São Paulo – Jordan’s Ahmad Alhendawi, the United Nations Envoy on Youth, will be in Brazil next week to attend the event Youth and Peace Culture, due Tuesday (23rd) in Rio de Janeiro.
The event, held by UN Brazil, will take place on the sidelines of the World Youth Journey (WYJ), a meeting of young Catholics from various countries due from the 23rd to the 28th this month in Rio. Pope Francis will attend.
“We will hold a debate between Alhendawi and a few hundreds of young people from around the world. We want to learn about their aspirations, their demands for the future, and the type of future they expect for the next decade,” said Giancarlo Summa, the director of the UN’s Information Centre in Brazil. Summa will attend the event, as will Joel Portella, the executive secretary of the WYJ Local Organizing Committee, and Jorge Chediek, the resident coordinator of the UN System Brazil.
Summa explained that the United Nations are working to set sustainable development goals for the planet in a global dialogue held at onsite and online events. According to him, Tuesday’s debate will also discuss how young people may become involved in this process. He says the implementation of the goals should begin on January 1st, 2016.
To Summa, this is an interesting time for the event to occur, because the Catholic Church leader is keen on promoting interreligious dialogue. “From the start, Pope Francis declared that conversations between the Catholic and Muslim worlds must be resumed,” he said.
According to the UN director, next week’s event will seek convergence points between youths from both religions, such as development, peace and safety. “We thought this would be the ideal moment for us to learn about the aspirations, the issues, the hopes of young people,” he said.
Prior to the event, on Monday (22nd), Alhendawi will meet with Severine Macedo, the national secretary for youth at the Secretariat General of the Brazilian Presidency, and with delegates from Uruguay’s National Institute of Youth.
Alhendawi was appointed by the UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon as the Envoy on Youth in January this year. Since December 2012, he has been team leader to the World Bank’s Institutional Development to Strengthen Arab Policy and Participation program for the Arab League. He was formerly the Arab League’s Youth Policy advisor in Cairo (Egypt), as well as a member of the Technical Secretariat of the Arab Youth and of the Sports Ministers Council (2009-2012).
Registration is still open for Tuesday’s event. Interested parties may go to http://migre.me/fxrRz. English will be spoken and translation into Portuguese will be available.
Service
Youths and peace culture
Date and time: July 23rd 2013 at 9:30 am
Place: OAB – Av. Marechal Câmara, 150, Auditorium 9th floor
Centre – Rio de Janeiro
Registration is free of charge
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
