The Peace and Goodwill message is created and shared every year by young people in Wales; it is an invitation to learn more and to respond; not to preach and say how things should be but to encourage action - whether locally or on a larger scale. This year the message will be shared on 15 May 2025
The strength and longevity of the message is attributed to the fact that it is message from young people to young people is more real and the responses affirm that young people across the world have much in common when voicing their hopes and actions to further peace and goodwill in the world.
History of the Peace and Goodwill Message
Urdd Gobaith Cymru, Wales’s largest youth organisation, was established in 1922, the same year as the first transmission of the Peace and Goodwill message from the youth of Wales to the world.
The founder of the Urdd, Sir Ifan Ab Owen Edwards and Gwilym Davies, the founder of the message, worked together until Gwilym Davies’s death in 1955 for the youth of Wales to create and share a Peace and Goodwill message to the world. Sir Ifan’s experience of the first world war shaped his conviction that ‘waging war was not a way to achieve peace’ and involvement with the Peace and Goodwill message provided the young people of Wales a ‘spirit of understanding and tolerance towards people of other races and other ideals.’
For more than ten decades the youth of Wales have highlighted the dangers of oppression, violence, persecution, poverty, and global warming. The process of writing and sending the message by the young people of Wales to young people around the world has inspired further humanitarian and international activity.
Overcoming wars and major changes in methods of communication, by sharing the message in Morse Code to the BBC World Service and the postal service, to the digital networks of today the Peace and Goodwill message continues to address challenging issues affecting the lives and hopes of young people.
Gwilym Davies
2025 is the 70th anniversary of the death of Gwilym Davies and a time to celebrate his achievements, notably his commitment to world peace. Davies developed of a draft model constitution of an international education organisation which greatly influenced the creation of UNESCO and initiated the first the peace message of the youth of Wales to the youth of the world.
Seventy years since his death, the Peace and Goodwill message from the youth of Wales continues to further peace and international education and understanding.
More information on Gwilym Davies CBE
The Message today
Today, the Peace and Goodwill message continues to be an enabler, amplifying the voice of future generations to share their concerns to those in authority, to listen, to pause, and to consider their actions.
Every year:
- Young people come together to discuss possible themes and co-produce the annual message. The creation process includes the lived experiences of young people and the input by specialists with expert advice and information
- Once created it is shared with every school in Wales empowering a common purpose amongst young people, to increase awareness and understanding. The message and the accompanying education pack is a seedling for further discussions and conversations that grows a wider and broader interest in peace and goodwill.
- The Message is available on a variety of formats across a number of digital platforms.
- On May 15th, 2025, the message, with support from our media partners in Wales, will be shared in at least 57 languages across the world.
- Responses are welcomed and celebrated from across the world and in a range of languages, including acknowledgements from officers of state and royalty to young people, schools and youth groups expressing their hopes for the future.
Read the Peace and Goodwill message 2025 - available in over 50 languages
