Cassandra (Cassie) De Pecol will be a special guest at the IIPT World Symposium: Cultivating Sustainable and Peaceful Communities and Nations through Tourism, Culture and Sport being held at Emperors Palace, Ekurhuleni, South Africa, 16 to 19 February, 2015.
The Symposium honors the legacies of the world’s three champions of peace and non-violent resistance, Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. with the aim of furthering their legacies by building bridges of tourism, friendship and peace in regions throughout the world.
The action oriented Symposium will feature the launch of Cassie’s global journey to all 195 of the world’s sovereign nations as she sets out to break a world record while traveling as an IIPT Ambassador for Peace and promoting “Peace through Tourism” in each of the nations, cities, towns and villages that she visits.
Cassie will begin her journey on 1 July, 2015 with the goal of visiting all 195 sovereign nations in less than three years, thereby setting a new Guinness World record and as well becoming the youngest person to do so – and also the first woman.
Cassie will be traveling as a “global citizen” as she promotes “Peace through Tourism” with the endorsement of the International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT). IIPT will also support Cassie’s global journey by arranging for her to be met by Ministers of Tourism where possible as well as mayors of cities, towns and villages she plans to visit in each country.
Cassie stated: “I’m going to be presenting them a declaration of peace, doing photo ops and meeting with children, youth and people of my generation, discussing ‘Peace’ and what it means to them.” She also aims to be a source of inspiration to everyone she meets. In particular, she is “Hoping to influence people of my generation to pursue their dreams and a rewarding, fulfilled life.”
A further goal of the record setting global journey is to promote the IIPT/Skal Cities, Towns and Villages initiative with the hope that Cassie’s visits will also inspire Cities, Towns and Villages along the way to “agree to be actively committed to promoting values of tolerance, non-violence, gender equality, human rights, youth empowerment, environmental integrity, and sustainablehuman, social and economic development.”
Cassie’s goal of promoting “Peace through Tourism” will continue after her trip with the release of a documentary that will be shown in theaters and on Netflix and paired with other materials to serve as a tool kit for high school and college classes, she said. Cassie also plans to visit schools and speak about her travels and “Peace through Tourism” while she also urges them to live their dreams.
Cassie has considerable travel experience having traveled to the Amazon, Turkey, Italy, Egypt and several other countries while doing internships in renewable hospitality at hotels across the world.
Courtesy photo Cassie De Pecol in the cockpit of a four-seater in the Ecuadorian Amazon with Achuar symbolic face paint on
Cassie’s trip has been seven months in the planning stages and while she has some investors and celebrity endorsements, she is now looking for corporate sponsors to help fund her trip.
Cassie also aims to build a community around her trip, inviting interested persons to join her through social media. She has a multitude of pages — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Vine, Pinterest and will be doing weekly Youtube videos to show highlights of where she’s been. A live tracking system will show her location on a map on her website and she’ll host Q & A’s on her blog.
“I’m excited to get a culture, a community going of people who are interested in this sort of thing. I’m hoping people will get involved,” she said.
