What is the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development?

In 2001, the UN General Assembly declared May 21st to the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development due to UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity in the same year.

This day is dedicated to enhance our understanding of values of cultural divergence and raise awareness for cultural differences for a better collaboration around the world.

Since 2011 the campaign “Do One Thing for Diversity and Inclusion” was launched by the UNESCO and the UN Alliance of Civilizations the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development encourages people, institutions and businesses to take actions and To Do One Thing to enhance diversity on this day.

These actions aim at:

•    raising awareness of the relevance for intercultural dialogue and inclusion
•    supporting global citizenship and building a global community of people, who are supporting diversity with concrete and every-day life actions
•    fighting stereotypes and improving cross-cultural understanding and cooperation across the globe

The actions can be simple gestures or change in our behaviour, such as:

•    go to an exhibition and learn about a new religion or culture
•    visit one of the various events on cultural diversity and development organised around this day
•    practice a new sport related to another culture
•    arrange an international movie or cuisine night
•    learn another language
•    organise a school or university event dedicated to different cultures
•    volunteer in an organisation supporting cultural diversity
•    tell others about this day and spread the word

The possibilities how to embrace this day are endless! The idea behind this is that if everybody does one little thing, it will lead to a global movement every nation takes part in.

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Photo by Patrick Guban on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

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