First Medicines Director Timothy Trujillo was privileged to serve as a delegate to the United Nations Summit of the Future in NYC in September 2024. Heralded as the most significant gathering in a generation, the Summit was called by Secretary General António Guterres to reaffirm the mission of the United Nations. The Summit specifically addressed pressing issues of peace, equality, and environmental protection through adoption of a Pact for the Future. Trujillo attended as Director of Education for International Human Rights Consortium, the organization that first invited him to the UN in Geneva to present his First Medicines program in 2002. IHRC now serves as fiscal sponsor for the project.
The Summit was preceded by two days of participation in the Arts for the Future Festival, set to run concurrently with the Summit. In an Artists March for the Future, Trujillo performed flute music at both commencement in Times Square and arrival at Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza, adjacent to the United Nations Headquarters. He also provided music as the piper along the march.
The following day a Sound Healing session was offered by Trujillo in the Ralph Bunche Peace Park across the street from the UN. Associate IHRC Board Member Laura Gardea joined the flute music with harmonium and vocalizations. The event became a serenade of peacefulness in advance of the Summit.
The Summit itself was preceded by a two-day Action Days conference. The first day was led by youth presenters who took the mics and platforms to demonstrate the future aspects of global leadership. The second Action Day featured themed sessions focused on current concerns and meaningful solutions for a secure and peaceful future.
International Human Rights Consortium recently received consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the UN, allowing them to attend the Summit sessions within the General Assembly Hall of the UN. Being present to the full attendance of Member States and Civil Society organizations was itself a thrill, particularly during the procedural aspect of the adoption of the Pact. The official business was followed by two days of brief speeches by world leaders, a cavalcade of rhetoric and presence.
Trujillo’s attendance was not merely as an observer. As Education Director for IHRC, he, along with other delegates on the team, distributed their Universal Declaration of Human Rights study deck. This handy resource for reviewing and remembering the articles and ideals of the UDHR helps to fulfill a central mission of IHRC.
Advancing the mission of First Medicines to reduce suffering worldwide, Trujillo distributed his simple index card of resources for stress and trauma relief, pain reduction, and smoking cessation. Introducing these beneficial interventions to fellow attendees yielded invitations to facilitate and partner with organizations in Africa, India, Lebanon and others. Poetically, one meaningful engagement at the UN in NYC was with a neighbor in the Oklahoma City area; the world is made smaller through familiarity.
This was Trujillo’s third attendance at a session of the United Nations, building know-how and relationships which have served the mission of First Medicines and International Human Rights Consortium for decades. This strengthening will enhance future attendances and engagements which are certain to come.
During the Summit and Arts Festival, Trujillo made daily Social Media updates. Those are posted below for real-time surveying of the excitement and outcomes of the project.
Enjoy!
Day 1: Made it to the Big City
I’m not so fond of early flights, especially after late nights, and even moreso when the two flow together. I was happy to get to LaGuardia before noon, though. It gave me time to get settled into IHRC HQ here in Long Island City/Queensbridge. I love strolling new haunts and getting to know the people, see their lives. Something also awakens in me every time my feet land on a New York sidewalk.
Tomorrow I’ll cross the river and meet Asst. Chair and IHRC Delegate Laura Carisa Gardea in Times Square to join the We the Artists March to the United Nations. We are, along with the throng, bringing the voices of creative artists of every type to the UN Summit of the Future.
It will also be a special event for me, echoing Lenise’s and my 1986 stroll from Harlem to the UN with the Great Peace March.
Yes, I’ll be taking my flute!
Day 2: Performance Art in New York City
Despite years of busking, I never got the chance to perform on the streets of New York City, until today.
I joined the We the Artists March at 42nd and Broadway, not knowing what to expect. It wasn’t a large crowd (where were you guys?), but we were filled with Spirit in our call for inclusion of creative arts in the dialogues of the UN Summit of the Future.
I played a song at commencement and upon arrival at the United Nations. I played my “Eagle Bone” flute throughout the walk, fellow IHRC Board Member Laura Carisa Gardea shaking rattle, as chants were lead by Sugar Ray through a bullhorn at the front.
In the end, It was a performance art piece, featuring an actual performance artist conveying a strong message that “We are All One Blood.” We became a rolling event down the Wednesday afternoon Manhattan sidewalk in a place where, both coming and going, it’s noted, but afterward, the greater March endures.
Personally, I had a blast, including the rush hour out of with the Grand Central crush to get back to the Borough.
Day 3: Playing for Peace
As a part of the Arts for the Future Festival, I was booked to play a sound healing session in the Ralph Bunche Peace Park across the street from the United Nations.
I perched on a sculpture base bench, protected by the sun from a construction platform which offered a cavernous embellishment to the sound.
Ralph Bunche helped establish the United Nations and later became the first Black man to receive the Nobel Peace Prize after helping negotiate peace between Israel and its neighbors in the 40’s. He is the Spiritual Godfather of IHRC and founder Wilda Spalding frequently quotes him. We even offer an award in his name.
I played multiple flutes and bells and songs over about a half hour period as the suit and dress-clad UNers transited the adjacent crosswalk, scurried and intent.
It may have been my mood, but I could swear that there was a moment when everything slowed down, almost like a sci-fi scene, and at that time there was only a floating pitch from the flute dancing serenely across the din of auto and foot traffic.
Laura Carisa Gardea joined later with harmonium and vocals that made the scene downright heavenly.
I have always enjoyed providing incidental environmental performance. I think it brings something special to peoples’ everyday life. It certainly does for me.
Day 4: In the General Assembly
It was not a sort of childhood dream to become a delegate to the United Nations. It was injury, loss, and recovery that commenced my twenty year journey of destiny to stand in this spot. Once arrived, it is as every dream I have had for myself.
The General Assembly is the grand hall of the UN and it is all that. I visited St Patrick’s cathedral on the previous day and the comparative sense is unmistakable. There is a feeling of presence and potential here, though more social than spiritual.
I have learned, however, that the true General Assembly is not the room, but the people in it. On this first day of Action Days before the Summit of the Future, the focus was on Youth Action and many brilliant and inspiring voices echoed the drive for a peaceful and sustainable world.
Curiously, the Assembly was conveyed through a visualization of a future of the status quo of destruction and pollution or one of the realization of these global dreams. The guide asked Secretary General Antonio Guterres which he would choose. He said “it is not to us to choose the future we want, but to build it.”
I also spent the day meeting others and sharing the mission and materials of the International Human Rights Consortium and First Medicines. I was also invited to bring my First Medicines to a couple of conflict-torn African Nations. The grand dream is building.
Note: chairs in back are still sparse because the early bird gets the prime seat.
Day 5: Peace Day
On this International Peace Day, following a opening Ceremony in the General Assembly where we addressed by Secretary General Guterres and astronauts from both the International and Chinese Soace Stations, I spent the day in the Intergenerational Dialogue for Peace.
It was a hopeful yet sobering day of presentations that included a talk by former Colombian President Santos on a thirty-five-year civil war concluded through shifting regard from enemy to adversary to fellow person. We were also presented with horrors of explosive weapons in populated areas. Seeing the photo chronicles and hearing the stories of such evoked the sentiment of this sculpture on the UN grounds, “Non-Violence” by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd done in honor of John Lennon’s vision of a peaceful world.
It recalled the biblical promise of beating swords into plowshares.
The day was capped off by comments from Namibia President Nangolo Mbunba’s remarks that “Peace is not just the absence of war, it is the presence of justice, equality, and human rights.”
Peace be with you.
Day 6: A Pact for the Future
The UN Summit of the Future officially commenced today and with access limited, Jan Robinson and I arrived at the UN before the sun to snag our passes to the General Assembly Hall.
After two days of Opening Ceremonies in the same GA Hall, it was really something to see the formalities of an official session, complete with the parade of Member State delegations.
After a Russian amnendment to suspend adoption was overcome, the Pact for the Future, the defining document of the Summit, was fully adopted by the United Nations.
This was followed by a full-day cavalcade of five-minute speeches by World Leaders calling for action on implementation of the elements of the Pact. In addition to being able to see Presidents, Prime Ministers and others I have admired, it was a Master Class in Speech-Craft.
The Pact for the Future is a reaffirmation of the UN Mission to nurture world peace, prevent and resolve conflicts, and foster a more sustainable and equitable world. We live in hope, and commit to action toward these goals.
The Key themes of the Pact are:
*Sustainable Development
*International Peace and Security
*Global Digital Compact to bridge digital divide
*Youth and Future Generations
*More effective Global Governance
Read the entire Pact here: https://www.un.org/…/summit-of-the…/pact-for-the-future
PEACE FOR LEBANON
I am seated at the United Nations beside a woman from Lebanon. When I spoke to her of providing the Five-Minute Miracle to the people of her country, she offered to translate and record into Arabic. I told her that the Arabic version is already on the site and available right now. Showing it to her, she said she will share it out immediately.
“Luck is what happens when preparedness meets opportunity.” Earl Nightingale
Share it out!
Day 7: Caminante means Walker
Today the United Nations Summit of the Future, with preceding Action Days, came to a close. In addition to adopting the aspirational Pact for the Future, the voices of many world leaders and young people charged this institution and the peoples it represents to carry this Pact forward to fulfillment.
This work is not done in the gilded halls of this iconic building, but in the streets of each city, town, and rural place throughout this world. The two most prominent words I heard were “peace” and “action”. Accepting this as a commission, I have coined a new title as “Pactivist”.
While at breakfast, I noted that the street we were on, 2nd St, was also Yitzak Rabin Way, a leader who gave his life in the effort to build peace between Israel and its neighbors.
A veteran Peace Marcher, today I wear the cloth of the Tzutujil Maya as a mantle of my initiation into the Walkers for Life and Peace in the World (Caminantes por la Vida y Paz en el Mundo), an order founded by my beloved friend and teacher Tata Pedro Cruz Garcia. As I strolled down this Rabin Way, into the UN, and back into the World, I am paced by Tata Pedro’s motto, the medicine to realize this pledge, “Always Do Everything With Love”
Home Again
My first trip to the United Nations was to Geneva 22 years ago. There, I reported on the benefits of hypnosis in the management of HIV/AIDS. In a talk titled Global Solutions for HIV/AIDS, I reported on the outcomes of workshops and private consultation in Los Angeles and invited UNAIDS and the World Health Organization to adopt this work. I was asked to conduct a pilot project and return with my results.
I have now returned from the UN in NYC, where I served as a delegate for the Summit of the Future. The summit was the largest gathering convened in a generation, called by the Secretary General António Guterres to address the great challenges of our time. The Member States, after months of inputs and edits, gathered to adopt the Pact for the Future, a roadmap to help steer us through these difficulties.
I did not attend simply as an observer. I brought the outcomes I had produced through twenty years of outreach in some of the most devastating human events of tsunami, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, illness, and war. I carried with me simple tools to help restore a fractured mind and body. I brought resources that were as accessible as the device in our hand and the disposition of our thoughts.
As I return to my quiet micro-cityfarm in Oklahoma City, I carry the contentment of achievement and answers, not only for myself, but for those I met at the UN from far away lands who were seeking the solutions I provided.
Having arrived home, today I rest; tomorrow I embrace the next chapter and phase of this meaningful work. Believe in yourself and your dreams. Take it from me, anything is possible.