Global Peace Festival USA launched “The American Youth Leadership Series” on Friday, October 16, with an event in Washington, DC. The series explores contemporary issues of American public life in the context of America’s founding vision and principles. The first event featured a talk by Rebecca Cataldi, program manager at the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy (ICRD) and founder of the American-Islamic Friendship Project. The event focused on the principles that have united the American people and how those principles can serve as a basis for cooperation between America and the world.

Following is an address given by Rebecca Cataldi for the American Youth Leadership Series on October 16, 2009 in Washington, DC.

Good evening and thank you for having me here.  I’m very happy to be part of the Call2Character movement, which is a movement to awaken the essence of America 's founding spirit and principles.  The beautiful thing about this movement is that it is not a “right-wing” movement or a “left-wing” movement.  It is not a Republican movement or a Democratic movement.  It’s not even a religious movement or based upon any one religious faith.  But it is a spiritual movement that seeks to revitalize the moral character of America and American values.

Now, American values can mean different things to different people, and this is perhaps fitting for a nation based on both diversity and the freedom to follow one’s own path.  But whether we always agree on how to put these values into practice or not, this movement seeks to begin a national conversation about the values that we as Americans want our nation to embody and how we can live up to these values, both as individuals and as a nation.  It seeks to reawaken these values in our national consciousness.