World Youth Conference For Kindness | 24 Aug 2019
The first-ever World Youth Conference for Kindness was organised by the UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP) and Ministry of Human Resource (MHRD) at New Delhi.
About Conference
- The theme of the conference was ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam: Gandhi for the Contemporary World: Celebrating the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.’
- The main purpose of the conference was to impart critical competencies (i.e. empathy, compassion, mindfulness and critical inquiry) in global youth to inspire, empower and enable them to transform themselves and build long-lasting peace in their communities.
- The conference comprises of following:
- intensive youth-led capacity building workshops to enhance the capacities of youth on social and emotional learning skills and competencies such as empathy, mindfulness, compassion, kindness and critical inquiry through the prism of identity and global issues.
- a platform to celebrate inspiring acts of kindness that are effecting change in the world and action programming for youth agency.
- a generative space consisting of experts panels and TAGe plenary for youth and experts to share and critically engage with the concept of peace through kindness and nonviolence.
Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development (MGIEP)
- It is the first UNESCO institute of its kind in the Asia-Pacific region situated in New Delhi.
- It is UNESCO’s category 1 Research Institute that focuses on Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4.7 towards education for building peaceful and sustainable societies across the world.
- It has developed a social and emotional learning (SEL) curriculum called Libre, which was designed to build four competencies – critical inquiry, mindfulness, empathy and compassion.
- The flagship publication of MGIEP i.e “Blue Dot” focuses on social and emotional learning.