To err is human, it is said, to forgive divine. And soon that noblest of human qualities will be available in emoji form, following a global effort to find the most appropriate icon.

A coalition of charitable and peace-building organisations in Finland are leading the quest to crowdsource an emoji to be added to the thousands available to smartphone users.

Ideas for the emoji mooted on the campaign’s Instagram include a vine of leaves cast across a love heart, two people from different ethnicities clasping hands in front of a heart, and a love heart with a plaster placed upon it.

“In our modern digital communication culture, emojis are an essential way of expressing human feelings beyond words,” says Tuomo Pesonen, from the Evangelical Lutheran church of Finland, which came up with the idea and is one of the founding organisations of the #forgivemoji campaign.

“We were surprised to realise that the official emoji selection has dozens of different cats and even two designs of zombies, but there isn’t an emoji for forgiveness.”

He explained how the campaign will strive to promote a message of peace and mutual understanding across the world and that it was hoped a future emoji would help encourage people to carry forgiveness into their every day communications.

Campaigners will urge managers of the emoji list at the Unicode Consortium to add the winning idea to the collection, which is used by millions of smart phone users across the world.

There are thousands of emojis, from yawning faces, to falafels, mischievous sloths and prosthetic limbs, and of course the ubiquitous smiling turd. A new “drop of blood” icon was also introduced this year following a campaign by Plan International UK, a girls’ rights charity to introduce a period-themed emoji.

But of all the weird, wonderful and miscellaneous icons, none appear to equate to saying sorry.

Antti Pentikäinen from the Deaconess Foundation, a non-profit organisation helping disadvantaged people, said reconciliation was key to sustaining peace.

“Without it, conflicts continue in cycles and get worse,” she said. “We urgently need to learn better how to reconcile. These skills are needed everywhere. Different ways to encourage apologising and forgiveness are an essential part of it, and this includes the social media environment.”

This article is part of a series on possible solutions to some of the world’s most stubborn problems. What else should we cover? Email us at theupside@theguardian.com