Welcome to the Inter-America UNESCO Club

The Inter-Americas UNESCO Club of Houston (based in Houston, Texas) recently became one of our nation's newest UNESCO clubs.

Two New U.S. UNESCO Clubs

Two new clubs have been added to the roster of UNESCO Clubs in the USA.

The first is the Inter-America's UNESCO Club of Houston in Houston, TX. The second is the Racines Heritage Foundation in Kensington, MD. This brings the number of clubs in the USA to seven.

Welcome to the clubs!

The U.S. National Commission for UNESCO welcomes information about clubs, associations, and centers operating in the USA that have an interest in U.S. activities as a Member State of UNESCO or align themselves with UNESCO’s goals.

No, not this kind of club!

UNESCO Clubs to meet in Viet Nam in August

The Vietnam Federation of UNESCO Associations has been authorized to host the 8th World Congress of the World Federation of UNESCO Clubs, Centers and Associations (WFUCA) in Hanoi from 18th to 22nd August 2011.

Check out:

• The website of the World Federation
• The press release announcing the meeting
• The UNESCO website supporting UNESCO Clubs, Centers and Associations

The U.S. National Commission for UNESCO identifies three UNESCO clubs in the United States. While there are an estimated 3,800 clubs in 80 nations worldwide, the number in the United States is quite small, probably due to the fact that the United States withdrew from UNESCO for 18 years. Apparently, only Americans for UNESCO of the U.S. UNESCO clubs remained active during all of that interval. With the reentry of the United States into UNESCO in 2003, it would seem time to renew and revive the network of U.S. UNESCO clubs.

Left to Right: Guy Djoken of the UNESCO Center of Peace, Eric Woodard of the U.S. Naitonal Commission for UNESCO, and Andre Varchaver of Americans for UNESCO.

Guy Djoken, the President of the UNESCO Center for Peace in Frederick Maryland has recently been named to chair a working group to help coordinate the UNESCO clubs in the United States. Read more...

A Tribute to the Krityanand UNESCO Club

Since the first UNESCO Club was founded in Japan, in 1947, UNESCO Clubs, Centres and Associations have been very valuable partners for the Organization. According to the most recent count, there were some 3.700 associations, centres and UNESCO clubs in more than 100 countries throughout the world.

Of course, these groups varied greatly one from another in the number and vigor of the activities that they conduct. I recently came across information on a club in India, the Krityanand UNESCO Club in Jamshedpur. Jamshedpur is an industrial city with a population of over one million people in eastern India.

I came across the following description of the club's activities:

The Krityanand UNESCO Club was established in 1992. Since then the organization has been expanding continuously in terms of its social development service. It has worked for the promotion of sustainable, equitable and participatory development, social welfare and social justice through:

• A Program for social work,
• Human Resources Management
• Health service and other human service
• Through social research and dissemination of socially relevant knowledge
• Social intervention through training and field action
• Contribution to social and welfare policy and programs at state, National and International levels

Over the years, the organization has made a significant contribution to planning, action strategies and Human Resource Development in several areas, ranging from sustainable rural and urban development to education, health, agriculture, and Human Rights. In all cases the focus has been on the disadvantaged and marginalized sections of societies, such as women, children and tribal groups.

The Krityanand UNESCO Club has earned recognition as an institution (Organization) of repute from state Government of Jharkhand, India International agencies or organization such as the United Nations and its system, and various International NGOs. The organization contributing relevant education and Research work.

The club maintains a Facebook site. Here are links to descriptions of some of its projects and activities.

• The KRITYANAND UNESCO CLUB Rural Development Project
• The KRITYANAND UNESCO CLUB ICT Project for Rural Development
• An International Law Overview by Mukesh Kumar Mishra, the Secretary General of the club
• KRITYANAND UNESCO CLUB Human Rights Information and Documentation Center

The Krityanand UNESCO Club would appear to be exceptionally active, deeply involved in programs to help people in its environment. As such it would seem to be a credit to the UNESCO network of clubs and other organizations.

UNESCO club hosts commission

Source: Nicholas C. Stern, The Frederick News Post, April 28, 2010

The UNESCO Center for Peace and Hood College hosted the April meeting of the Maryland Governor's Commission on African Affairs at Hood's Marx Center Tuesday night.

The commission was created to address the need for state agencies to respond effectively to the needs and concerns of Maryland's African citizens, according to a UNESCO Center for Peace statement.

According to Guy Djoken, executive director for UNESCO Center for Peace, the African community in Frederick County has grown significantly over the past decade, though he could not cite specific numbers.

Djoken said immigrants from Ghana, Ethiopia, Liberia, Cameroon, Congo, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire and The Gambia, among others, live in the county.

Interns Begin Work at Frederick UNESCO Club

Zsofia Szabo, a Hungarian, and Stephen Perrine, an American, have begun internships at the UNESCO Center for Peace, a UNESCO club in Frederick, Maryland. Read more in the Frederick News Post.

Slovak representative visits with UNESCO Center for Peace

Photo by Travis Pratt
Michal Pavuk, head of the political section for the Embassy of Slovakia, center, speaks Thursday morning with Guy Djoken, executive director of UNESCO Center for Peace, at the Bernard Brown Community Center in Frederick.

Source: Frederick News Post

Michal Pavuk, head of the political section for the Embassy of Slovakia, nn Thursday visited the the UNESCO Center for Peace, a UNESCO club in Frederick Maryland.

Guy Djoken, executive director of the UNESCO center, said he invited Pavuk, along with several other foreign ambassadors, as a way to bring the world to Frederick and Frederick to the world.

UNESCO Club Member Aid China with Model UN

Source: "UNESCO representative's trip to China proves interesting, encouraging," Nicholas C. Stern, The Frederick News Post, January 01, 2010.

Seth Roberts, a secondary social studies teacher specialist for Frederick County Public Schools, recently traveled to Zhuji, a city of about a million people in southeastern China. He went as a member of Frederick 's UNESCO Center for Peace to instruct a group of about 40 teachers and others at an international school on how to operate a model U.N. program.

Read the full article.

Clubs for UNESCO: a practical guide

"This updated guide is designed for every individual with a desire to contribute to a worldwide movement. It is a basic how-to manual for setting up a Club for UNESCO. It addresses each of us, as individuals and as groups, who wish to be part of humanity’s solution and believe in a sustainable global community that can think globally and act locally. This guide also provides basic information on UNESCO’s ideals and offers general ideas on how to maximize a community’s outreach capacity."

Click here to download the guide!

Clubs for UNESCO: a practical guide

Clubs for UNESCO: a practical guide, published in 2009 is a manual for those interested in starting or managing a UNESCO club. There are nearly 4,000 UNESCO clubs worldwide, but very few in the United States. The manual is an attractive 33 page brochure in PDF format.

UNESCO Clubs distribute relief among cyclone victims

The National Association of UNESCO Clubs in Bangladesh has been carrying out a relief operation in the cyclone-hit Jhalakathi district in cooperation with Korean National Federation of UNESCO Clubs and Associations recently.

The clubs distributed food, baby food, utensils and old clothes to the affected people of Kathalia and sadar upazila of the district. Members of UNESCO Club of Bagerhat also distributed rice, water purifying tablet, oral saline, old clothes and utensils among the affected people of Morelganj upazilla.

UNESCO has a network of thousands of clubs that spans the globe, although there are relatively few UNESCO clubs in the United States. Americans for UNESCO participates for the United States in the World Federation of UNESCO Clubs, Centers and Associations (WFUCA).

What do you think about Americans for UNESCO taking a strong role in helping to create UNESCO clubs in the United States? American UNESCO clubs could take part in UNESCO's efforts, and could help their counterparts in developing nations as the Korean clubs have recently done in Bangladesh.

Leave us a comment with your answer!

UNESCO Clubs

The aims of UNESCO Clubs are those of UNESCO itself:

"to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among the nations through education, science and culture in order to further universal respect for justice, for the rule of law and for the human rights and fundamental freedoms which are affirmed for the peoples of the world, without distinction of race, sex, language or religion, by the Charter of the United Nations."

UNESCO Clubs have three main functions:

• training,
  
• dissemination of information and
  
• action.

Action is the essential condition for the existence of a UNESCO Club – the other functions do not take on their full value unless they lead to action.

Since the first UNESCO Club was founded in 1947, the Clubs have been very valuable partners for the Organization. In 2006, there were some 3.700 UNESCO Clubs in more than 100 countries throughout the world.

Originally, Clubs were mainly for young people; nowadays, adult and mixed Clubs (which bring together young people and adults) are becoming much more frequent.Club members include people of all ages and nationalities from every walk of life. they share a commitment to UNESCO’s ideals and work to translate them into reality on the ground. Members are therefore well placed to present the views of civil society to decision-makers.

Read "Frequently Asked Questions about UNESCO Clubs, Centres and Associations", a recent UNESCO publication with a succinct discussion of the UNESCO Club movement.

There is a good history of the UNESCO club movement available from the UNESCO website:

UNESCO Clubs, Paths of Light;
Towards a history of the Clubs (1947-1996)

Worldwide Action in Education, published by UNESCO in 1993 and focusing on its education program, has a brief discussion of UNESCO Clubs, and a longer, useful section titled "You and UNESCO".

If you know of a UNESCO Club or Association in the United States, please let us know. If you want to start one, contact Americans for UNESCO and we will try to help with information and advice.

The Center for Peace

Guy P Djoken, Executive Director
The Center for Peace

The Center for Peace, promoting the ideals of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), is a non-governmental organization in Frederick County, Maryland. Founded in 2004, it seeks to foster a new generation of Peacemakers who will strive to make the culture of Peace a component of everyday life. Its major partners include the Frederick County Public Schools, Hood College, the Frederick Community College and the City of Frederick.

Its vision statement:

“We envision the center becoming a cultural anchor for the region, celebrating community diversity, contributing on current issues and events, engaging policy makers, and working with all stake holders in furthering understanding and tolerance among people.”

The Center for Peace has partnered with the St James School to offer a unique Summer Camp in the Washington Metro Area. The annual International Model United Nations Summer Camp is a traditional overnight children’s summer camp for national and international Middle & High School (and College freshmen) students from around the world. This year they are gathering in Maryland from July 15th through August 4th, 2007 to meet and interact with like minded students from the other part of the globe. They are also making field trips to learn about UNESCO.

Affiliate Your Technology Education club to UNESCO

UNESCO is establishing a network of Science and Technology Education Clubs in secondary schools. Schools are invited to submit their applications to UNESCO.

Should you be interested to be affiliated to UNESCO’s network of Science and Technology Education Clubs, you can contact Orlando Hall Rose in UNESCO's section for Science and Technology Education: o.hall-rose@unesco.org

Click here to read more about UNESCO's network of
science clubs in secondary schools.

NatCom Seeks Information for List of UNESCO Clubs

The U.S. National Commission for UNESCO (the NatCom) is seeking to compile a list of UNESCO clubs and associations in the United States. Click here for information on how to contact the Department of State UNESCO unit.

There are now some 4.000 UNESCO associations, centers and clubs in about 100 countries throughout the world. However, we believe there are relatively few in the United States. Club movement members, who are all volunteers, share a commitment to UNESCO’s ideals and work to translate them into reality on the ground. In the half-century since the first UNESCO club was founded in Japan, the world has witnessed a vast range of events. Those events have included ones in every one of UNESCO’s fields of competence.

At the international level, the World Federation of UNESCO Clubs, Centers and Associations (WFUCA) is responsible for informing, coordinating and mobilizing its members, with UNESCO's support and cooperation. Officers of Americans for UNESCO currently represent the United States in the World Federation.

There is considerable information on this UNESCO website for those who might be interested in starting a UNESCO club. The materials include a 191 page online book by Anne Willings-Grinda on the history of UNESCO clubs from 1946 to 1996: UNESCO Clubs, Paths to Light

More information about UNESCO clubs, centers, and associations is available from UNESCO.

World conference for the UNESCO Clubs movement

The Times & The Sunday Times (Malta) full article

About 300 representatives from 120 countries participated in a recent conference of the World Federation of UNESCO Clubs Associations. The UNESCO Clubs movement has developed hand-in-hand with UNESCO since the establishment of the first club in Sendai, Japan, on July 19, 1947.

"According to the results of the survey recently conducted by UNESCO, there are more than 3,600 UNESCO clubs, which are engaged in a range of activities in the fields of its competence in 89 member states. Over 1,400 clubs are to be found in the Asia-Pacific Region, 1,200 in Africa, over 600 in Europe and North American, 250 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and over 70 in the Arab States."

The Director General of UNESCO, Mr Koichiro Matsuura, addressed the meeting. He is quoted as saying, "The UNESCO Clubs movement must be seen........as one of UNESCO's most important partners in civil society, the UNESCO Clubs are a distinctive, indeed unique, asset within the UN system. This reflects the fact that, at meetings of our governing bodies over the years, member states have reaffirmed their interest in and support for this movement........I see potential roles of UNESCO clubs, complementary to those of governments, non-governmental organisations and other civil society organisations at national, regional and international levels, as crucial in achieving the goals of the decade, and this is just one example."

In 2004, UNESCO's formal associate relations with the world Federation of UNESCO clubs was suspended, on an interim basis, due to a number of reasons. Since that time, an Ad Hoc Committee for the renewal of WFUCA, has been working to re-examine WFUCA's rationale and to identify its best way forward. The article states that a possible solution was reached that the World Federation of UNESCO Clubs might again resume to function within the scope of its creation.

Pakistan National Club for UNESCO formed

Pakistan Link News story:

"Pakistan National Club for UNESCO has been formed for the first time in the country. The Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will be patron-in-chief of the club."