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| | UNESCO Director–General Koïchiro Matsuura pays his first official visit to The Commonwealth of The Bahamas
26-05-2004 - The Director-General of UNESCO, Koïchiro Matsuura, paid his first official visit to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas from 19-21 May 2004. He was accompanied by Mr Sidney Poitier, Ambassador and Permanent Delegate of The Bahamas to UNESCO, and Mr Davidson Hepburn, The Bahamas representative to the Executive Board. |
During his visit, the Director-General held bilateral meetings with the Governor General, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Education, the Minister of Sports, Youth and Culture, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and members of the National Commission for UNESCO. The discussions provided an opportunity for the planning of stronger relations and cooperation between The Bahamas and UNESCO in the fields of education, sciences, culture and communication. In the field of education, the areas identified as of particular interest concern early childhood education, special education, prevention education against HIV/AIDS, vocational and technical education, anti-doping and sports. Discussions took place on the establishment of a UNESCO Chair on Teacher Education at the College of The Bahamas. Also, attention will be given to the preservation of tangible and intangible heritage, to the teaching of science at all levels, as well as to the digitalisation of archives, the integration of ICT into the curriculum and distance education. At the end of the visit, the Director-General and Mr Alfred Sears, Minister of Education, signed a Communiqué reflecting the areas of strengthened cooperation.
While in The Bahamas, the Director-General officially launched the Caribbean Slave Route Symposium on “Slavery: Struggles and Victories” organized within the framework of the International Year for the Commemoration of the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition. Mr Matsuura, together with Mr Neville W. Wisdom, Minister of Youth, Sports and Culture of The Bahamas, launched at the historic village of Gambier, the oldest settlement in New Providence, the second phase of the UNESCO Caribbean poverty alleviation project, entitled “Youth Path”, embracing eight countries in the region and designed to enable Caribbean youth to develop and utilise innovative skills for sustainable employment in the field of heritage tourism and preservation of heritage sites. In addition, the Director-General and Professor Howard Dodson, Executive Director of the Schomburg Center for Research on Black Culture in New York, inaugurated a travelling exhibition entitled “Lest we forget: The Triumph over Slavery”.
Mr Matsuura also visited the College of The Bahamas, the National Gallery, the Sandilands Primary School and the Centre for the Deaf.
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Flash Info 083-2004
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