Patzcuaro; first H.Q. in the fight against ignorance
" We work for tomorrow, but tomorrow begins today"
"It is for tomorrow that we are working, but tomorrow begins today." Under this emblem of urgency, the official government representatives of 59 nations will gather together in Paris from June 18 to July 12 to decide on Unesco's course of action for the months to come.
This is the sixth time that delegates will be meeting at a Unesco General Conference. But 1951 is a critical year in which threats of war call more than ever before for co-operative international effcrt to help construct and guard intact the living fabric of world peace.
Conscious of these pressing requirements, the Executive Board of Unesco has drawn up a new draft programme for submission to the General Conference. It is a programme conceived not in terms of Unesco's theoretical potentialities but in the light of the practical experience of trial and searching gained in recent years. It is a programme that has been scaled down to permit concentration on a number of major practical problems facing the peoples of the world today in education, science and culture. (The 1951 programme contained 294 resolutions ; the new draft programme has reduced these by 50 per cent.)
Ignorance is one of the deeplying causes of conflict and war. Lack of fundamental knowledge for living breeds poverty, disease, under-nourishment and with these despair and violence. Perhaps the boldest and most far-reaching new proposal to be placed before delegates at the 6th General Conference will be a special $20 million, 12-year project for launching a world-wide campaign against ignorance and low standards of living. It has been called"the great campaign of men against their common enemy".
Enemies of the fundamental rights of men and women must resort to oppression which ultimately results in friction and connict. The widest of the central themes running through the proposed 1952 programme is therefore action in the service of Human Rights. Thus, for example, the conference will be asked to approve new plans first for making these rights more widely known and understood by the peoples of the world. Specific projects, too, will be considered for studying methods of reducing racial discrimination ; for an agreement to lift barriers to the free movement between countries of persons travelling for educational, scientific and cultural purposes ; and for promoting the effective application of free and compulsory education as set forth in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Three groups of peoples have a special claim to attention in the modern world. They are the workers, women and young peopIe ; and special efforts on their behalf dominate the proposed Unesco programme for 1952.
To take one example, the many problems of men and women workers are the focal point of the new adult education programme. One project calls for the establishment in 1952 of an international centre for improving workers' educational methods and for training specialists in this field. The proposed centre which is to be set up in co-operation with international trade unions, will also organize courses for workers, laying special stress on understanding among peoples of the world and the necessity of international co-operation within the framework of the United Nations.
In addition, Unesco has been working on a broad programme for extending fellowship and travel opportunities for workers. In 1952 individual and group travel grants for them to study abroad are to he arranged through workers'organizations in different countries.
In the same way as for workers, the 1952 programme includes fellowship projects specially designed for young persons, and programmes in every department of Unesco for practical work to be done by young people, outside of school, through youth movements, voluntary work camps, science clubs, etc. Working for the improvement of the status of women, Unesco will accentuate in 1952 ways of providing them with greater access to education and practical suggestions for the education of women everywhere for world citizen-ship.
The above examples are intended to convey only an idea of some of the practical themes which Unesco proposes to develop in 1952. There are of course others which are equally important and urgent. No mention, for example, has been-made of the technical assistance plan for economic development in which Unesco is already providing and will continue to provide practical help to remedy inequalities of opportunity and means in education, science and culture, which today hamper under-developed countries. Mention should he made, too, of projects proposed for 1952 for increasing Unesco's campaign to teach and explain the principles of collective security and the contribution of the United Nations to peace.
In general, it can be said that in the 1952 programme to be submitted this month for approval by the General Conference, projects of academic interest have been sacrificed to those which have a direct or indirect effect upon present-day world problems and the programme has been given more practical direction throughout.
