, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20200921IPR87508/
Pilgrim who worked in leper colony could become first Catholic saint from Zimbabwe
September, the long-awaited birth of spring in southern Africa, invokes in me the memory of John Bradburne.
He died as spring arrived in September 1979 not far from his adopted home in Mutemwa in what was then Rhodesia.
Mutemwa means, “You are cut off,” in the local Shona language.
It is well named. Wedged in the bush between two giant granite hills, it is far from the tourist haunts.
Even if they knew of the place, few tourists would venture there for Mutemwa is the home of Zimbabwe’s oldest leper colony.
Today there are less than 100 lepers left in the settlement that once housed over 1,000 sick, desperate and lonely souls.
“Cut off” is exactly what the colonial authorities planned when Mutemwa was chosen to house these most discarded and isolated of all human beings.
Here, among the lepers, that John Bradburne, a wandering English pilgrim, settled, and as the story of his life and the strange events surrounding his death spread, more and more people started visiting Mutemwa, a site of pilgrimage.
So much so that each September, around the anniversary of Bradburne’s death, upward of 30,000 pilgrims descend on this isolated spot.
And, almost every year, 6,000 miles (9,656 kilometers) away, a special commemorative service is held for Bradburne in London‘s Westminster Cathedral.
Since his death, several people have claimed miraculous healings after praying to him, the BBC reported one year ago in a piece titled “Why Briton John Bradburne could become Zimbabwe’s first Catholic saint.”
The miracles satisfy one condition for sainthood in the Catholic Church. It is also said that at his funeral, held in Harare, a speck of unexplained blood appeared below his coffin.
SON OF ANGLICAN CLEREGYMAN
John Randal Bradburne was born in Cumbria, the son of a high Anglican clergyman.
Educated at Greshams, A Church of England foundation school, and commissioned into the Indian Army in 1941, he had a solid war record, serving first with the Ghurkhas in Malaya and then with the Chindits in Burma.
When hostilities ended, Bradburne converted to Catholicism and gave up secular life to become a pilgrim, attaching himself to various monastic orders in Britain, Europe, and the Holy Land before traveling to what was then Rhodesia as a missionary helper in the early Sixties.
Jesuit missionaries had been active in Rhodesia from the late 19th century. They introduced him to Mutemwa, where lepers from many southern African countries and various African tribes lived in appalling conditions of sickness, poverty, and isolation.
From the moment Bradburne first saw the leper colony in 1969, it was clear his search was over.
The restless English pilgrim had finally found his apostolate.
Mutemwa became home, and the lepers became his family. He lived among them, attending to their medical, material, and spiritual needs, all the while battling officialdom for a better deal for his severely disabled and marginalized charges.
IMPROVMENT IN LEPER COLONY
Under Bradburne’s care and with the support of a number of local farmers conditions improved at the leper settlement.
By the late Seventies, however, war had come to Rhodesia. The Mutoko district, with its thick bush, rugged hills, and hidden caves, had become a hot spot for guerrilla activity counter-insurgency operations by the Rhodesian security forces.
In November 1966, the white minority-led government of the British colony of Southern Rhodesia had illegally declared itself an independent nation, saying it was part of a struggle against international communism.
That act led to international sanctions against the country and the intensification of a war started by black nationalists two years earlier.
War crept ever closer to the mission. On the night of February 6, 1977, three Jesuit priests and four Dominican nuns were shot dead by guerrillas at St. Paul’s Mission, Musami, some 30 miles (48 kilometers) from Mutemwa.
Dunstan Myerscough, a Jesuit priest and the sole survivor of the Musami massacre, recalls the moment he faced the killers: “The full realization that we were going to die came to me,” he wrote afterward.
“There was some discussion among the guerrillas. The three facing us raised their rifles; the rest of the party seemed to run away in haste. I was looking at the center one, and I saw his gun belch fire. I turned away from him and fell to the ground.
“There was a continuous burst for a few seconds after which more running feet receded. All then went dead quiet. I turned around, and there was no one to be seen. I got up and went to each of the seven in turn. Being assured that they were all dead, I went to the office to phone…”
Today the bodies of the ‘Musami Seven’ lie alongside those of other murdered missionaries in ‘Martyrs’ Row’ at the Jesuit mission cemetery at Chishawasha outside Harare.
NO-GO AREA
By mid-1979, the Mutoko district had become a no-go area and the war had made it impossible to be a neutral observer.
In July that year Luisa Guidotti, an Italian doctor who regularly visited the leper colony from her base at the nearby All Souls Mission, was shot and killed by Rhodesian security forces at a roadblock near the mission.
She was traveling in a marked ambulance when the killing occurred. Some commentators believe she was ambushed as Guidotti had previously had a brush with the Rhodesian authorities and been arrested under suspicion of aiding a wounded guerrilla, a claim that was later found to be groundless.
But the security forces were suspicious of rural missionary communities and their role during the war. Guidotti may well have paid the ultimate price of that suspicion.
In the light of Dr. Guidotti’s death and the deteriorating security situation in the area, Bradburne’s friends urged him to leave Mutemwa. He refused, insisting he stay on with his family, the lepers.
Bradburne’s biographer Fr. John Dove writes: “A good number of the lepers were diseased foreigners; others were from different tribes.
They were unwelcome to some of the local tribesmen who herded their cattle on the leper fields, stole firewood, broke the fences, pinched mangoes. It was alleged that leper rations and gift clothing went astray. John was the shepherd who did all he could to keep the wolves at bay from his battered flock.”
There is a certain inevitability to the Bradburne story. Like some Greek tragedy being played out in the African bush, the end was always clear.
BRADBURNE ABDUCTED
On the night of Sunday, September 2, 1979, a group of boys who acted as the guerrillas’ eyes and ears in the area – abducted Bradburne from his hut, tied his hands behind his back, and marched him off into the night.
In Dove’s account, the day before his abduction Bradburne came down off Mount Chigona, which overlooks the leper settlement and which he often climbed to pray and gather his thoughts. He reported seeing an apparition persuading him to stay on at Mutemwa.
Dove continues that Bradburne developed an “inexplicable, perhaps mystical, thirst ” on the evening of his abduction. He ran to the water tap near the clinic. The water was turned off. He hurried back to the lepers, asking them for water — they had none. The Christ-like thirst eased as it came. This was the last time they saw him.
The two old lepers in the guest hut next to John’s say that he retired there. Then in the night, they heard voices at John’s door speaking in English. They say John opened the door, and conversation ensued. There was a noise of departure, and then all was silent. They were too afraid to leave their hut before the dawn”.
Following his abduction, Bradburne was taken to a cave some six miles (10 kilometers) northeast of Mutemwa.
Here the abductors, now numbering around 40, mocked and taunted him before taking him to a nearby village. He was bound and left in an empty hut where he stayed throughout Monday, September 3.
That night Bradburne was marched to a local guerrilla commander’s hiding place in a cave in the nearby Inyanga Mountains. The party arrived with Bradburne the following morning.
There he was accused of being an informer, but the commander said he knew of Bradburne and his work with the lepers. He offered the Englishman the option of leaving Mutemwa and going to Mozambique.
Bradburne refused, saying the lepers needed him. That night the commander issued instructions for his release, but Bradburne’s refusal to leave the area had sealed his fate.
BACK TO THE LEPER COLONY
He began the journey back to the leper colony accompanied by a group of local villagers. He did not make it home. Along the way, he was made to kneel in a ditch beside the main road leading back to Mutemwa.
There he was shot in the back with an AK47. A guerrilla security officer who believed the Englishman had seen too much and was a security risk made the killing.
Bradburne’s body was removed from the culvert and laid on the side of the main Nyamapanda road. Villagers who witnessed the killing reported strange occurrences after the shooting.
They reported hearing unrecognizable singing and claimed that a large bird had hovered over Bradburne’s body. There was also the testimony of a shaft of light split into three when it touched the body.
John Dove comments: “The phenomena described were beyond the invention of people of a vastly different religious culture… the symbolism of the phenomena had no meaning to the group… This was all beyond their comprehension. They only experienced fear and bewilderment.”
Despite threats from the guerrilla security officer that their village would be burnt if they did not dispose of the body, the villagers were so frightened by the phenomena they had witnessed that they defied his order.
BODY LEFT ON ROAD
Rather than dispose of the body as instructed, they left it on the shoulder of the road where it was found on Wednesday morning, September 5 by Fr. David Gibbs, who had heard via the bush telephone that a ‘mukiwa’ (a white man) had been killed.
Having heard of the abduction, Gibbs concluded that it could only be Bradburne.
It was not only the reported phenomena surrounding Bradburne’s death that led to speculation that this was a blessed soul.
At Bradburne’s funeral in Salisbury Cathedral, three drops of blood were seen on the floor below the coffin.
The undertaker was so concerned about the incident that he had the body checked before clerical witnesses after the burial service. There was no sign of blood inside or outside the coffin, and Bradburne’s wounds were dry.
Numerous sources verified this incident.
John Dove writes that soon after Bradburne’s death, two Bateleur eagles landed on the grass outside the room at Silveria House, the Jesuit novitiate outside Harare where Bradburne lived for a period before moving to Mutemwa.
‘MESSENGERS OF GOD’
The eagles remained on the ground for three-quarters of an hour. Bateleurs are incredibly shy raptors and rarely alight on the ground. Among the local Shona people, eagles are believed to be messengers of God.
Each September month, local and foreign pilgrims are to found on the granite slopes of Mount Chigona, which soars high above Mutemwa leper station like an African Ayers Rock.
Most nights will see them sleeping out on the mountain below the infinite expanse of the African sky. They come to pray and seek spiritual favors from the Englishman who cared for the lepers who still live in the shadow of what has come to be called the ‘Holy Place’ – Bradburne’s Mountain.
Kerry Swift has worked as a journalist, corporate publisher, and academic. He worked on South Africa’s Drum magazine in the late 1970s, taught journalism at Rhodes University, and later ran a journalism training school for a nation-wide newspaper group training black journalists during the apartheid era. He lives in Johannesburg.
Global solution to COVID-19 in sight, ‘we sink or we swim together’ – WHO chief
Roughly 64 per cent of the global population lives in a nation that has either committed to, or is eligible to join, the coronavirus Vaccines Global Access Facility, or COVAX, which enables participating Governments to spread the risk and costs of vaccine development and provide their populations with early access to vaccines.
Working together through the COVAX Facility “is not charity, it’s in every country’s best interest. We sink or we swim together”, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization (WHO).
‘Vaccine nationalism’ will prolong pandemic
Speaking at a press briefing with the international vaccine alliance GAVI, and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), the WHO chief said that commitment agreements have been secured and the COVAX Facility would begin signing contracts with vaccine manufacturers and developers.
The overarching goal of the COVAX Facility is to ensure that all countries have access to vaccines at the same time, and that priority is given to those most at risk, according to the WHO chief.
“The COVAX Facility will help to bring the pandemic under control, “save lives, accelerate the economic recovery and ensure that the race for vaccines is a shared endeavour, not a contest that only the rich can win”, he upheld. “Vaccine nationalism will only perpetuate the disease and prolong the global recovery”.
More commitment needed
So far, $3 billion have been invested in the ACT Accelerator – only a tenth of the required $35 for scale-up and impact.
Tedros stressed that $5 billion is needed “immediately to maintain momentum and stay on track for our ambitious timelines”.
“Our challenge now is to take the tremendous promise of the ACT Accelerator and COVAX to scale”, he said, adding, “we are at a critical point and we need a significant increase in countries’ political and financial commitment”.
The WHO chief cited estimates suggesting that once an effective vaccine has been distributed, and international travel and trade is fully restored, “the economic gains will far outweigh” the $38 billion investment required for the Accelerator.
“This isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do”, he spelled out.
COVAX realized
“COVAX is now in business”, said Gavi CEO Seth Berkley. “Governments from every continent have chosen to work together, not only to secure vaccines for their own populations, but also to help ensure that vaccines are available to the most vulnerable everywhere”.
“With the commitments we’re announcing today for the COVAX Facility, as well as the historic partnership we are forging with industry, we now stand a far better chance of ending the acute phase of this pandemic, once safe, effective vaccines become available”.
‘Great leap’ forward
Meanwhile, CEPI CEO Richard Hatchett called the international community’s coming together to tackle the pandemic “a landmark moment in the history of public health”.
“The global spread of COVID-19 means that it is only through equitable and simultaneous access to new lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines that we can hope to end this pandemic,” he said. “Countries coming together in this way shows a unity of purpose and resolve to end the acute phase of this pandemic. Today, we have taken a great leap towards that goal, for the benefit of all”.
The EU’s mission to save our soils
In this special edition of Futuris, we look at one of the missions that the European Union is launching to find solutions to the main challenges of our time, which include adaptation to climate change, protection of land and seas and the fight against cancer
There are five parts to the Horizon Europe programme, which will begin in 2021.
Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, explained to me the basis on which the ten-year framework has been designed:
“Issues like the fight against cancer, climate change, smart cities and the health of soils, oceans and seawater were chosen because their impact on European citizens is huge.
“It’s because we need to act together to see concrete results.
“And this is what we see in the recommendations of our reports; for example, the cancer project proposes to save three million lives by 2030; less than 10% of the world’s population lives on our continent, but 25% of diagnosed cases are in Europe. We have to act.”
The Commissioner believes there are several key elements for the success of the missions:
“First, a mission must be owned by the citizens. They must recognise themselves in it and then, through their participation in the process, see results.
“That’s why I am pleased that we have been able to set up this process from the beginning.
“This new framework, a process of co-creation, can be a real game changer for future decisions.
“Because after all, a project (like this) aims to affirm benefits for Europe, the benefits of the action that is undertaken at European level in people’s lives, in each region, in each member state, in the different communities.”
The Soil Health and Food part of the framework has set a target of restoring 70% of agricultural land by 2030.
Cees Veerman, the Head of the Project, says further degradation of the soil must be arrested – then reversed:
“This is to stop the sealing of the soil, to stop the pollution of the soil, make the soil more healthy.
“By increasing the level of carbon in the soil, which is, of course, another measure to prevent the further degradation of climate.
“Also, the storage of water so that biodiversity, agriculture, food production, forestry and also people living in the cities can all contribute to (putting) soil in a better condition.”
An example of this approach is the Best4Soil Project, an approach to soil management that combines nature and science.
The project recognises that soils are essential for all life-sustaining processes on the planet. More than 95% of our food comes from land-related production, and for that reason, keeping soil healthy is paramount.
However, between 60-70% of European soils are currently unhealthy in terms of the presence of organic matter and minerals that are needed to form nutrients for plants and micro-organisms, according to data provided by Soil Health and Food Mission Board and Joint Research Centre.
The unhealthy condition is the result of a series of inappropriate land practices including intensive farming, excess irrigation, pollution by chemicals and pesticides. Soils are also paying the price of climate change, erosion and sea level rises.
Depending on the type of soil, nature can take up to a thousand years to produce a 1 cm layer of fertile ground; but it only takes a few years of bad practices to lose it.
Best4Soil’s Project Co-ordinator Harm Brinks says the damaging methodologies have to be minimised – and then phased out completely:
“The challenge for agriculture is to feed the world and the growing population and, as we see in many part of the world, soil quality is going down due to heavy machinery and due to intensive production systems.”
One site making progress as part of the Best4Soil Project is the Grand Farm in Absdorf, Austria, run by entrepreneur and farmer Alfred Grand.
In the context of the paradigm shift in agriculture that Best4Soil wants to bring about, Alfred Grand says his farm is an example of a positive partnership between nature and science:
“If we combine these two approaches, the solution-oriented approach and the problem-oriented approach, then we will achieve a sustainable solution much faster.
“We want to work together with science to test and evaluate new solutions, new systems and then show them to our professional colleagues – and to society.”
“There are different methods that can be used as a farmer, including the application of compost, the sowing of winter cover crops or intermediate cover crops and crop rotation.
“Immediately after we have harvested a crop, we try to sow a cover crop.”
Alfred Grand explains that cover crops allow the nutrients in the soil to be protected and conserved in a much more effective way than merely allowing land to lie fallow:
“The more diverse it is, the more life brought into the soil with the compost, the healthier my soils are. And the less pesticides I have to use, for example.”
“It’s very important that we try to adapt the soil management to a sustainable soil management.”
Alfred says vermicompost and cover crops are two preventive practices to increase the quality of the soil:
“The large amount of micro-organisms play an important role in soil health. The greater the number, the greater the diversity of species, the more stable the soil is, the fewer diseases and the fewer problems I have with the soil”
Another type of natural fertiliser widely trialled at the Grand Farm is thermophilic compost, a mix of organic matter with carbon and nitrogen content.
Researchers have to regularly analyse samples of this compost in order to check its quality – as well as the components released into the soil and the atmosphere – and avoid any contamination.
The compost formation process is activated by bacteria and fungi; it can produce temperatures of as much as 60-70 °C, which is enough to kill the organisms that can cause plant diseases.
Florian Schütz, a Masters student at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna says climate change has increased the importance of such methods:
“It’s very important that we conserve our energy and resources.
“Biomass is a source of energy – particularly nitrogen – and we have to make sure that we save as much of it as possible.”
The Grand Garden section of the Grand Farm is a small scale example of this nature-based approach. The aim is to produce healthy food with a high variety on a small area of about a hectare and then to sell it locally. Cultivation and harvesting are mostly done by hand, with no heavy machinery used. The model for the Grand Garden is based on the work of Canadian organic farmer Jean Martin Fortier, author of The Market Gardener.
Livia Klenkhart, Head of Production at the Grand Garden, says it’s working extremely well:
“Our method of vegetable production has many advantages with economic, ecological and social dimensions.
For me personally, the most important thing is that jobs are created, that we have direct contact with the consumer, that we also provide education; and that we promote and rebuild the soil and the environment.”
When managed sustainably, soils are key to the balance of our ecosystems. By acting as a sponge, to store carbon and reduce greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, soils can also mitigate the effects of climate change.
WHO/Europe’s Regional Director discusses European Programme of Work in latest podcast episode
In the latest episode of the Health in Europe podcast, WHO Regional Director for Europe Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge discusses the formation of the European Programme of Work (EPW) 2020–2025, “United Action for Better Health in Europe”, and how it will improve health in the WHO European Region over the coming years. Dr Kluge also explains how the EPW’s development was impacted by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and how citizens can get involved to help make the EPW a reality.
The EPW is linked to the 3 core priorities of WHO’s 13th General Programme of Work: to ensure that more people have access to universal health coverage, enjoy improved health and well-being, and are better protected from health emergencies. Supporting these 3 priorities are 4 flagship areas: behavioural and cultural insights, mental health, immunization, and digital health.
Listen to the latest episode of Health in Europe by clicking the link below.
What is the role of local communities in fostering human security and resilience?
Event on the Future EU-Africa partnership
What is the role of local communities in fostering human security and resilience?
COMECE and its partners invite you to participate in the webinar “Fostering human security and resilience in the future EU-Africa partnership – The role of local communities” on Thursday 15 October 2020 at 11h00 CEST. The event is organised as a faith-based contribution to a future fair and people-centered partnership between the EU and the African Union.
Policy-makers, Church representatives and stakeholders from the EU and different African countries will engage in a discussion on Africa that goes beyond State resilience and security. Speakers will present some of the many local initiatives undertaken in various fields and policy areas, illustrating ways in which local actors are playing a key role in building resilience and human security.
Given the relevance of EU-Africa cooperation in these areas, the webinar aims at shedding light to the importance of supporting and promoting the role of local and faith actors and communities as important contributors to these objectives.
The event is co-organised by COMECE, Community of Sant’Egidio, CIDSE, Don Bosco International, Caritas Europa, AEFJN and the Jesuit Refugee Service.
Thursday, 15 October 2020
11:00-13:00 CEST
Read the concept note: EN – FR
.:: Register now ::.
‘Efficiency not a dirty word’: why bigger can sometimes mean better in farming
The concept of efficiency and productivity in farming is often associated with poor animal welfare and sustainability, but that is not necessarily the case and more work must be done to change this perception, stakeholders highlighted at a recent event on animal welfare.
On the backdrop of an increased focus on animal welfare in the EU, the event, organised by animal medicines association AnimalHealthEurope, took a closer look at the future of the livestock sector as the EU forms its game-plan for delivering on the EU Green Deal ambitions.
Animal welfare is set to take centre stage in policy making priorities over the coming months, being a major focus of the EU’s flagship food policy, the Farm to Fork strategy (F2F), and a key theme of the German EU presidency.
But stakeholders were quick to emphasise that there is not one sole example of a sustainable farming system.
“I don’t think we should follow this black and white debate—smaller means greener and more sustainable,” stressed Norbert Lins, chair of the European Parliament’s agriculture committee.
“It depends on the method, it depends on the use of technologies, and all these things are more important than the question of how large or how small is the farm.”
Livestock sustainability consultant Jude Capper also warned against oversimplifying the discussion.
Drawing from her experience working on farms of all shapes and sizes, Capper said that there is often an idealism about livestock farming which doesn’t always reflect the best interests of the animals, but holds a strong influence on our approach going forward.
“We often see that there is a real or a perceived dichotomy between efficiency, productivity, and animal health, and welfare. We’ve really got to work harder to bridge that gap to understand animal behaviour, animal welfare, animal health, productivity, and see where we can improve all of these metrics concurrently,” she said.
“Efficiency has become this dirty word – on the one hand, we have this storybook image of organic, green farms, and on the other hand, we have efficiency as being bad and evil and poor welfare, but we’ve got to help people understand that this is not necessarily the case,” Capper told EURACTIV after the event.
She added that there is a “large body of research” that demonstrates that improving both productivity and efficiency can also improve sustainably both from the environmental and economic perspective.
Risk of pigeon-holing
Stakeholders also warned against pigeon-holing agricultural systems, especially in the context of the drive for organic production, arguing instead for a more comprehensive view of sustainability which encourages farmers to share best practices that ensure the healthiest animals.
The F2F strategy stipulates a target for 25% of EU farmland to be farmed organically by 2030.
But organic production may not always be the answer when it comes to animal health, according to Dr Martin Scholten of Wageningen University.
“What I’m missing in the Farm to Fork Strategy is that it is one-size-fits-all. Whereas what we need is to understand that Europe has different landscapes, has different societies, has different opportunities to produce food,” he said.
Likewise, quoting Germany agriculture minister Julia Klöckner, Julie Vermooten from AnimalhealthEurope emphasised that “organic farming is not the holy grail and conventional farming is not the devil,” adding that both types carry their share of problems.
“Organic farming must become more efficient, that is for sure, and conventional farming must become more sustainable,” she said, stressing that the EU should offer its support to all farming approaches, be they conventional, organic, or agroecological.
Instead, the objective must be to “secure a sustained supply of affordable and safe food to meet growing demand”.
Organic farmer and chair of the organics Europe farmers interest group, Kurt Sannen, added that, from the perspective of an organic farmer, he was not a fan of a polarised debate which pits organic agriculture against conventional.
“My farm has an organic label, but I am more than just an organic farmer. Like my other colleagues, we all have good things and bad things, and we all can become more sustainable and do more good practice on the farm”.
“It’s not because I am organic that I am the best farmer—no, it’s just a label; no less, no more,” he said.
“I really firmly believe that there is no one size fits all system, solution, or indeed even practices either now or in the future—except that really, throughout the globe, every livestock farm has to be absolutely the best, everything that they do now, and everything that they do in future,” Capper added.
“We’ve got to help people separate out a label from a farm from anything to do with actually how productive, efficient and animal health- and welfare-friendly a farm might be”.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
One million people share hopes and fears for future with the UN
3) Climate action
The apparent inability of humankind to slow down the warming of the planet, prevent irreversible climate change and the resulting destruction of the natural environment is the overwhelming medium- and long-term concern of the people who were surveyed. Other long-term concerns include an increase in poverty, government corruption, community violence and unemployment.
A young person from China says everyone is affected by climate change: “Current global climate change as a result of environmental pollution is putting individuals and whole populations at increased risk”.
4) More UN engagement
Looking to the past, six in ten respondents believe the UN has made the world a better place and 74 per cent say that the UN is “essential” if global challenges are to be effectively tackled. However, over half of all people who answered the survey still don’t know much about the UN and consider it as “remote” from their lives.
Many recommended establishing a youth council to advise senior UN officials and one respondent from Brazil suggested more engagement at a regional and local level: “The UN could act by making greater engagements with regional and local actors, investing in the future by providing means that foster the development of the autonomy of social actors.”
5) Belief in a better future
When it comes to the future, younger participants and those in many developing countries tend to be more optimistic than those who are older or living in developed countries. People in central and southern Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa tend to be more optimistic than those living in Europe and North America.
“No one is powerless.” says a 17-year-old high school student from Japan.
LIVE: UN ‘only as strong as its members’ Guterres tells UN75 event, looking to the future
10:55
In case you missed the speeches delivered by the Secretary-General and the head of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) earlier this morning, here’s a brief summary.
Mr. Guterres told delegates that no other global organization gives hope to so many people for a better world”, and reminding participants that the UN “is only as strong as its members’ commitment to its ideals and each other”.
He made a strong call on Member States to act together, saying “it is now time to mobilize your resources, strengthen your efforts and show unprecedented political will and leadership, to ensure the future we want, and the United Nations we need”.
The top UN official maintained that multilateralism is a necessity in building back “better and greener” for a more equal, resilient, and sustainable world, stressed that the UN must be at the centre of these efforts, and that “an upgraded UN must respond to these challenges and changes to stay relevant and effective”.
The President of ECOSOC, Munir Akram, also spoke at the opening of the event and, in his opening remarks, urged ECOSOC to focus on three practical steps: mobilize financing to meet the current “triple challenge” (recover from COVID-19, achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, and avoid the “looming climate catastrophe”); greatly expand investment in sustainable infrastructure; and apply new technologies, whilst bridging the digital divide between rich and poor.
Mr. Akram warned that the world is drifting towards an erosion of structures, including the United Nations, that have been built to preserve peace and promote prosperity, risking a “tragedy of epic proportions for all mankind”. He called on UN Member States to reverse this course.
Full speeches from the day will be available on the UN75 website.
Spain violated inclusive education right of child with disabilities, independent committee finds
The case, concerning Rubén, a child with Down syndrome, was brought before the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2017 by the child and his father. Rubén was sent to a special education centre by Spanish authorities, despite his parents’ objections.
It was also alleged that Rubén was ill-treated and abused by his teacher. Criminal charges were also brought against Rubén’s parents by the authorities, for their refusal to send him to a specialized school.
It does not appear that the authorities have carried out a thorough assessment … of his educational needs and the reasonable accommodations … to continue attending a mainstream school
In its first decision on the right to inclusive education, the Committee concluded that Spain failed to assess the child’s specific requirements and to take reasonable steps that could have allowed him to remain in mainstream education.
“It does not appear that the State party’s authorities have carried out a thorough assessment or an in-depth, detailed study of his educational needs and the reasonable accommodations that he would have required to be able to continue attending a mainstream school,” Markus Schefer, one of the 18 independent members of the Committee, said in a news release on Monday.
The Committee called on Spain to ensure Rubén, who is currently in a private special education centre for students with special needs, is admitted to an inclusive vocational training programme; that he is given compensation; and that his allegations of abuse are effectively investigated.
It also recommended that Spain eliminate any educational segregation of students with disabilities in both special education schools and specialized units within mainstream schools, and to ensure that parents of students with disabilities are not prosecuted for claiming their children’s right to inclusive education.
The case
According to the news release, issued by the UN human rights office (OHCHR), Rubén was in a mainstream school in León, a city in north-western Spain. With the support of a special education assistant, he had good relations with his classmates and teachers until 2009 when he entered grade four, aged 10. The situation deteriorated and serious allegations of ill-treatment and abuse by his teacher surfaced.
The condition did not improve when Rubén entered grade five. His new class teacher did not consider that he needed a special education assistant and only after his parents complained was he allowed to have one.
However, Rubén began to exhibit difficulties in learning and with school life. A school report noted what it termed Rubén’s “disruptive behaviour”, “psychotic outbreaks” and “developmental delay associated with Down syndrome.”
In June 2011, the Provincial Directorate of Education authorized Rubén’s enrolment in a special education centre in the face of his parents’ objections, who also approached domestic judicial authorities, but no effective investigation was conducted. His parents also unsuccessfully challenged the education authority’s decision to enrol him in a special education centre.
Furthermore, the authorities brought criminal charges against the parents for their refusal to send their child to a specialized school.
The Committee
The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities monitors States parties’ adherence to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which to date has 182 States parties.
The Committee is made up of 18 members who are independent human rights experts drawn from around the world, who serve in their personal capacity and not as representatives of States parties. They are not UN staff and do not receive a salary.
The Committee’s views and decisions on individual communications are an independent assessment of States’ compliance with their human rights obligations under the Convention.
