World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development May 21, 2006
Each year on May 21st, the United Nations (UN) celebrates World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. What a mouthful! On May 21, play your part in raising awareness about the importance of increasing dialogue between different cultures around the world.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines culture as “a set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group,” which includes lifestyles, arts and literature, value systems, traditions, and beliefs. Did you know that the world has approximately 6,000 communities and just as many distinct languages? This diversity leads to great differences between values, beliefs and practices across the world. As human migration increases throughout the world, people of different cultures are coming into contact with each other more often. This means that today there is an even greater need to promote respect for diversity and multiculturalism.
Although there are now 6,000 languages spoken throughout the world, in the past there were upwards of 8,000 languages. Additionally, UNESCO reports that 50 per cent of the languages spoken today are in danger of extinction. These languages need protection, but it is not enough to just protect each language and culture individually. To truly create diversity and peace, we must avoid segregating and isolating cultures and instead bring cultures together, promoting respect and dialogue between them. By promoting cultural diversity and dialogue, we all stand to gain. We currently face many problems throughout the world but, by working together across cultures, we can create solutions, benefiting from the different perspectives that people of different cultures are able to provide. [Source]
Take Action
You can promote cultural diversity and dialogue on a local level! Take action by learning more about the various cultures that exist in your own community and organize an event to highlight cultural diversity and promote cross-cultural dialogue.
Schools supporting Free The Children projects often use multicultural events to raise funds. One idea is an international dinner where people are invited to cook foods from different cultures. Invite friends, family, classmates and community members to come and support your efforts in exchange for a delicious meal!
Think creatively—there are infinite multicultural events that you can organize. This is an excellent opportunity to both promote cross-cultural dialogue as well as to take action on other social issues such as poverty and access to education.
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