15th october: Global Handwashing Day

Global Handwashing Day (GHD) is an international handwashing promotion campaign to motivate and mobilize people around the world to improve their handwashing habits. Washing hands at critical points during the day and washing with soap are both important.

Global Handwashing Day occurs on 15 October of each year. The global campaign is dedicated to raising awareness of handwashing with soap as a key factor in disease prevention. Respiratory and intestinal diseases can be reduced by 25-50%.

Global Handwashing Day was initiated by the Global Handwashing Partnership (GHP) in August 2008 at the annual World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden. This means that the first Global Handwashing Day took place on 15 October 2008. The date was appointed by the UN General Assembly. The year 2008 was also the International Year of Sanitation. The founding bodies in 2008 included: FHI360 (a nonprofit human development organization based in the US), US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Procter & Gamble, UNICEF, Unilever, World Bank Water & Sanitation Program and the United States Agency for International Development.

The Global Handwashing Partnership (GHP) (formerly called “Public Private Partnership for Handwashing” (PPPHW)) established Global Handwashing Day in 2008 as a way to promote a global and local vision of handwashing with soap.

Steering Committee members of the GHP include Colgate-Palmolive; FHI 360; The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; Procter & Gamble; UNICEF; Unilever; University at Buffalo; USAID; the Water and Sanitation Programme at the World Bank; and the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council.

Continued research on handwashing habits and practices is commissioned in conjunction with GHD. In 2011, Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget (SCA), sponsored a study to assess the handwashing habits of American and Canadian adults, finding that many were not using soap when washing their hands.

12th october: Colombus Day

Columbus Day is a national holiday in many countries of the Americas and elsewhere which officially celebrates the anniversary of Christopher Columbus‘s arrival in the Americas on October 12, 1492 (Julian Calendar; it would have been October 21, 1492 on the Gregorian Proleptic Calendar, which extends the Gregorian Calendar to dates prior to its adoption in 1582). Christopher Columbus was an Italian explorer on behalf of Spain, who set sail across the Atlantic Ocean in search of a faster route to the Far East only to land at the New World. His first voyage to the New World on the Spanish ships Santa María, Niña, and La Pinta took approximately three months. Columbus and his crew’s arrival to the New World initiated the Columbian Exchange which introduced the transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, and technology between the New World and the Old World.

The landing is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States but the name varies on the international spectrum. In some Latin American countries, October 12 is known as Día de la Raza or (Day of the Race). This is the case for Mexico, which inspired Jose Vasconcelos’s book celebrating the Day of the Iberoamerican Race. Some countries such as Spain refer the holiday as Día de la Hispanidad and Fiesta Nacional de España where it is also the religious festivity of la Virgen del Pilar. Since 2009, Peru has celebrated Día de los pueblos originarios y el diálogo intercultural (Indigenous Peoples and Intercultural Dialogue Day) Belize and Uruguay celebrate it as Día de las Américas (Day of the Americas). Giornata Nazionale di Cristoforo Colombo or Festa Nazionale di Cristoforo Colombo is the formal name of Italy‘s celebration as well as in Little Italys around the world.

10th october: World Mental Health Day

World Mental Health Day (10 October) is an international day for global mental health education, awareness and advocacy against social stigma. It was first celebrated in 1992 at the initiative of the World Federation for Mental Health, a global mental health organization with members and contacts in more than 150 countries. This day, each October, thousands of supporters come to celebrate this annual awareness program to bring attention to mental illness and its major effects on peoples’ lives worldwide. In some countries this day is part of an awareness week, such as Mental Health Week in Australia.

World Mental Health Day was celebrated for the first time on October 10, 1992 at the initiative of Deputy Secretary General Richard Hunter. Up until 1994, the day had no specific theme other than general promoting mental health advocacy and educating the public.

In 1994 World Mental Health Day was celebrated with a theme for the first time at the suggestion of then Secretary General Eugene Brody. The theme was “Improving the Quality of Mental Health Services throughout the World.”

World Mental Health Day is supported by WHO through raising awareness on mental health issues using its strong relationships with the Ministries of health and civil society organizations across the globe. WHO also supports with developing technical and communication material.

10th october: World Coalition Against the Death Penalty

The World Coalition Against the Death Penalty is an alliance of NGOs, bar associations, local bodies and unions whose aim is to strengthen the international anti-death penalty movement. The World Coalition lobbies international organisations and States, organises international events and facilitates the creation and development of national and regional coalitions against the death penalty.

It was created in Rome on 13 May 2002 and has established 10 October as the date of the annual World Day Against the Death Penalty in 2003.

Ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics the World Coalition handed over a petition to Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong. The petition was signed by 256,000 people of 23 countries and called on Chinese President Hu Jintao to grant a moratorium on executions.

Screens are journeys of our wings …

Illustration of Pawel Kuczynski

The TVs, the diagrams of our mobile phones and our PCs are absolutely powerful means that allow us to travel with our eyes but I take off our wings … because often everything that is transmitted deprives us of freedom of thought or it takes away the desire to go out and discover little things that, put together, can make a difference

The fuel of books

In an increasingly globalized and social world, exiling from perverse reality is increasingly difficult and books remain one of the few means to refuel one’s mind. Although books are also the creation of authors who have influential ideas and methods, reading is increasingly interpretable in its own way and this gives it as one of the few means by which to form one’s own ideas

World Teachers’ Day

World Teachers’ Day, also known as International Teachers Day, is an international day held annually on October 5. Established in 1994, it commemorates the signing of the 1966 UNESCO/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, which is a standard-setting instrument that addresses the status and situations of teachers around the world. This recommendation outlines standards relating to education personnel policy, recruitment, and initial training as well as the continuing education of teachers, their employment, and working conditions. World Teachers’ Day aims to focus on “appreciating, assessing and improving the educators of the world” and to provide an opportunity to consider issues related to teachers and teaching.

To celebrate World Teachers’ Day, the UNESCO and Education International (EI) mounts a campaign each year to help give the world better understanding of teachers and the role they play in the development of students and society. They partner with the private sector such as media organizations to achieve this purpose. The campaign focus on different themes for every year. For instance, “Empowering Teachers” is the theme for 2017. This was the year World Teachers’ Day commemorated the 20th anniversary of the 1997 UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel, bringing the sometimes-neglected area of teaching personnel at Higher Education institutions into the conversation about the status of teachers.

For 2018, the UNESCO adopted the theme: “The right to education means the right to a qualified teacher.” It commemorates the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and serves as a reminder that the right to education cannot be realized without trained and qualified teachers.

The UNESCO cites that everyone can help by celebrating the profession, by generating awareness about teacher issues and by ensuring that teacher respect is part of the natural order of things. Schools and students, for instance, prepare an occasion for teachers during this day. More than 100 countries commemorate World Teachers’ Day and each holds its own celebrations such as the case of India, which has been commemorating Teachers’ Day every 5th September.

As the day usually falls during Australian school holidays, Australian states and territories celebrate on the last Friday of October each year instead. In 2020, it will be celebrated on Friday 30 October.

🎵 David Guetta & Sia – Let’s Love

L Y R I C

Let’s love, let’s love
Let’s love, let’s love
Let’s love

I will never leave your side, my love
Standing right beside you is enough
Count on me if you feel any pain
Call to me I’ll run to you again

You can count on me, and I can count on you
You show up, I got you, ah
And I’ll keep showing up for you

So take my hand, don’t be afraid
This too shall pass, this too shall pass
We’ll get through it all together
We’ll get through it all together
I swear you’re safe, this too shall pass
This too shall pass, this too shall pass
And we’ll get through it all together
We’ll get through it all together

Let’s love, let’s love
Let’s love, let’s love
Let’s love, let’s love
And we’ll get through it all together
We’ll get through it all together
Let’s love

I will never leave your side, my love
Standing right beside you is enough

You can count on me, oh, I can count on you
You show up for me, I show up for you
And I’ll keep showing up for you

So take my hand, don’t be afraid
This too shall pass, this too shall pass
We’ll get through it all together
We’ll get through it all together
I swear you’re safe, this too shall pass
This too shall pass, this too shall pass
And we’ll get through it all together
We’ll get through it all together

Let’s love, let’s love
Let’s love, let’s love
Let’s love, let’s love
We’ll get through it all together
We’ll get through it all together

Let’s love, let’s love
Let’s love, let’s love

International Day of Non-Violence

The International Day of Non-Violence is observed on 2 October, the birthday of Mahatma Gandhi.

In January 2004, Iranian Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi had taken a proposal for an International Day of Non-Violence from a Hindi teacher in Paris teaching international students to the World Social Forum in Mumbai. The idea gradually attracted the interest of some leaders of India’s Congress Party (“Ahimsa Finds Teen Voice”, The Telegraph, Calcutta) until a Satyagraha Conference resolution in New Delhi in January 2007, initiated by Indian National Congress President and Chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance Sonia Gandhi and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, called upon the United Nations to adopt the idea.

On 15 June 2007 the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish 2 October as the International Day of Non-Violence.^[2] The resolution by the General Assembly asks all members of the UN system to commemorate 2 October in “an appropriate manner and disseminate the message of non-violence, including through education and public awareness”.

The United Nations Postal Administration (UNPA) in New York City prepared a special cachet to commemorate this event, following a request from the Indian Ambassador at the Permanent Mission of India to the UN. The boxed pictorial cachet design was prepared by the UNPA and was limited to cancellation at UNPA’s NY location (not Geneva and Vienna). The UNPA has indicated that all outgoing UNPA mail between 2 and 31 October carried the cachet.

1th October: International Day of Older Persons

The International Day of Older Persons is observed on October 1 each year.

On December 14, 1990 the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish October 1 as the International Day of Older Persons as recorded in Resolution 45/106.^[1] The holiday was observed for the first time on October 1, 1991.^[2]

The holiday is celebrated by raising awareness about issues affecting the elderly, such as senescence and elder abuse. It is also a day to appreciate the contributions that older people make to society.

This holiday is similar to National Grandparents Day in the United States and Canada as well as Double Ninth Festival in China and Respect for the Aged Day in Japan. The observance is a focus of ageing organizations and the United Nations Programme on Ageing.

The celebration of International Day of Older Persons is done to create awareness and empathy regarding the well being of the elderly. People usually celebrate the day by spending time with their grandparents, visiting old age homes and N.G.O’s and cooking or baking for them. Some kids also give greeting cards to their elderly on this day.