The date of 17th November was chosen to be the International Students’ Day due to the events that unfolded in Prague during World War II.
World Teachers’ Day on October 5th honors teachers and teacher organizations making vital contributions to the education and development of our future leaders.
If you think back to your school years, you are bound to think of at least one teacher who made a difference in your life. Maybe they helped set you on the right career path. One may have encouraged you to step out of your comfort zone and try something new. Or maybe they helped you when you felt unaccepted by your peers. Even though a teacher’s job is to teach, they wear many hats. They are also counselors and friends. To some students, they may even be guardian angels.
While teaching is indeed a noble career, it is a challenging one, as well. It seems that more than ever, teachers are having a difficult time. Some of the things they contend within the classroom each day are disruptive environments, lack of resources, and limited time. For teachers who have many students, it can be difficult to provide individualized attention.
As teachers prepare students for the future, it’s more important than ever to recognize the difficult job they do.
Connecting students around the worldOrganised annually since 2016, the International Day of University Sport (IDUS) is celebrated on 20 September and was officially proclaimed by the United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organisation (UNESCO).
This day aims at creating links between universities and their local communities focused around sport, physical activity and healthy living.
Through this event, FISU aims to involve the multiple university sports stakeholders and member organisations in IDUS activities, not only as a way to promote its sports events but also to create a debate on university sport and to promote FISU values. IDUS is a platform to exchange ideas, best practices, challenges and opportunities within and through university sport worldwide.
God’s ways are not our ways – we have been told long ago and we know it, perhaps… from experience!
The prophet Jeremiah had certainly learned this from experience!
The 1st reading of today is a good example of this (Jeremiah 1:4-5,17-19).
« Get yourself ready. Stand up!”
With these words, God sends Jeremiah on a mission:
“Pronounce my judgments on my people”.
The prophet may try to object that he is too young, that he does not know how to speak.
God does not listen to any of this and he adds some surprising words:
“Do not be terrified by them, or I will terrify you before them.”
Is this not strange?
We would think that God will encourage his prophet but these words sound rather like a threat…
However, God goes on with words of reassurance.
Referring to his rebellious people, God tells Jeremiah:
“They will fight against you but will not overcome you,
for I am with you and will rescue you”.
This is an obvious display of God’s ways:
God does not remove obstacles but helps his people to overcome them.
This was his method in the time of Jeremiah and…
it is rather clear that he has not changed his method in our own time!
We would prefer that he makes things easier for us, and then… we could manage on our own!
But precisely, God does not expect us to manage on our own!
Problems, difficulties, failures, losses – all these are part of our daily life.
God who is all-powerful could take them away from our path.
He surely could, but he does not… and we have to believe that he knows what is best for us.
This kind of learning finds us… students all through our lives…
We need to learn that God does not expect us to manage on our own, he wants us to manage with him!
To us also God’s words are addressed:
“I am with you and will rescue you”.
Note: Another reflection on a different theme is available in French at: https://image-i-nations.com/4e-dimanche-de-lannee-c-2022/
This special day is held on September 16th to mark the day back in 1987 when the Montreal Protocol was signed. As a result, a number of special events such as talks and seminars are held in the Canadian city of Montreal on this day.
World Ozone Day has been celebrated since 1994 and was established by the United Nations General Assembly. The day is mainly intended to spread awareness of the depletion of the Ozone Layer and search for solutions to preserve it. People from all over the world are expected to gather in Montreal on September 16th to join the talks and seminars.
World Ozone Day is also celebrated all around the world. Educators usually set aside this day to teach their students about the Ozone layer and many schools organize special events and activities to raise awareness. This is one event that everyone can experience and enjoy together.
The Day of the African Child has been celebrated on June 16 every year since 1991, when it was first initiated by the OAU Organisation of African Unity. It honors those who participated in the Soweto Uprising in 1976 on that day. It also raises awareness of the continuing need for improvement of the education provided to African children.
In Soweto, South Africa, on June 16, 1976, about ten thousand black school children marched in a column more than half a mile long, protesting the poor quality of their education and demanding their right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of young students were shot. More than a hundred people were killed in the protests of the following two weeks, and more than a thousand were injured.
On June 16 every year, governments, NGOs, international organisations and other stakeholders gather to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the full realization of the rights of children Africa. For 2014, the theme chosen returns to the roots of the movement: A child-friendly, quality, free, and compulsory education for all children in Africa
The Day of the African Child (DAC) 2017 will be commemorated on the theme “The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development for Children in Africa: Accelerating protection, empowerment and equal opportunity”. (The African Child Information Hub)
World Theatre Day was initiated in 1961 by the International Theatre Institute ITI. It is celebrated annually on the 27th March by ITI Centers and the international theatre community. Various national and international theatre events are organized to mark this occasion. One of the most important of these is the circulation of the World Theatre Day Message through which at the invitation of ITI, a figure of world stature shares his or her reflections on the theme of Theatre and a Culture of Peace.
On this special occasion, FIA wishes a happy World Theater Day to all theater lovers and professionals.
Here is the Message of World Theatre Day 2017 by French theatre and cinema actress Isabelle Huppert:
« So, here we are once more. Gathered again in spring, 55 years since our inaugural meeting, to celebrate World Theatre Day. Just one day, 24 hours, is dedicated to celebrating theatre around the world. And here we are in Paris, the premier city in the world for attracting international theatre groups, to venerate the art of theatre. »
Paris is a world city, fit to contain the globes theatre traditions in a day of celebration; from here in France’s capital we can transport ourselves to Japan by experiencing Noh and Bunraku theatre, trace a line from here to thoughts and expressions as diverse as Peking Opera and Kathakali; the stage allows us to linger between Greece and Scandinavia as we envelope ourselves in Aeschylus and Ibsen, Sophocles and Strindberg; it allows us to flit between Britain and Italy as we reverberate between Sarah Kane and Prinadello. Within these twenty-four hours we may be taken from France to Russia, from Racine and Moliere to Chekhov; we can even cross the Atlantic as a bolt of inspiration to serve on a Campus in California, enticing a young student there to reinvent and make their name in theatre.