Durante los días 26 y 27 de octubre, estudiantes de los Institutos Educativos Sebastián de Barranca, de Camaná, y María Inmaculada y Micaela Bastidas, de la ciudad de Arequipa, miembros del Club Amigos de la ONU, realizaron una serie de actividades en el marco de la Semana de las Naciones Unidas.

Durante las mismas, estuvieron presentes Inés Scudellari y Olga García-Bedoya, Oficial de Información y Bibliotecaria, respectivamente, del Centro de Información de las Naciones Unidas para el Perú (CINU).

El Club Amigos de la ONU es una red creada por el CINU Perú para estudiantes que deseen participar en actividades promovidas por las Naciones Unidas, que apunten a los objetivos fundamentales de dicha Organización, tales como cultura de paz, derechos humanos, respeto al medio ambiente, igualdad de género, lucha por el logro de los Objetivos de Desarrollo del Milenio y toma de conciencia acerca del cambio climático, entre muchos otros.

Dentro las actividades, destacó el festival de teatro organizado por el Club Amigos de la ONU del I.E. María Inmaculada, cuyo desarrollo estuvo a cargo del Centro Cultural Baca Flor, de Arequipa, la reunión de trabajo de las representantes del CINU con los y las coordinadores/as de los diversos clubes Amigos de la ONU de Arequipa, y la juramentación del nuevo Club en el I.E. Micaela Bastidas, colegio estatal que cuenta con 1,500 alumnas.

Además, la Oficial de Información del CINU, Inés Scudellari, tuvo un conversatorio acerca de las Naciones Unidas con décanos de diversas facultades de la Universidad Nacional San Agustín, se entrevistó en el Rector de la Universidad Católica de Santa María, Dr. Julio Paredes Núñez, y tuvo diversas entrevistas en los medios locales.

Las actividades fueron organizadas por Fiorella Salazar Berlanga, quien ha venido formando la red del Club Amigos de la ONU en Arequipa, y Eddy Martín Barriga Zeballos, Coordinador Club Amigos de la ONU del I.E. María Inmaculada. Además de centros educativos de Arequipa, el Club Amigos de la ONU está conformado por estudiantes de Lima, Trujillo y Chiclayo.

The Austrian Minister for Education, Claudia Schmied, the Minister for European and International Affairs, Michael Spindelegger and the United Nations Information Service (UNIS) in Vienna Director, Maher Nasser, launched the teaching materials "Together Strong – Die Vereinten Nationen" (the United Nations) at an event in the Vienna secondary school Gymnasium Rahlgasse on 20 October 2009.

Together Strong is a set of German-language teaching materials on the United Nations, published by the three partners in this educational project. Copies will be distributed free of charge to all secondary schools around Austria. Reactions from teachers and pupils already are very positive. The launch event was timed to mark the upcoming United Nations Day (24 October), as well as Austria’s Presidency of the United Nations Security Council in November 2009 and the 30th anniversary of the Vienna International Centre this year.

Welcoming the guests to the school, headmistress Heidi Schrodt referred to the Gymnasium's long history of multi-national education and pointed out that Rahlgasse was the first middle school for girls in the Austrian Empire, and founded by women's rights activists at the end of the 19th century. In an interactive question and answer session, students of the class 4c (8th grade) had the opportunity to ask the Ministers and UNIS Director Nasser questions about the UN and Austria's relationship to the organization. 

The teaching material was initially developed by UNIS Vienna to prepare visiting school classes for a tour to the Vienna Information Centre. Building on this material, additional chapters focusing on the relationship between Austria and the UN. The material is designed to correspond to the Austrian curriculum and offers pupils an overview of the history, structure and main functions of the UN. Aimed specifically at grade 7 and above, the material is age-appropriate and interactive and offers plenty of scope for further study, as well as hands-on exercises, such as a simluated Security Council debate. 

Mr. Maher Nasser said: "with the help of this book, Austrian school children will be able to take a first step into the world of the United Nations, learn about its structure, its history and its role. They will also find pointers where to go for more information. The hope is that pupils will gain a better understanding of the organization and also of their own relationship to the United Nations and what the organization is doing to address the increasingly globalized challenges of the 21st century."

The United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Moscow, jointly with the Embassy of Kazakhstan, and with support from the Russian Foreign Ministry, organized a presentation of two new publications dealing with the civilizational approach to current global realities.

The first study, "Civilization: Theory, History, Dialogue, Future", produced by a group of scholars headed by Professor Yuri Yakovets, President of Pitirim Sorokin - Nikolai Kondratieff International Institute, summarized the main outputs of many years of research and based on an original methodology of a multifactor model of historical dynamics. The second book set forth the Kazakhstan leader's ideas regarding the development strategies for the Eurasian space and the international community as a whole.
 
UNIC Director Alexandre Gorelik opened the ceremony by stressing the link between Professor Yakovets's work and the UN agenda. He also informed the audience that on 27 October 2009, Mr. Yakovets will be in New York in conjunction with the 64th Session of the General Assembly, to steer the roundtable discussion “The Future of Civilizations and a Strategy of Civilizational Partnership.”
 
Later, Prof. Yakovets presented his view on the evolution of civilizations: their historical path, interaction and the "decline of currently dominating industrial paradigm." He regretted that the prognostic mission of the United Nations, quite significant till 1970-ies, has later been marginalized and, although some agencies, such as FAO, UNDP or UNEP regularly came up with long-term forecasts, those did not replace a comprehensive and strategic UN prognosis).
 
H.E. Zautbeck Turisbeckov, the Ambassador of Kazakhstan to Russian Federation, in his presentation stressed his President's insistence that only an innovative scenario based on technological breakthrough is capable of saving the humanity from multiple threats and challenges it is faced with. He reminded of President Nazarbaev's proposal, submitted to the UN General Assembly, to convene in his country in 2012 a World Summit for Sustainable Development.
 

In the ensuing discussion several experts and knowledgeable figures expressed their ideas. They raised demographic, environmental, social and energy-related factors, relationship between State and its citizens, interaction between society and nature, and several other subjects.

The United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Lagos in collaboration with Human Rights Information Network (a network of Human rights NGOs) and Golden Heart Foundation held a forum at the Centre on 18 September to mark the International Day of Peace 2009. 

The forum which attracted ninety four guests included community leaders, youths, civil society organizations, community based organizations, electronic and print media human rights groups, students and military personnel. The UNIC Officer in charge, Ms. Olajumoke Araba, gave the welcome address and read the Secretary-General’s message for the day. In the address, she emphasised the priority the Secretary-General placed on the theme – WMD – We Must Disarm.

She also mentioned all the on-going campaigns for disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation till 21 September 2009, the International day of Peace. In his Goodwill message and remarks, Major General O.L. Abidoye, Commander, Nigerian Army Ordinance Corps, said “Peace must be in our homes too. Arms should not be found in the hands of the public or robbers”. In his opening remarks, The Chairperson of Human Rights Information Network, Peace Ambassador Mba Charles Ogbonnaya said that violent conflicts in Nigeria had claimed thousands of lives, hence the success of the current Amnesty programme in Nigeria which is Disarmament was imperative.

Navy Captain A. O. Ayuba of Defence Headquarters, Abuja, took the lead presentation at the event. The title of his well researched paper was - “Small arms light weapons proliferation and the need for disarmament: an imperative for peace and development”.  He informed that since 1945, twenty million have been killed due to direct action of mostly small arms and light weapons (SALW) and sixty seven million injured or displaced.

Also, SALW Proliferation was prevalent in West Africa and Nigeria was no exception.  The civil wars, ethno-religious, socio-economic  problems, unemployment, boundary problems, agitation for better control of national resources and political disputes were some of the causes of SALW Proliferation in West Africa and Nigeria. He mentioned that after the civil war, Nigeria embarked upon reconciliation instead of disarmament.

He emphasised the strategies for combating SALW which were threefold – global action, regional/sub-regional action and national action. There were many presentations, contributions by eminent personalities and chairpersons of more than fifteen civil society groups and NGOs.

A Peace poem was read by Moses Ako-Iwaji, a member of an NGO for peace in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. A minute silence was observed for fallen heroes of Peace Missions.