In Montreal on May 2, 2026, at a large community center, the Lions Club District U-1 of Québec hosted the UPF as a collaborating organization in the service of the larger community in Québec and beyond.

The Lions had been convening, since Wednesday April 29, their annual district meeting of the members of the region, with the presence of some prominent international visitors.

A LITTLE BACKGROUND

The partnership between the Lions Club and the UPF dates back to 26 August 2023, when a friendship agreement was signed between the two organizations, represented respectively by Mr. Antoine Nahas, Area Leader for Canada and Past President of the Board of Governors, and Mr. Franco Famularo, President of UPF Canada, following which Mr. Nahas was appointed Ambassador of Peace.

Since September 2023, represented by Mr. Nahas and Mrs. Boudreau, the District U-1 representative, and by a growing number of its members, the Lions Club has been a loyal partner of the Road to Peace, an event organized annually by the UPF to promote the building of bridges of peace between the nations of the world.

In September 2025, Christa Maria Abou Akl, a young Canadian of Lebanese origin with great artistic potential, brilliantly expressed her vision of peace through a performance of one of her compositions, the song ‘Yesterday and Tomorrow’.

In May 2024, the Coordinator of UPF Québec, Isabelle Laurin, and her husband Marc, representing UPF Québec, took part in the Peace Walk in Gaspé, organized during the convention of the Lions Club of District U-3, the district covering the Gaspésie region on the east coast of Québec. The march was led by Robert Lapointe, Governor of District U-3 of the Lions Club, Daniel Côté, Mayor of Gaspé, and Isabelle Laurin, walking behind a banner bearing the logos of the UPF and the Lions Club, symbolizing the two organizations’ commitment to work together to build lasting peace.

In November 2024, our UPF representative to the European Union, Yvo Bruffaerts, shared the stage at a Lions Clubs International event in Bordeaux, France, during which Dr Patty Hill, Past International President of the Lions Clubs International Foundation (LCIF) for the 2024–2025 term, was awarded the title of UPF Ambassador for Peace.

The partnership also involves collaboration on projects such as the ‘Peace Paintings’, an initiative launched by the Lions Club to inspire young people to express their vision of peace.

UPF INVITED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE “MARCH FOR PEACE” DURING THE DISTRICT U-1 LIONS CLUB CONVENTION

A new feature added to this year’s Lions U-1 District convention was the March for Peace, continuing a tradition started in Gaspé in 2024 with our two organizations, as noted above.

On the third day of the convention, UPF was invited to introduce the joint UPF-Lions’ March for Peace as the UPF-originating component of their developing interest in adopting peace as an ongoing objective of the Lions Club brand.

Representing UPF at the event was Mr. Robert Duffy, Secretary-General of UPF Canada, accompanied by Mr. Pierre Beauregard, Canadian coordinator of IMAP, the media- for-peace arm of UPF Canada.

Introduced to the convention by Mr. Nahas, Mr. Duffy gave a short history of our two organizations’ collaboration and offered a Certificate of Recognition to Lions U-1 District Governor Diane Boudreau in recognition of her life-long dedication to serving her community and the large district that comprises a most of northwestern, western and southwestern Quebéc.

Mr. Duffy closed with a few remarks thanking the organizers for their tremendous service work and explaining some of the work UPF has been doing, expressing hope for a long and fruitful collaboration with Lions going forward.

Mrs. Boudreau then returned the thanks, noting that ‘to work for peace is to speak the language of the heart – a language of love and peace for the whole planet.’ She then offered a certificate of recognition to UPF for its work.

The assembled conventioneers were then invited to go outdoors to do a symbolic ‘march for peace’ around a park adjacent to the convention center.

Mr. Neils Schnecker, one of the international directors of Lions Club International, was present at the convention, and participated in the March for Peace together with over 70 conventioneers. His positive outlook on future collaboration with UPF was strongly in evidence, and he looks forward to working with us on the international level.