Our History

The Global Peace Initiative was established in 2003. Its mission is to place large monuments where a peaceful message is most needed. Global Peace Initiative monuments are all created by young artists because kids suffer the most during the war.

In 1995, founder Ben Valenty discovered the young artist, Alexandra Nechita when she was 9. Under Valenty’s management, Nechita became one of the best-selling artists in the world in less than a year.

It quickly became apparent that Valenty had an eye for discovering talented art prodigies, and a skill for promoting them. Over the last 25 years, almost every art prodigy to achieve wide acclaim has been a Valenty discovery. These art prodigies all had one thing in common – they wanted to use their artistic gift to give back in any way they could. Valenty realized that because of their youth, these artists might have a voice for advocating peace, especially if it came in the form of a massive artistic monument that would be hard to ignore. Today, several monuments later, Valenty’s vision has been justified. Every monument has drawn worldwide attention and brought international fame and success to the artists who created it.

In July 2024, the Global Peace Initiative launched a search for a new art prodigy to create a badly needed monument for the People of the Middle East. That search had led to Valenty's newest discovery, an incredibly gifted 11 year-old art prodigy named Zoya Eshwar