The Global Campaign for Education at the Sixth International Conference on Adult Education CONFINTEA in Belem, Brazil, 1-4th December 2009, and the Civil Society Forum, FISC on 28th – 30th November 2009.
These meetings provided an essential patform for policy dialogue and advocacy on adult learning and non-formal education. Many GCE member organizations, coalitions, and individuals were present as well as UNESCO Member States, UN agencies, civil society and learners.
www.fisc2009.org
http://www.unesco.org/en/confinteavi/
The Global Campaign for Education will be represented by:
Board Members: David Archer, Maria Khan and Matarr Baldeh
GCE Secretariat Staff:
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,
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,
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and
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GCE organised two self-organising sessions at FISC. Click here to download advert
GCE also delivered a representation of the more than 14 million people who took part in the ‘BIG READ’ campaign in 2009, asking for adult and life-long literacy for all. Click here to see the presentation
Download the relevant documents
BLOG: Climate of change? Thoughts from the ‘other’ UN conference
By
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, Policy Advisor, GCE
02/12/2009 Copenhagen is the destination for campaigners this December, there’s no denying that. But for education activists, it’s the sweltering shores of the Amazon that are the big draw right now.
Here in Belem, Brazil, I’ve just attended the first ‘World Social Forum for Education’. The International Civil Society Forum (FISC) has been busy preparing its demands for CONFINTEA VI, the 6th UN international conference on adult education. Adult educators and learners, campaigners and thought leaders debated, sang, recited poetry and danced.
The speakers touched on wide-ranging issues of social justice, liberation, empowerment and lifelong learning for a more sustainable greener world. The hegemony of the neo-liberal economic model was repeatedly condemned. For a policy wonk more used to grey-faced men in even greyer suits, it was one of those ‘I’m not in Kansas anymore’ moments.
Not that it was all fun and games, FISC has sent out a bold call to CONFINTEA. It demands that governments should legislate adult education as a justiciable right, and sets out targets for donors and governments, within a rigorous framework of monitoring and accountability. As one delegate said, for this CONFINTEA ‘nothing much isn’t good enough’.
GCE played its part too. At the opening ceremony of CONFINTEA, Board member Matarr Baldeh spoke movingly of the Big Read, our Global Action Week for 2009, which mobilised 14 million people in 121 countries to demand literacy and learning opportunities for all young people and adults. Maria Khan joined him to convey the full demands of FISC ‘This is our call, our hope and our challenge’, she said.
Belem’s location at the mouth of the Amazon can’t help but prompt thoughts of the UN conference to come. There’s no doubt that climate chaos threatens all our futures, and therefore COP14 merits the whirl of media and popular attention. But the imbalance of attention is so huge. When is the global crisis of almost 800 million illiterate people going to make it to the top of the agenda? Why isn’t this scandal occupying the minds of the powerful? These and other paradoxes will no doubt continue to divert us as the week goes on.
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