The 2011 Earth Day will be celebrated on April 22, 2011. The United Nations refers to the day as International Mother Earth Day.This will be the 41st anniversary of Earth Day. Earth Day was officially founded on April 22, 1970. The purpose of this occasion each year was to increase awareness and to remind people about their responsibility to future generations through maintaining the environment.
The proclamation of 22 April as International Mother Earth Day is an acknowledgement that the Earth and its ecosystems provide its inhabitants with life and sustenance. It also recognizes a collective responsibility, as called for in the 1992 Rio Declaration, to promote harmony with nature and the Earth to achieve a just balance among the economic, social and environmental needs of present and future generations of humanity. www.un.org/en/events/motherearthday/index.shtml
Since its inception, billions of people from all over world who have come together to get involved in number of Earth Day activities and events for the cause of our Mother Nature.
IFSW joins with those who believe that Earth Day should be experienced on a daily basis by the inhabitants of this planet and not just yearly on the 22nd of April.
The 2010 Hong Kong Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development is a process, which is part of a larger movement that will also help us as a profession to respond to:
- Economic inequalities within countries and among regions:
- the tendencies of growing inequalities and their implication for marginalized populations
- Man- made and natural disasters, their management and prevention and their implication for the social work profession, and the environment;
- Political instabilities, violence, dominations, erosion of peace building processes, development of terrorism and mode of responses by states, modalities of handling global conflicts;
- Human right issues in relation to both social, political and economical situations;
- Migration refugees, immigrants , immigration and modalities of handling these issues and their implications;
- Family issues and life challenges emerge as a major concern, in relation to the transformation of the world.
Gaylord Nelson, one of the early pioneers in the modern environmental movement said in 1970:“Our goal is not just an environment of clean air and water and scenic beauty. The objective is an environment of decency, quality and mutual respect for all other human being and all living creatures.”
IFSW commitment to ethics and human rights are embodied in all of our international Policy Statements as well as in our statements all of which help to foster enhanced global solidarity and contribute to more positive outcomes a higher and more fulfilling quality of life, and the and the sustainability of Mother Earth !
Please take a moment if you have not to review our positions on the following topics
- Cross Border Reproductive Services
- International Policy Statement on Displaced Persons
- International Policy Statement on Genocide
- International Policy Statement on Globalisation and the Environment
- International Policy on Ageing and Older Adults
- International Policy on HIV / AIDS
- International Policy on Health
- International Policy on Human Rights
- International Policy on Indigenous Peoples
- International Policy on Migration
- International Policy on Poverty Eradication and the role for Social Workers
- International Policy on Protection of Personal Information
- International Policy on Refugees
- International Policy on Women
- International Statement on Peace and Social Justice
- International Statement on Youth