common consent. The dynamics of genuine democracy should be practiced within the alliance.

Pro-Active. YUPeace aims to be an instrument to make the youth act in productive ways to drumbeat a successful peace campaign. The alliance shall follow a Campaign General Program of Action that shall be drafted by the Council of Leaders immediately after the Peace Conference, but this does not necessarily mean uniformity in manners of effort for every member-organization.

Every organization shall also enjoy autonomy over their organizational peace campaign plan provided that it will not hamper with the implementation of the YUPeace Campaign GPOA. Such a group has the prerogative to report or not to report their own activity.

What groups initiated its formation?

It was October 7, 2001 when different youth and student organizations held a meeting in an NGO office in Diliman, Quezon City to form a youth alliance for peace. They initially named the coalition as Youth Alliance for Peace, thus the acronym YUPeace.

The groups that were represented during the first convenors' meeting were the UP Manila-University Student Council, PLM-Supreme Student Council, RTU-Mandaluyong Student Council, Unyon ng Progresibong Mag-aaral, Buklod-PUP, The Quill Student Publication, Youth for Nationalism and Democracy (YND), Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Manggagawang Pilipino (KAMPI), Movement for the Advancement of Student Power (MASP), Liga ng Sosyalistang Kabataan (LSK), Pluma Lex Majores and Sanlakas Youth.
The second convenors' assembly was held October 17 at Abuelos Restaurant also in Diliman, Quezon City. The meet tackled the upcoming peace conference then, the formation of a secretariat, the structure of the alliance, the final draft of the coalition's concept paper and other things.

The AdMU-Sanggunian ng mga Mag-aaral, Miriam College-Sanggunian ng mga Mag-aaral, UP Diliman CSSP-Student Council, PUP-CAFA Local Council, Amnesty International Youth Action Network, Union of Catholic Student Councils (UCSC), Ang Pamantasan Student Publication, Teatrong Bayan and Guerilla Art Movement (GAM) were among the added organizations who were represented during the 2nd convenors' meeting.

The YUPeace Structure
The Convenors Assembly will be dissolved right after the peace conference to give way to the formation of a Council of Leaders (CoL), member of which will come from representatives of various YUPeace member-organizations. The CoL will then assume oversight role, as the Secretariat will be the body directly responsible for executive functions.

The Secretariat may decide on day-to-day activities but they must consult the Council of Leaders, through calling for a meeting, whenever a major decision is to be inked. The CoL meeting is not required to have a quorum, as invitation to majority of the CoL members is an enough requisite for a major decision to be resolved.

The Secretariat shall also have the prerogative to appoint committee chairmanship to responsible CoL members.

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