On the eve of the start of the 3rd World March for Peace and Nonviolence on 2 October, the activities in Costa Rica – the country where the March will start and travel through many countries of the world, returning to Costa Rica at the beginning of 2025 – are increasing day by day, thanks to the team of volunteers and organisers, who are adding personal wills, social organisations and educational institutions such as the UNED (National University of Distance Education). There are also dreamers for this great adventure and those of us who want to make the utopia of a world without violence and peace a reality, a utopia that is not very far away if we want to move forward, from governments and from the personal, in an evolutionary sense.
Recently, on the outskirts of San José, at the University for Peace, the educational space from which the march will depart, a meeting was held with the rector, Francisco Rojas Aravena. Rector Rojas ratified the departure of the march from the institution he presides over, and it will be in the Kofi Annan auditorium that the first step will be taken towards the activities planned in Costa Rica on its way to the countries of Central America. From Costa Rica it will go to Guatemala and then to Mexico, where a small group of activists will organise activities in some cities, such as Mexico City, the State of Mexico, and within Mexico, the march will pass through the Joquicingo Parks of Study and Reflection.
At the UNED, an enthusiastic and committed group of professors, including the anthropologist Víctor Hugo Castro Alvarado, Professor Michelle Castro Michena and the coordinator Professor Rafael López, who is now a candidate for the University Council, have been carrying out activities permanently, with the support of the authorities and in collaboration with social organisations, such as the workshops held at the university campuses in Orotina and Guanacaste. These workshops serve as a means of personal training and social awareness-raising at grassroots level. It is worth mentioning that Mexican activists from the Commission of the Parks of Study and Reflection of Joquicingo participated in the workshop held in the village of Santa Cruz, in the province of Guanacaste. In addition to promoting their activities, the group that promotes the 3rd of March also organises and carries out activities such as the seminar on the pedagogy of intentionality, aimed at teachers from primary to university level, which was recently given by the academics Haydeé Venosa and Lourdes Cuéllar Valcárcel of the ENALLT of the UNAM.
