Wand'ring and Wond'ring, Part 2: The UNESCO Intergenerational Leadership Programme
"Each generation must, out of relative obscurity, find its destiny, fulfill it, or betray it."
-- Frantz Fanon The
UNESCO Forum was quite an experience for me. The barrage of lectures and the interaction with dozens of human rights practitioners from all over the world impressed upon me the reality of a common human struggle for the enjoyment of rights, transcending boundaries of state, race, gender and faith. For most of my life as a development worker I always reasoned with myself that I am in this profession to serve Filipino children, to make even the most minute contribution to improving their plight and to lighting up the future of my country. But as I was made to ask by former atomic bomb scientist turned peace advocate Charles Prewitt, "What is a country?" Borders and territories and nationalities have all been so arbitrarily put into place over centuries of war and political turmoil, but really, aren't we all the same human species, and doesn't service to one child bear the same meaning and significance regardless of the arbitrary labels identifying the served and the servant? "Go where you are called; go where you are needed" is a mantra that I always strived to adhere to, and now I can see that sticking to it can present even greater challenges to me than it always had, especially now that I am seeing more clearly. I feel the need to step up and ready myself for whatever and wherever God has in store in this vocation that He has chosen for me.
The forum was also an opportunity for me to be inspired and to fire up my passion for the work I'm doing. There is something about being with people who have not lost sight of the meaning and purpose of what they are doing, who are commonly impassioned to (pardon the trite expression) make a difference, that makes one forget how lonely this kind of work can be. It's like finding soul brothers and sisters, whom you know are one with you in this struggle for "peace, love and harmony" haha [sorry, that was a private joke in the forum] :-)
Posted at 8/19/2007 6:05:47 am by all_kaput
