How to write a stereotype-free textbook

“A good textbook must engage students and relate to their reality,” declares Jean Bernard of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO. A producer of learning materials and advisor on textbook quality, Bernard believes that all textbooks and learning materials should reflect the principles of education for citizenship and peace 

 UNESCO has designed a new toolkit for writing stereotype-free textbooks. The toolkit is designed to help remove cultural, religious and gender-biased stereotypes from curricula and learning materials. To test the tool before its publication in September 2013, UNESCO organized a workshop in Rabat (Morocco) from 6-9 May 2013 for authors, publishers, curriculum developers and experts in textbook development from 15 countries to work with the toolkit designers and test for usability and relevance. The feedback will be used to improve all aspects of the toolkit.

Read more on the effort!

The Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery: New Directions in Teaching and Learning

The Harriet Tubman Institute and the Slave Route Project have announced the launching on 16 April at UNESCO headquarters a new title in the Harriet Tubman Series on the African Diaspora: “The Transatlantic Slave Trade and Slavery: New Directions in Teaching and Learning”.

Edited by Paul E. Lovejoy and Benjamin Bowser, this book is an anthology of papers from an international workshop that the Slave Route Project jointly organized in November 2010 in Toronto, Canada, with the Harriet Tubman institute and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, in order to define new approaches for teaching the slave trade and slavery and to examine the psychological consequences of this history.

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Kensington Maryland Celebrates UNESCO's International Day of the Book

Read more about the Kensington celebration!

Read more from UNESCO

"Writers, poets take part in book festival"

Source: RACHEL GALLEGOS • IOWA CITY PRESS-CITIZEN • JULY 19, 2009

Iowa City has been designated by UNESCO as a city of the book, and this month's book fair there is conducted in part in honor of that designation.

"Writers around the world know that Iowa City is a center for writing, Christopher Merrill said Saturday.

"Iowans throughout the state, however, might not think of the city in the same way, said Merrill, the director of the University of Iowa International Writing Program who led the efforts to designate Iowa City as a UNESCO City of Literature.

"Sharing Iowa City's literary qualities with the state and beyond is one of the goals as the city and supporters determine how to build upon the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization designation, Merrill said.

"Merrill was one of a number of writers and poets to participate in the first Iowa City Book Festival on Saturday, a daylong celebration of books, reading and writing presented by the University of Iowa Libraries."

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Iowa City Book Festival set for July 18

As a UNESCO City of Literature, Iowa City this summer will inaugurate a new festival to celebrate and investigate the city's literary connections. The inaugural Iowa City Book Festival will be held Saturday, July 18.

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The Global Voices Book Challenge

April 23rd is a symbolic date for world literature for on this date and in the same year of 1616, Cervantes, Shakespeare and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega all died. The date has been chosen by UNESCO and the United Nations for the annual celebration of World Book and Copyright Day.

The Global Voices Book Challenge is as follows:

1. Read a book during the next month from a country whose literature you have never read anything of before.
2. Write a blog post about it during the week of April 23.

UPDATE: Tag your posts with #gvbook09 so we can find your posts.

Read more about the Book Challenge!

Lauren Child: UNESCO Artist for Peace

British author and illustrator Lauren Child is UNESCO's latest Artist for Peace and will be formally inducted in a ceremony at headquarters on December 12. She has won numerous awards for her best-selling children's books featuring now well-known characters such as Charlie and Lola, Clarice Bean, and That Pesky Rat.

This award is a recognition of Child's work with UNESCO's Programme for the Education of Children in Need, which is a program that works to provide education to vulnerable children. This program, created in 1992, has raised over $33 million that has been fully given to over 332 projects in 92 countries.

Child has also shown her dedication to helping deprived in disadvantaged children in numerous ways. One way has been through a three-year agreement between Child and UNESCO signed in June of this year, all royalties and publisher profits of Child's book That Pesky Rat will be donated to UNESCO and will finance various projects for children in need.

Another result of Child and UNESCo's partnership is a project called "My Life as a Story." In this campaign, Child seeks to document stories from children around the world. This project was motivated in part by Child's 2007 trip to Fondation Renacimiento, which is a center for street children in Mexico City. She found, "One of the things [the children] said to me there was that they would really like to be connected to children in other places." Child hopes children would eventually put their stories on the Internet for others. "It is about linking children together, from across the world, through their stories."

For more information, visit My Life as a Story or the Programme for the Education of Children in Need.

“Other, Others, Otherwise”

The English version of first four books of Children’s Project by Lyudmila Ulitskaya “Other, Others, Otherwise” is available online from UNESCO. They are the result of a UNESCO project which seeks to promote the ideas of cultural diversity, intercultural and interreligious dialogue, tolerance and to prevent discrimination among teenagers and their parents.

The author of “Other, Others, Otherwise” is a well-known Russian novelist. Ludmila Ulitskaya has won many literary prizes, both All-Russia and International.

The four books were intended for children aged 10–13. They have been translated into English and are being disseminated among European libraries. Some of regions of Russia have already introduced these books to the school extra curricula activities, adding guidance to the teachers and parents in their use.

Download the books in PDF format.