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By D. Paul Schafer. “Preface: There is mounting evidence to suggest that culture will play a powerful role in the world of the future. One evidence of this is the growing importance of culture in individual, institutional, community, national and international affairs, as confirmed by the creation of a World Commission on Culture and Development and a World Decade for Cultural Development by UNESCO and the United Nations. Another is the increased use of terms like global culture, corporate culture, media culture, political culture, social culture, and environmental culture in public discourse. A third evidence is the commitment of many educational institutions to departments, courses and chairs in cultural studies. A final evidence is the predication of a number of scholars and statesmen that the world is entering a period of cultural conflict and confrontation, characterized by 'the clash of cultures and civilizations.'
Clearly much more will have to be known about culture in general and cultures in particular if culture and cultures are to play a constructive rather than destructive role in the world. On the one hand, this means dealing with culture and cultures as concepts, particularly as this manifests itself in theories, ideas, ideals and definitions. On the other hand, it means dealing with culture and cultures as realities, especially as it manifests itself in the development of cultures, a cultural interpretation of history, the cultural life of the individual, the community, the state and the world, and the art of cultural development and policy.
Dealing with culture and cultures as concepts and realities makes it possible to examine real and ideal situations, as well as to profit from the age-old adage that theory informs practice and practice informs theory. It is the author's hope that this highly interactive and exploratory approach to the problem will help to broaden and deepen collective knowledge and understanding of two of the most evocative but elusive terms imaginable. For if one overriding conclusion emerges from this intensive probe into culture and cultures, it is that culture and cultures have a crucial role to play in human affairs, environmental sustainability and global well-being in the future, particularly when they are dealt with in positive and holistic terms and the proper precautions and safeguards are taken…”
Text and photograph courtesy The World Culture Project, a partner and Cooperating Organization with dgCommunity Culture and Development.
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Global Action Week this year (21-27 April) will focus on quality education to end exclusion. A series of events will be organized to emphasize the importance of inclusive education as the only way to achieve Education for All, UNESCO’s absolute priority.
Despite real progress since 2000 towards universal primary education, 72 million children are still not enrolled in school. Seventy percent of them live in sub-Saharan Africa or South and West Asia, but there are groups excluded from education in one way or another in all countries of the world. Poverty and marginalization are major causes of exclusion.
Children living in rural or remote communities and in urban slums have less access to education. Disabled children suffer from blatant exclusion and account for more than one third of all out-of-school children. Working children, those of indigenous populations and linguistic minorities, nomads and children affected by HIV/AIDS are also among the vulnerable groups. Some 37% of out-of-school children live in 35 states defined as fragile by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and this list does not include all countries in conflict and post-conflict situations.
“Global Action Week offers us an opportunity to highlight an unacceptable situation that is slowing progress towards the provision of education for all,” the Director-General, Mr Matsuura, said in the run up to the event. “It also provides an opportunity to signal clearly what needs to be done to address issues of marginalization and exclusion.”
To this end, UNESCO urges governments to identify children likely to stay out of school and those who are not reaching minimum mastery of the curriculum. In many developing countries, up to 40% of children perform at or below the lowest proficiency level in language and mathematics.
Strategies are also needed to address the causes of exclusion. Schooling must be affordable. Policies must enhance educational quality at all levels, in formal and in non-formal settings, and ensure that all children get into schools which provide them with programmes and practices that help them succeed. This means addressing and responding to the diversity of learners and developing appropriate teaching methods, curricula, and relations between schools, families and communities.
An inclusive curriculum favours the child’s cognitive, emotional and creative development. It is based on learning to live together – on fostering tolerance and promoting human rights, a powerful tool for transcending cultural, religious and other differences. Inclusive education respects the learner’s gender, cultural and linguistic identity - not only in textbooks but also through the attitude and expectations of teachers. It can be adjusted to meet individual needs so that all can benefit from a commonly accepted basic level of quality education.
The principle of inclusive education was adopted at the World Conference on Special Needs Education: Access and Quality (Salamanca, Spain, 1994). It was reiterated at the World Education Forum (Dakar, Senegal, 2000) and supported by the UN Standard Rules on the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities. Linking inclusion to broader development goals contributes to the reform of education systems, to poverty alleviation and to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Text and photograph courtesy UNESCO, a Cooperating Organization with dgCommunity Culture and Development.
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The programme of Amsterdam World Book Capital City 2008 called "Amsterdam Open Book", will be a lively, fun-packed programme for a wide audience, with events, festivals and exhibitions – a parade of fictional heroes and heroines, for example, who will then feature in their own exhibition. It takes as its starting point the historical and present-day position of the city of Amsterdam as a multicultural haven of printers and publishers, deeply convinced of the importance of intellectual freedom and sincere respect for all kinds of beliefs.
The programme is intended as an international contribution to promoting the book as a cultural vehicle for freedom. The main theme of Amsterdam Open Book is ‘openness’ and readers will be offered open access to an abundance of information. With this theme in mind, attention will be paid to issues such as how to combat illiteracy, promote reading and modernise educational materials.
The programme also focuses on the place of books and libraries in a digital era. The theme of ‘openness’ applies to the production side too, of course, so the programme will be especially relevant to writers and publishers. Aware of how rapidly the world is changing, Amsterdam Open Book will concentrate on international projects dealing with hospitality, self-censorship and cultural interaction. Also occupying an important place on the programme are issues of copyright and the quality of the world wide web.
International symposia will provide a platform for the discussion of problems and threats in the world of books, looking at subjects such as the tension between authors’ rights and market forces, changes in reading habits, and the future of the book. Books are vehicles of culture, transmitting stories and ideas, but at the same time they can be entertaining, beautiful, informative and funny.
Text for this article courtesy Amsterdam World Book Capital website and UNESCO, partner and Cooperating Organization with dgCommunity Culture and Development.
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The majority Kinh or Viet population and many of Viet Nam's 53 ethnic minorities preserve a rich heritage of traditional performance, including many genres of great antiquity. Some traditional genres originally evolved as a means of celebrating significant social events such as puberty, marriage, birth and death, others developed as a means of maintaining harmony with the world of the spirits and the ancestors, while many emerged simply as a type of entertainment or a deeply individualistic form of personal expression.
Over the past century this rich heritage has been complemented by the flowering of contemporary genres such as spoken drama, chamber and orchestral music, opera and dance, developed in the context of western mediums yet characteristically Vietnamese in conception. The National Performing Cai Luong Competition is organised by the country’s top cai luong troupe at its own theatre, this competition brings together more than 20 cai luong troupes from across the country to compete for a gold and two silver medals for best production.
Besides work by well-known cai luong directors such as People’s Artists (Nghe si Nhân dân, NSND) Doãn Hoàng Giang, Pham Thi Thành, Ngoc Phuong, Ðoàn Bá and Lê Chuc, audiences are also offered the opportunity to see work by up-and-coming young directors. The jury includes celebrated figures from the field, who expect to discover a wealth of new talent each year.
An artists’ parade and performance form an integral part of the celebrations for Viet Nam’s National Day celebration on 2 September each year. The two events take place at historic Ba Ðình Square, showcasing as many as 3,000 artists from troupes at both professional and grass-roots levels. The parade comprises traditional music, traditional dance, puppetry, ballet, circus, tuong (classical drama), chèo (popular opera), dân ca (folk songs) and cai luong (reformed theatre), whilst the performance features traditional and revolutionary songs, dances and games performed by famous national artists such as Quang Tho, Trung Kiên, Tran Hieu, Quí Duong and choreographers Chu Thúy Quynh and Ngoc Canh.
There is also the National Theatre Festival which has been held every five years since 1995. The festivals of 1995 and 2000 were staged in four regions of the country and featured many different productions, ranging from modern drama to traditional theatre.
Text and photograph for this article courtesy Visiting Arts Cultural Profiles, a partner and Cooperating Organization with dgCommunity Culture and Development.
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Women Make the News 2008 is a global action which promotes gender equality in the media. It is now in it’s eight year. UNESCO wishes to encourage all media organizations producing daily news to give editorial responsibility to women editors and journalists to direct the news on 8th March, the International Day of Women, as a step to promote gender equality in the media.
The stories collected will provide practical examples that we believe will inspire others and raise the visibility of the role women play in the news as correspondents, as newsmakers and as valuable and authoritative sources of information. Women Make the News 2008 is a unique and exciting opportunity for all those who are committed to the promotion of gender equality in newsrooms to challenge the media to fulfill their democratic responsibility to represent women and men in a fair and balanced way.
For many women journalism profession continues to represent harsh realities in terms of job safety and job security, access to facilities, choice of assignments and discriminatory treatment. Progress of women journalists’ careers is still hampered by lingering stereotypes and subtle discrimination. Women journalists continue to face substantial obstacles to full participation in the newsroom - particularly in terms of management opportunities.
Women Make the News 2008 has two goals: to highlight the need to promote women journalists to decision-making positions throughout the world, and to promote gender equality in newsrooms. We wish to invite print and broadcast media to share with us features, articles, interviews and TV and radio programmes dedicated to this year’s theme Women’s Untold Stories to highlight women’s multiple talents, achievements and contributions to their communities.
We are therefore inviting you to submit to our website your stories for others to learn from them. The stories collected will provide practical examples that we believe will inspire others and raise the visibility of the role women play in the news as correspondents, as newsmakers and as valuable and authoritative sources of information.
The text for this article courtesy UNESCO, a partner and Cooperating Organization with dgCommunity Culture and Development.
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The GNRC is a worldwide network of religious organizations and people of faith who are united by an urgent concern for the well-being of children everywhere. GNRC members come from all of the world's major religions and many other spiritual traditions. They share a common commitment to making the world a place where every child can enjoy not only the right to survive, but also to thrive, making positive contributions of his or her own to a world of peace and dignity for all.
The GNRC was inaugurated in May 2000 by the Arigatou Foundation an NGO in special consultative status with ECOSOC of the United Nations, and the Foundation continues to support its work today. A diverse group of GNRC Coordinators facilitates the ongoing development of the GNRC in six major world regions. They work together with the GNRC members of their regions -- children, young people and adults -- to ensure that GNRC initiatives directly address the most difficult challenges that children face in each location.
GNRC members share a set of common priorities in their worldwide work for children. Their initiatives and programs are often designed to integrate more than one these key themes, which are: poverty eradication, child rights, ethics education, peace education, reducing urban violence, and empowering children and young people.
The GNRC collaborates actively with UNICEF and other organizations and individuals who are concerned with children's rights. The GNRC and UNICEF are currently implementing a groundbreaking joint study on "The Child in the World's Religions." Through activities like these, the GNRC plays an important role in linking religious communities' work for children with that of international agencies, governments, and other actors which do not necessarily operate from a faith-based perspective. In this capacity, the GNRC was invited to deliver a statement to the United Nations General Assembly during the Special Session on Children in May 2002.
Speaking on behalf of the GNRC, Rev. Takeyasu Miyamoto, President of the Arigatou Foundation, committed the network to further efforts in the fight against poverty, the establishment of the Interfaith Council on Ethics Education for Children, and ongoing contributions to the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Every four years, GNRC members from around the world gather for a GNRC: the first, which issued the landmark GNRC Statement, was held in Tokyo in 2000, and the second, which launched the Interfaith Council on Ethics Education for Children, was held in Geneva in 2004. The third forum is scheduled for 2008 in Hiroshima, Japan.
Text and photograph for this article courtesy GNRC and Ethics Education for Children websites.
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