WATANI International
12 June 2011
Diversity and inclusion are at the heart of any action that aims to change the world for the better. With this in mind, and to mark the UN World Day for Cultural Diversity last May, the UNAOC (UN Alliance of Cultures) and UNESCO have launched a global campaign to create a grassroots movement of people who advocate for diversity. The campaign calls on individuals to take one action relevant to their lives that promotes diversity and inclusion—from experiencing another culture through film, food, or museums, to learning about other cultures or countries, or dedicating time to volunteer for that cause.
The campaign, “Do ONE Thing for Diversity and Inclusion”, works via a Facebook page, serving as a platform for people around the world to share their experiences through posts and videos. The campaign has already won the support and participation of several major corporations from Silicon Valley, including Cisco, Intuit, True Blue Inclusion, McAfee, and Yahoo, among others. From diversity councils and employee resource groups, to cross-cultural training, these companies aim to mobilise their employees to build a worldwide movement which, every year will celebrate diversity.
Along with the corporate partners, hundreds of NGOs and foundations are joining the campaign that brings alive the values enshrined in UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. This will culminate at the occasion of the Alliance of Civilisations Fourth Annual Forum to be held in Doha, Qatar on 11-13 December 2011.
Helping returnees from Libya
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) has launched a project in Upper Egypt to provide food assistance and reintegrate into the jobs market labourers who fled the violence in Libya.
WFP is providing take-home food rations to participants in food-for-training initiatives that aim to equip returnees with the skills needed to re-enter the labour force. This project will target 70,000 returnees and their families, totalling around 350,000 people, for a period of two months between May and August.
Participants come from the rural areas in five governorates in Upper Egypt, the poorest region in the country. This includes communities that have been hard hit by the loss of remittances previously being sent home by migrant workers in Libya.
“A joint WFP and UNICEF assessment in the southern governorates of Assiut and Sohag in March found that, with income sources now lost, these workers are almost entirely reliant upon savings that are running out fast,” said WFP Representative and Country Director in Egypt Gianpietro Bordignon. “These families typically spend up to 75 per cent of their meagre incomes on food, immediate food-based safety nets are crucial while they find other ways to earn a steady income once again.”
The first distributions of locally-purchased rice, vegetable oil, and fortified date bars started in Sohag. The initial phase of the scheme targeted 33,000 participants and their families; a total of 165,000 people during the month of May alone. This included the governorates of Beni Sueif, Minya, Assiut and Sohag. The second phase of the project will expand to include the governorate of Fayoum.
WFP is implementing the project in cooperation with the Ministry of Manpower and Migration that will provide vocational training, while WFP provides food assistance to participants in the scheme of cooperation with a range of NGO partners.
The government partners will conduct training programmes using their own existing vocational training facilities, staffing and other technical capacities. WFP is additionally engaging private sector partners in the initiative, both to facilitate training courses and to provide employment opportunities for trainees after they complete the programme.
Specific training courses are likely to include car mechanics, plumbing, electrics, carpentry, tailoring, painting and others.
It is estimated that over 200,000 Egyptians have returned to their homes in rural Egypt since violence erupted in Libya in late February. The majority of these are low-skilled workers from Upper Egypt where few livelihood opportunities exist.
Reinventing Cairo
The Cairo based Centre of Economic, Legal and Social Studies and Documentation (CEDEJ) recently organised a seminar where the French urban planner and development specialist Pierre Arnauld Barthel and the Egyptian sociologist Safaa Monqid presented their latest book Le Caire – réinventer la ville (Cairo, reinventing the city). In six sections, the book which was published last April by the French Editions Autrement, deals with problems linked to development. Each section introduces the ideas of three to five major players in the field of development, as straight Q&As or narratives preceded by a brief introduction to set the scene for the interview. “Beyond the structural and environmental problems that plague Cairo, we wished to highlight different actors who innovate in the field of sustainability to show the city in a positive light,” explained Barthel, who is conscious that this focus is biased insofar as it ignores the vast majority of people whose behaviour is all but sustainable. The book’s six chapters focus on planning, waste management, transportation, sustainable development and eco-responsible construction, a new generation of sustainable development and finally, ways to reconnect with nature in a polluted environment.
Tagore remembered
Earlier this month the Maulana Azad Cultural Centre of the Indian Embassy in Cairo organised a special celebration to mark the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Indian world-famous man of letters Rabindranath Tagore. The celebration started with the economist and writer Galal Amin giving a speech “Remembering Rabindranath”. An enchanting rendering of Tagore’s Sangeet played by a Bangladeshi troop followed. R. Swaminathan and Mizanur Rahman, the Indian and Bangladeshi ambassadors to Cairo respectively, attended the celebration.
Tagore, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, became the first Asian Nobel laureate. He was a master of several literary forms; he was a poet, novelist, short-story writer and playwright.