by Staff Reporter
A local youth empowerment program, Elevate Trust and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) celebrated the International Day of Education on 24 January 2020 at an event held at David Livingstone Primary School in Harare.
The International Day of Education is a day proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly to honour education and its centrality to human well-being and sustainable development.
The theme for this year’s event was ‘learning for the people, planet, prosperity and peace.’
Speaking during the celebrations, Elevate Trust founder and Science Ambassador Sicelo Dube said, “the event was a great platform for different social actors to share ideas and air out ways on how to develop the society.”
She added that the 2020 theme highlighted the integrated nature of education, its humanistic aims, as well as its centrality to our collective development ambitions.
UNESCO Regional Director Prof Hubert Gijzen asserted that for development to take place there is need for quality education and advancement in Sciences.
“The 2020 celebrations marks education as a fundamental right, a public good and an enabler of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
“It frames quality education as a lifelong learning process, necessary to accelerate progress and to meet the targets of all 17 Sustainable Development Goals.”
Several activities that were lined up for the day included the UNESCO media breakfast forum, tree planting at David Livingstone Primary School and a dialogue held at Rose of Sharon High School.
The celebrations at UNESCO forum centred on how learning can empower people, preserve the planet, build shared prosperity and foster peace whilst the tree planting signified the importance of environmental conservation.
Elevate Trust was founded by Sicelo Dube, who has been chosen as the 'next Einstein Forum Science Ambassador' with a focus on youth development.
The organisation is based on three pillars which are ‘inspire, innovate, and enterprise.’
The organisation’s main goal is to contribute towards achieving gender parity in Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) workforce as well as to improve the interaction of higher education female students in STEM with the women in the industry so as to better prepare female students to enter the male dominated industry.
Currently the organisation is undertaking the StemFem network project which is a platform for inspiring young female scientist so as to sustain their interest in STEM field, provide mentorship and career guidance, capacity building, networking and nurturing of world class women leaders in the STEM field.
The StemFem network also carters for the marginalized female students in the rural areas.
