The United Nations was built on spiritual principles and universal values such as peace, human rights, human dignity and worth, justice, respect, good neighbourliness, freedom, respect for nature and shared responsibility.

In our last newsletter we featured several International Days that could provide opportunities for partnership activities within our communities including World Day of Social Justice on February 20 and International Women’s Day on March 8, 2010.
We feature two more International Days in this issue.

April 22            Earth Day

The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 at the Spring Equinox in March when traditionally the UN Peace Bell is rung at the exact moment of the Equinox. It is a time for remembering that we are one human family and collectively are trustees of the Earth. For the last few years, Earth Day has been celebrated on April 22.

On Earth Day we share ideas for acting as Earth Trustees in our daily lives to help peace, justice and the care of Earth. We commit to making choices in our daily conduct that will foster harmony, lessen pollution, diminish waste and assist nature. For example, we might walk more, use cars less, buy less, grow some of our own food, recycle, plant a tree, etc. We might work with other groups to help to further these goals.

In 2010, the campaign - A Billion Acts of Green -celebrates the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day. Organisers hope that a billion people around the world will register their individual carbon reduction acts. This is intended to make a bold statement on climate that governments cannot ignore.

Everyone is invited to start registering their actions on the Earth Day website: http://www.earthday.net  This website also has information on events, environmental education, a global water campaign, climate change solutions and a program to calculate your ecological footprint.

The Brisbane TOS group in Australia has also developed a brochure providing lots of suggestions for personal action to reduce our carbon footprint. You’ll find it on the Australian TOS website or download a copy here.

May 15 International Day of Families

This annual observance was instituted in 1993 to highlight the importance that the international community attaches to families as basic units of society, as well as its concern regarding their situation around the world.

The International Day of Families provides an opportunity to promote awareness of issues relating to families as well as to promote appropriate action.

We could celebrate this day by holding an event for our TOS and TS families to celebrate the joys and benefits of family life. It might lead us to adopt a refugee family or to partner with another community organisation that supports refugees. We might decide to use the International Day of Families to promote awareness of a related social problem such as domestic violence and publicise support networks.

You’ll find information on events and resources at: http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/family/