The thematic areas and general objectives for the use of the 2024 8×1000 funds are aligned with those pursued in previous years, with the aim of ensuring continuity and enhancing the potential impacts of interventions in the educational, social, and environmental spheres from a long-term perspective.

Based on the reflections and priority guidelines that frequently and consistently emerge from the Peace Proposals of Daisaku Ikeda, the National Council of the Italian Buddhist Institute Soka Gakkai has decided to maintain focus on the following Areas of Intervention:

• Human Rights: Intervene to support the utmost protection of human rights and the right to a free and dignified life. The primary beneficiaries of this objective will be certain social categories particularly affected by ongoing crises at various levels (not only armed conflicts but also inequalities, discrimination, cultural poverty, educational exclusion, the pursuit of profit, etc.), especially refugees, women, and young people.
  
  
• Education: Support processes that strengthen the use of dialogue and mutual respect as tools for engaging with others, fostering mutual understanding, and sharing common goals related to peace, solidarity, and the appreciation of differences, leading to coherent behaviors. In this sense, the theme of education can be integrated and applied to numerous contexts. For instance, bringing disarmament education to the level of ordinary people to transform the “culture of war” into a “culture of peace”: this is why the call for human rights education is always present. Global citizenship education, in particular, can provide a framework that enables people to reframe any event from a shared human perspective, promoting active engagement and solidarity.
  
  
• Environment: Promote actions aimed at safeguarding the natural environment, particularly efforts to combat climate change. Encourage individual awareness on this issue by supporting the direct involvement of local communities. The issue of climate change, in this regard, should be considered a humanitarian emergency both in terms of the concrete actions needed to reverse its trend and in terms of education and cultural approach.
  
  
• Culture: Support initiatives that encourage the development of creativity and self-expression in individuals, promote the protection of artistic heritage, and foster cultural exchanges, countering all forms of prejudice and building friendship among people and nations. The Soka Gakkai has always emphasized the value of culture, working to unite people through it. Assigning renewed value to culture and broadly promoting cultural exchanges at the grassroots level is, in this sense, the key path to strengthening the momentum toward world peace, for example, through initiatives aimed at: fostering meetings and dialogues between cultures and backgrounds that are diverse and seemingly distant; supporting the emergence of new artistic talents; and supporting the preservation of Italy’s artistic heritage.