An exhibition presenting the work accomplished by UNESCO in Brazil over several decades will be displayed from July 13 to August 11 in Miró Hall, at the UNESCO’s headquarter in Paris.
The President of Brazil, Luis Inácio Lula da Silva, and the Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, will inaugurate the exhibition on July 13 at 3:30 p.m., in the presence of several ministers, members of parliament and other prominent Brazilians.
Participants will include Gilberto Gil, Minister of Culture and a UNESCO Artist for Peace; Tarso Genro, Minister of Education; Matilde Ribeiro, Minister for the Promotion of Racial Equality; Carlos Mário da Silva Veloso, Minister to the Supreme Court of Justice; Sérgio Amaral, Brazilian Ambassador to France; Antonio Augusto Dayrell de Lima, Brazilian Ambassador and Permanent Delegate to UNESCO; and several senators and deputies.
Two UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors, Lily Marinho and Milú Villela, will attend, as well as personalities from the business world, singer Daniela Mercury and author Paulo Coelho.
The exhibition, staged with the support of the airline company TAM, retraces 60 years of close collaboration between UNESCO and Brazil, one of the Organization’s founding members.
When UNESCO’s National Commissions were created, Brazil was the first to develop this type of cooperation, through the Brazilian Institute for Education, Science and Culture (IBECC).
Today, the Brasília office is the largest of UNESCO’s field offices around the world.
Photos, drawings, graphics and texts (in Portuguese and French) on 14 large panels will present UNESCO’s activity in Brazil in its various fields of competence.
One of the panels shows a chronological table of the Organization’s initiatives, with the Brazilian response to conventions and projects and the participation of intellectuals, diplomats and Brazilian celebrities in UNESCO’s activities and decisions.
It illustrates what Jorge Werthein, the UNESCO representative to Brazil, has called "the convergence between UNESCO’s principles and the policies implemented in Brazil."
The exhibit will also highlight the extensive network of partnerships developed in Brazil, especially in education – "a sacred investment" according to President Lula da Silva – and social integration, notably through the projects Abrindo Espaços, Escola Aberta, Brasil Alfabetizado and the Fundo do Milênio para a Primeira Infância.
Cultural diversity and national heritage are featured as key ingredients for building a sustainable society, as well as other issues that concern UNESCO such as the fight against discrimination, information for all, and access to science and technology.
Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado’s book O Berço da Desigualdade (The Cradle of Inequality), will be launched at the inauguration. Published by UNESCO, it contains text by Senator Cristovam Buarque, former Minister of Education.
A project is being developed on this same theme in partnership with Canal Futura, an educational television channel supported by 13 private sector Brazilian companies.
UNESCO – www.unesco.org
