São Paulo – The United Nations (UN) is accepting entries for its Many languages, one world cultural contest. The essay contest is open to university students from around the world. They must write a text in one of the UN’s six official languages, provided that it isn’t their native language or the one in which they got their primary and secondary education. Registrations are open until March 25.
Entrants are required to be 18 or older and be enrolled in a university course. Essays must be up to 2000 words in length, in Arabic, English, French, Chinese, Russian or Spanish. In 2014, Brazil’s Yasmin Mohammed was one of the winners in the Arabic category. In the last edition, approximately 1,500 entries were received from participants from 128 countries.
According to the United Nations website, the essay must relate to “post-2015 global development agenda, in the context of the 70th anniversary of the United Nations, and the definition of new goals reflecting the imperative of global sustainable development that recognises, and is enriched by, cultural and linguistic diversity.”
In this edition, 70 winners will be selected – ten in each of the official UN languages, plus another ten chosen for merit and picked from among the remaining entries in all languages. The winners will be invited to participate in a series of activities from July 20 to 26 in New York.
One such activity is the Global Youth Forum, at the UN headquarters. The event will tackle the sustainable development agenda in the context of multilingualism, cultural diversity and global citizenship. The forum will be preceded by a preparatory student conference at Adelphi University, with coordination from ELS Educational Services, a partner in organizing the event.
At the preparatory conference, the winners will work with their language groups to outline an action plan that can be put to work by students and communities to fulfil the United Nations post-2015 global development agenda. The action plans will be presented during the Global Youth Forum.
ELS will pay for the winners’ roundtrip economy class airfares and be responsible for their travel, room and meals for the duration of the conference. The winners must meet all passport- and visa-related costs.
For additional information go to
www.els.edu/en/ManyLanguagesOneWorld
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
