Four thousand university and high school students convened at YFWP's International Youth Summit, "A Culture of Love: The Fuel Towards Peace and Development," in Mindanao on September 20-21 to explore new approaches to peace in the Philippines, a nation of 90 million suffering from conflict and severe economic disparity among its ethnically diverse population.

YFWP Mindanao President Christopher Rivera, a Young Ambassador for Peace and national Vice President of the United Nations Youth Association in Mindanao, worked with top local young leaders to organize the summit and educate a new generation of leadership in finding common ground among the Philippines' rich faith traditions. Representing a cross-section of the religiously pluralistic South Asian nation, the young leaders built upon the foundation of YFWP's inaugural conference in the Philipinnes in 2007.

YFWP Secretary General Yeqing Li traveled from Washington and praised the young leaders for their interfaith engagement and commitment to service as a character-building strategy for peace. Li previously joined conference organizers to visit the Peace Village in the dangerous Lanao Province, where extremist rebels have killed many people and war is on-going. The twenty-eight-year old Lanao governor,  Khalid Q. Dimaporo, a YFWP board member, organized the event and later joined the youth summit. A Muslim, Dimaporo is married to a Christian of a hostile rival tribe, following the example of his parents who were likewise of different faiths. The governor warmly received the YFWP delegation, even as the Philippines government warned people, especially foreigners, to stay away from the area.

Some three hundred Young ambassadors for Peace were appointed during the two-day summit, and based on the success of this event, YFWP plans to establish chapters in all 69 provinces. UPF-Asia Chairman Dr. Chung Sik Yong and YFWP-Philippine President Michael Zablan said that they wanted to make YFWP-Philippines a model national chapter to be copied in other Asia countries.