Events

The UN Secretary General’s Global Education First Initiative (GEFI) is pleased to announce a two-day seminar on the role of Global Citizenship Education (GCED) in preventing and mitigating youth violence, and fostering youth as peacebuilders. It will take place from 10-11 September 2015 at the UN. Earlier this year, the UN Security Council held a Ministerial level Open Debate on the “Maintenance of International Peace and Security: The role of youth in countering violent extremism and promoting peace.” During the debate many states highlighted the role of education in helping young people acquire values, capacities and attitudes that can transform them into positive change agents. At the Open Debate, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon recognized the importance of including youth in peacebuilding processes: “Youth organizations could play a powerful role in peacebuilding around the world but only if the international community helped to scale up their activities and invest in their ideas, and we have to encourage young people to take up the causes of peace, diversity, and mutual respect.” Global Citizenship Education (GCED), which is one of the three priorities of the UN Secretary-General’s Initiative, can help foster peace by enabling learners to explore values such as human rights, social justice, equality, dignity and respect. The seminar aims to provide youth advocates, experts, educators, NGOs and international organizations a platform for a constructive dialogue on the different forms of violence and extremism as well as their root causes affecting youth. It will also explore key aspects of global citizenship education for the prevention of violence and fostering youth as peacebuilders. The morning session on the first day of the Seminar (10:00-13:00, 10 September) will be open to public. Those who are interested in attending, please RSVP by 7 September 2015. A copy of the programme can be find at: http://www.un.org/webcast/pdfs/100910am-unesco.pdf