Promoting diversity in all its aspects

Promoting diversity in all its aspects

People from all over the world gathered to celebrate International Mother Language Day on the United Nations campus this Thursday, 21 February.

Group photo at lunch

To promote linguistic and cultural diversity and multilingualism International Mother Language Day has been observed every year since February 2000 and, under Resolution 71/178, the United Nations General Assembly has declared 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages.

Responding to the UNESCO Director General’s appeal to use “indigenous languages as a factor in development, peace and reconciliation”, the International Training Centre of the ILO and the Centro per l’UNESCO di Torino organized a special event during which course participants, master’s programme students and officials read poems, texts and proverbs in their own languages, resulting in a joyful and colourful cacophony.

From Chinese to Haitian Creole, Sardinian to Arabic and Piedmontese to Hindi, diversity was once again at the heart of our work and life together.