UN International Days from December 2008 to March 2009

December 1: U.N. World AIDS Day (Media Resources). The World AIDS Campaign has announced the theme of ‘Leadership’ under the banner of “Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.”

December 2: International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

December 3: International Day of Disabled Persons 2008 Theme: ‘Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Dignity and justice for all of us’.  Around 10 per cent of the world’s population, or 650 million people, live with a disability. They are the world’s largest minority. The World Bank estimates that 20 per cent of the world’s poorest people have some kind of disability, and tend to be regarded in their own communities as the most disadvantaged.

December 5: International Volunteer Day for Economic and Social Development

December 9: International Anti-Corruption Day

December 10: Human Rights Day Theme for 2008, ‘Dignity and justice for all of us’.

December 18: International Migrants Day

December 20: International Human Solidarity Day

January 27: International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of Holocaust

February 21: International Mother Language Day
Close to half of the 6,000 languages spoken in the world are doomed or likely to disappear in the foreseeable future.

March 6: International Women's Day

March 20: World Water Day

March 21: International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

March 24: World TB Day
World Tuberculosis Day is designed to build public awareness about the disease.  It commemorates the day in 1882 when Dr Robert Koch announced that he had discovered the cause of tuberculosis (TB).  His discovery opened the way toward diagnosing and curing tuberculosis.  Tuberculosis kills about two million people each year, making it one of the world’s leading infectious causes of death among young people and adults.  One-third of the world’s population is infected with TB.