UNESCO: Goi Peace Foundation Forum 2020

 

GOI Peace Foundation Forum 2020:

"Creating A Better World for Future Generations"

Mr. Hiroo Saionji, President of The Goi Peace Foundation

The Goi Peace Foundation Forum 2020 is the most annual important event for the Foundation in which every year we give an award to people who contributes to a better world. The purpose of the Goi Peace Foundation is creating for the better society together with all of you.

Every year the forum is attended by ambassadors, leaders of various field, and many support members. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the event is not held physically. This year the event is organized in online format. The global spread of Covid-19 pandemic is the great threat for human kind in one hundred years since the Spanish flu. We pray and offer our sincere condolences to those who lost their lives.

The pandemic can be a catalyst for us to become more aware to be a better life. The theme of today forum is "Creating A Better World for Future Generations". This program comprises in two part:

1. The Goi Peace Award Acceptance Speech
2. The Presentation of the First Prize Winner of International Essay Contest

1. The Goi Peace Award Acceptance Speech

The Goi Peace Award is an international award presented annually to honour individual or organization who give outstanding contributions to our life on earth  including education, science, politic, art. This year award is given to Dr. Jacques Attali, France Economist, Author, Founder of Positive Planet. He works on poverty and other issues towards a more sustainable society. He  advocates and promotes positive economy that contributes to the well being of all life and the benefit to the next generation which is in line with the peace principle of the Goi Foundation.

Congratulation to Dr. Jacques Attali  as The Goi Peace Foundation Award 2020 Laureate

 

Dr. Jacques Attali, France Economist, Author, Founder of Positive Planet

Here is Dr. Jacques Attali's speech:

I am really grateful to have such honour as a Laureate of the Goi Peace Foundation Award 2020. I spend lot of my life to work on a better world and how to do it. 

I work in two dimensions: 

1. Thinking and Writing
2. Acting and Doing

I work on two specific concepts - the concept of ALTRUISM:

1. Positive Society: interest to invest and  to prepare a better world  for the next generation
2. Economy of Life: work on sector of health, education, digital, security, clean energy, clean water, and participation in international institution.

According to Mr. Hiroo Saionji the concept of altruism matches with the spirit of the Goi Peace Foundation and traditional concept  of  Japan which say that compassion is not for others benefits but it will come back to you as our happiness.

Dr. Hiroshi Tasaka, Honorary Professor, Tama University

The economy principle is the gift economy which is based on altruism. Altruism is based on the principle "to give someone". Altruism in terms of economy is quite influential as economic principle. The internet revolution becomes economy as internet economy in which it is voluntary economy because it is used free such as free ebooks.

The situation pasca the Covid-19 pandemic must also be discussed well. There are two points to consider:

1. We have to move to a new society
2. No one should be left behind,  no one should be victimised, poor and rich people must overcome the Covid-19 crisis

Everyone move to altruism to overcome the Covid-19 crisis.

Mrs. Masami Saionji, Chairperson of The Goi Peace Foundation

Everybody (rich or poor) must have altruism principle, and peace of mankind. No matter how poor you are or you are still a child but if you have the interest and feel happy of giving something to somebody else that is altruism principle. 

What kind of society that should be built for our future?

We must respect and understand each others' differences. Man and woman must work together to resolve issue and challenges and pains like poverty. We must share each other experience and work  in  harmony to raise a better society, to protect, raise and educate children together. 

DISCUSSION

There are some questions  from Mr. Hiroo Saionji to the speakers to be discussed:

1. What do you think about death and life?

According to Dr. Attali, good aspect from the pandemic is that it reminds us that we are going to die, life is short. People must  wake up to prepare and take care of it. Death has different beliefs: life after life, resurrection, collecting altruism, etc. It depends on their own faith.

According to Dr. Hiroshi Tasaka, the concept of death of Mr. Attali is the same with Europe and Japan concept. If we relize and focus on our own death, there are numbers of good things happened when we are reflecting back. The world is bright and shiny because every single day you will see the people that they are all shining. You will have a mission on how you spend your life. 

According to Mrs. Masami Saionji, when we think about of death, we think about our life: what we have given to other people whether it is enjoyment or suffering. Don't be afraid because we will be free in the world of the God after this. You will not be afraid of life if your life is full of altruism.

The Two Values of the Fuji Declaration;

1. A divine spark resides in every human being

2. Oneness of All Life

2. What should we do to support younger people?

According to Dr. Attali Jacques, we can support young people around the world through the programs of NGO, education for women, for young people and women in Africa, Bangladesh, etc. We have to act to do something to advocate for  better life, education, and world. Act globally by pushing for better education, minimum income, digitalization, and do something unique, humble, and small but efficient program at a local site.

According to Dr. Hiroshi Tasaka, mental support must be provided for young people. There are two things that must be changed:

• capitalism: for example labour/people can not enjoy and can not use their ability in capitalism.
• democracy: democracy is not about political voting, young people should be participating in social change.

The Goi Peace Foundation through UNESCO activity build a platform and network to give them a forum activity.

 

According to Mrs. Masami Saionji, we have to give same education, give same opportunity, and support activities for young people. 

3. What kind of hope do you have for the future?

According to Dr. Attali Jacques, respect other people, active participator, optimistic, do our best to win.

According to Dr. Hiroshi Tasaka, we have to learn and develop, grow, mature, being positive on something even though there so many negative things around us.

According to Mrs. Masami Saionji, we can be positive, think positively,  have pride, do our best, life in the end is up to each of us, work hard and believe in yourself, altruism, working and help others.

The reason why Dr. Attali Jacques is awarded the Goi Peace Foundation are:

• He has a comprehensive view of the  world
• He has a long term view of the world
• He has future vision clearly

2. The Presentation of the First Prize Winner of International Essay Contest

The Goi Peace Foundation has various education project. It has official relationship with UNESCO: we are playing an important role as a partner in ESD to provide education to develop those who will be agents for a sustainable society.

The International Essay Contest for Young People is one of four pillar of the foundation. It is held every year. The theme of the essay is "A letter from Myself in 2030". We imagine ten years from now, living an ideal world.  There are 33.000 entries from 136 countries. 

The First Winner of Children Category is Coji Senanayake from Srilanka. His letter talks about his hope when he reaches year 2030, what kind of life that he wish for his and other children's future. His essay is full of dream of positive hope of future. 

The First Winner of Youth Category is Marta Chernychka from Ukraine. Her essay entitled "Boomerang of Hope" tells us about what kind of life that she imagines the world in 2030 or in the next decade by asking yourself a question : "How do you see it with your own eyes?" From her essay we can learn that if we throw the positive boomerang, it will come back to you eventually.

Mrs. Masami Saionji says her hope for the future:

The future is bright and being created by children, young people, women have no more atomic bomb, no conflict, no ethnic group, no national boundary, we can be united without discrimination.

 

Here is the link of video streaming on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS-1UdEH2UQ&feature=emb_logo

(Leni Lesnawati is an English teacher at secondary school and a writer/blogger. She concerns education around the world. She joins UNESCO programs and projects.) 

UNESCO: Master Class Against Racism and Discrimination: Philosophical Perspectives

 

UNESCO Master Class Against Racism and Discrimination:

Philosophical Perspectives

On the occasion of World Philosophy Day, the UNESCO Master Classes organize a special edition. It is held on Thursday 19 Nov 2020 at 1:15 pm to 3:45 pm (CET). This Master Class tackle global issue through collectively exercising reasoned and informed thinking to build a more respectful and tolerant society. The webinar is moderated by Ms. Arleen Pimentel. The interpretation is available in English and French.

The Master Class program is introduced by Ms. Anna Maria Majlof, chief a.i. Inclusion and Rights Section of UNESCO. The topic of Master Class are among others: inclusion, gender bias, discrimination, and disability. Philosophy as the topic for this webinar with the hope that  we come to commitment to combat discrimination.

1. Prof. Carole Reynaud-Paligot, HIstorian, Sociologist, University of Pantheon-Sorbonne

We must understand why people today can have racist feeling. We must stand up against at racism. Human nature is not way of understanding racism. Socio history look at specific context why the racism occurs and how to identify it. For example in history we have slavery in north America, apartheid, segregation, colonialism, etc.

In history we can see the domination of high racist to low racist. 

All citizen must be concerned on this situation. 

There are 3 elements to be defended to racism:

1. Categorization, such as: Arabian people, Moslem, Jewish, etc.
2. Hierarchy, such as: if you think that other people have less value, people reject any other
3. Essential, such as: I accept the stigma

Madame Carole Reynauld suggests us to try to understand a different point and to have a proper balance in order to combat such prejudice and stereotype.

2. Prof. Rose Boswell, Executive Dean of Arts at Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University

There are three kinds of racism:

1. Histories, e,g. Slavery has existed for many centuries, as has stereotyping. 
2. Science and society, e.g Scientific Racism: idea of the Great Chain of Being, Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection and Social Darwinism’s theory of the survival of the fittest (the basis of racist thinking), Eugenics (science of race improvement), Craniometry (brain volume measurements), Prognathism and Recapitulation (theories of atavistic racial features and progression), racial profiling of behaviour (drapetomania). Social consequences: poverty, discrimination, poor health outcomes, lower life expectancy, violence, oppression, poor education levels, poor habitant, inequality racial discrimination has knock-on effect for other forms discrimination (gender, sexual orientation, ethic discrimination, genocide), global inequality and environmental degradation. In South Africa we look back that the racist happen when the Dutch conquered Africa.
3. ‘Systemic’ racism, because it’s ingrained in nearly every way people move through society in the policies and practices at institutions like banks, schools, companies, government agencies, and law enforcement.

According to Prof. Rose Boswell, racism is the global phenomena. The more inequality happen, the more discrimination happen.

3. Prof. Lazare Ki-Zerbo, Philosopher

Prof. Lazare Ki-Zerbo is very committed to fight the racism because racism happens everyday. We all must fight against racism. For example in USA there are two categories of people: white and black. He hopes that Colour vision will be corrected and abolished. He then later discovered that phenomenon of interaction with other people and society is very important.  It’s not a politician machine but sometimes it happen in small interaction.

Phenomenological philosophers:

• Edmund Husserl 
• Jean-Paul Sartre
• Frantz Fanon
• Alfred Schutz

Philosophy can help against discrimination. Philosophy and universality is something to be crucial. All of us must deconstruct the discrimination. International cooperation is a great thing because universality is something that we must build. When you need to fight racism, you need to look in different way. He encourages young people to keep mobilize through film, music, sport that overcome the practice of racism. 

4. Mr. Arnaud Demanche, Comedian

He decides to be anti racist activist because he wants to deconstruct and destroy racism. Anti racist movement can be carried out through art (literature, music, sport, etc.). As a comedian, he must be aware of his performance because million people watch them. Don’t even mock someone.

The conclusion of the webinar is that we can do something to combat racism.

Musical interlude by Paloma Fayet ends the event.

UNESCO: Regional Online Launch of ESD for 2030 Road Map: Asia and the Pacific Region

 

Regional Online Launch of ESD for 2030 Road Map:

Asia and The Pacific Region

Asia and the Pacific Regional Online Launch of ESD for 2030 Roadmap is held on 19th November 2020 at 08:00 am Paris time or 14:00 pm Jakarta time. Mr. Mark Mann (UNESCO, Bangkok) is the moderator. The interpretation is available in Russia and English.

Opening Remarks

Mr. Shigeru Aoyagi, the Director of Asia and Pacific Regional Bureau for Education, UNESCO Bangkok

On behalf of UNESCO, Mr. Shigeru Aoyagi the Director of the Regional Bureau of Education delivers the Opening Remarks. The target by 2030 is that all learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).

As the effort to achieve the target by 2030, UNESCO has launched the ESD for 2030 Road Map which provides guidance for member states and other stakeholders for the implementation of ESD for 2030. ESD contributes to empower learners to become active citizen with critical awareness and willingness to participate in achieving a sustainable future. Pedagogies that promote such involvement need to be learned to be action oriented and transformative.

The Ministry of Education is responsible to mainstream ESD across all aspect of educational institution including curriculum, teaching and learning, community partnership, government policy, and facility to equip all educators and students  with key competencies, sustain ability awareness, and  the capability to respond to challenges. The continue exchange of  perspective and knowledge will promote future counter ability and maximize potential contribution.

We will have speakers from key partnership such as SEAMEO and GAP, speakers from Japan, the Pacific, Kazakhstan, Bhutan, and Cambodia. All parties, government, international development agencies, agencies, civil society, the private sectors, and others need to mobilize and engage to contribute to this initiative.

Overview

Nyi Nyi Thaung, Section for Inclusive Quality Education, UNESCO Bangkok

Target of ESD  is to ensure that by 2030 all learners acquire the knowledge and  skills needed to promote sustainable development, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development.

The objective of ESD 2030 is to fully integrate ESD and the 17 SDGs into policies, learning environments, capacity-building of educators, the empowerment and mobilization of young people, and local level action.

1. Ethel Vasquela Venezuela - SEAMEO Director

Equipping  people by knowledge and skill will help people to develop as a sustainable lifestyle. Initiative and mindset to become a role model for ESD. An effective way to teach is (according to UNESCO) by having them  involve  actively in the process.

SEAMEO in collaboration with UNESCO GAP (Global Action Program) and the government of Japan begins with teachers in order to support educators to build capacity of teacher to integrate ESD concept and principle  into their curriculum, to view and analyze the resource of the implementation.

SEAMEO Secretariat organizes in-country-workshop with five or more teachers education institutions. The countries who join the workshop are Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR (People’s Democratic Republic), Philippines  and Thailand. The workshop enhances and prepares teacher educators to become global citizenships. 

SEAMEO Japan-ESD award is one of favourite programs that has been confirmed by the Ministry of Education and Culture of Japan and other Ministries in South East Asia. SEAMEO Secretariat continues teacher collaboration of ESD teachers to up-skill ESD program.

2. Nandini Chatterjee, MGIEP

What can be impact of peace education program?

The program try to understand whether the education program has changed the attitude. Almost 500 youth in the age of 15-24 participated in the program about progressive and non-progressive attitude questions. The result reveals about 65-68 percent of attitude has changed and become progressive.

MGIP embed social and emotional learning into  education system and designed a new framework EMC (Empathy, Mindfulness, Critical).

MGIP also designs digital pedagogy that can be used by teachers and students. In order to see the impact of the program, we conduct research study to 5 schools. They took courses about migration, violence, identity, government, and pre and post assessment.  

The data show the impact of understanding and learning of the child.

3. Lynley Tulloch, Lecturer , University of Waikato

Lynley Tulloch is a lecturer at University of Waikato. She also works with the community especially with teachers around Pacific countries. She says that  ESD  Resources are very important such as knowledge, skill, and value. It also focuses on competency and critical thinking. She develops teachers capacity building and resources with some programs such as: making big book for children, billingual teachers guide, developing books for primary and secondary students, etc.

 

4. Yoshiaki Ishida - The Ministry of Education Science and Technology of  Japan

The Ministry of Education, we have continued ongoing effort to mainstream ESD to education system a as a priority. ESD Incorporated into Curriculum National Standard into Primary, lower secondary, and upper secondary. According to the incorporation to the new National Curriculum  Standard every school at all level has been conducted based on the philosophy of ESD Framework.

The Ministry of Education and Japanese National Commission for UNESCO has released a guidance of ESD framework. It aims as guidance for school teachers to implement ESD in their classroom. ESD in Japan can be the role model for other country, for example by implementing National Curriculum Standard.

5. Almagul, Kazakhstan

I do represent on behalf of the Ministry of Education in Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan does  believe that this is a wonderful platform for better work. Kazakhstan does very best to integrate important  topic in curriculum and our work.

There are 3 main directions that are being implemented in our country today, but we are improving and updating the condition and environment for better learning. How important it is to succeed in education. Education system is unique platform. We have 1 million school children. 

The Ministry of Education integrates the principle. Starting since 2016 Kazakhstan has introduced new skills to be learnt. We have been working on  a wide range of skills such as critical thinking, functional and collective work, skill to apply out of the box thinking.

Kazakhstan has improved its efforts to support and to train our teachers. Thanks to UNESCO, Kazakhstan is working on integrating 3 main components of SDG. We have to prepare K-12 education. We are updating all our components: sustainability aspect of education and school education. We have developed the program for early childhood.

Thanks to UNESCO and team for excellent support for integration of the best practices.

The ministry and stakeholder (parents, association, other institutions) support our work . The child is the centre of learning process. All the environment is taking into account for the development of the children. 

ESD component is integrated into our education system. Thanks to the representative from Japan. ESD is really an important and topical issue, and we do our effort to succeed our long term education. I hope that sharing knowledge and information and the collaboration will continue.

6. Wangchuk Bidha -Bhutan NatCom

Country’s development philosophy is Cross National Happiness. Our country do some programs for developing education, such as:

• ESD component is integrated in our curriculum
• Teachers also involved in designing curriculum
• Do a lot of program through this Network 
• Community vitality program at school
• Home-School Approach in which teachers, students, parents, and communities are involved
• Environmental advocacy program in the school

The Ministry of Education is working on the National Curriculum Framework focuses on experiential and contextual learning for children because they will be the agent of change. More initiatives are needed by the school that collaborate with parents, stakeholders, etc. With regard to ESD, we will continue implementing ESD program and strong support from UNESCO.

Closing Remarks

Nyi Nyi  Thuong, UNESCO Bangkok

The Ministry of Education must be responsible on ESD.

To move forward we need partnership with other country.

To highlight:

UNESCO is willing to support member countries.
UNESCO is willing to develop the strong relationship with NGO, member country, etc.
The roadmap will be shared to the participant.

They have lot of information that can be shared to member countries.

https://en.unesco.org/themes/education/sdgs/material

https://youtu.be/_nDQwMWKwzw

(Leni Lesnawati is an English teacher at junior high school. She actively participates in the UNESCO and KNIU programs.)