To encourage youth leadership, the Creative Arts Emmys invited “Kids for Peace” representatives to join media networks in covering the Red Carpet in Los Angeles last week.
Participating in the event, in the lead-up to the 70th annual Primetime Emmys Monday night on NBC, was a dream come true for the two teens. They rehearsed their camera moves and honed their focus to one single question they would ask celebs and artists: “How do you think your work in the arts is helping to create a better world?”
18-year-old Shivanii Ray, the group’s spokesperson, and Eli Bensen, 15, who operated the camera, have both participated for years in programs run by the nonprofit, Kids for Peace, which has an active network of 10 million youth in 121 countries around the world.
The chance to practice courage and poise on the Red Carpet, however, seems to have been their favorite peace project to date.
When the Emmy-nominated comedian, actor, and producer Melvin Jackson Jr. (The Wire) met the eager youth, he exclaimed, “You had me at Kids for Peace.”
He and his wife, Kelly Jenrette, are the first African-American married couple to be nominated for an Emmy in the same year.
“He was one of my favorite interviews because of his warm smile and genuine interest in what we’re doing,” said Bensen.
Scheduled as a presenter onstage during the evening’s gala was the Kids for Peace Celebrity Ambassador, Giancarlo Esposito, who is an award-winning film and television actor (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, and Do the Right Thing) who understands the importance of what the kids are trying to do. Beyond chatting with them on the Red Carpet, he is joining them in a global campaign beginning next week—called #DoItForPeace—which aims to galvanize a billion people to do acts of peace within ten days, for which Good News Network and Peace One Day are major partners.
LEARN More: Kids Worldwide to Ignite One Billion Acts of Peace in Just 10 Days This Week
Topping off their experience, was a serendipitous drop-the-mic-moment with the wildly fun talk show host James Corden backstage. After receiving two Creative Arts Emmys, which honors outstanding artistic and technical achievement in a variety of television genres, he happily posed with the Kids For Peace sign, with the message of “Peace begins with you!”
The hashtag on the sign, as well social media posts this week, are inspiring people to sign up to become ignitors in the #DoItForPeace campaign which launches September 21, 2018, on the International Day of Peace. DoItForPeace.org has a goal to activate a critical mass of 1 billion people to shift global consciousness and make peace a reality.
Get involved by making a peace sign, helping a stranger, or any other act of peace, and post about it online with the hashtag #DoItForPeace, and ask your friends to do the same. Watch a spinning globe light up during the ten days on our GNN #DIFP page, in the locations people are hashtagging— and see videos and photos as they are posted.
Together, we can make an impact greater than a television show honored on the red carpet.
The campaign’s biggest sponsor is TaTaTu, a new entertainment platform launched by Italian filmmaker Andrea lervolino that rewards users for watching free movies and gaming online with advertisers paying users in blockchain-based cryptocurrency tokens—and additional tokens being earned whenever they get friends to join and watch, too. This #DoItFoPeace sponsorship is the company’s first foray into social causes as part of TaTaTu’s larger push into community activism & global stewardship.
SHARE this campaign and hashtag it #DoItForPeace!