24 October is celebrated every year around the world as “UN Day”, in commemoration of the entry into force of the United Nations Charter on 24 October 1945. This year, UN agencies in Japan, in close partnership with Tohoku University, will celebrate the UN Day with the theme, “UN DAY@TOHOKU UNIVERSITY: Recovery and Regeneration from the Great East Japan Earthquake – Messages from Tohoku to the World”.

 

Challenges faced in Japan after the massive earthquake on 11 March are not unique to the Tohoku region or to Japan, and sharing the extraordinary live experience and lessons learned from Tohoku could also be a contribution to future disaster prevention and relief efforts at the international level. On “UN Day at Tohoku University,” we will compare the experiences of the disaster-affected areas with experiences from other UN disaster relief operations and hope to draw some lessons that can be shared globally.

 

Tohoku University, co-organizer of this year’s UN Day event in Japan, has recently joined the UN Academic Impact (UNAI), with a strong commitment to actively address global challenges. The vision of the UNAI is to align institutions of higher education, scholarship and research with the United Nations in furthering the realization of the purposes and mandate of the Organization through activities and research in a shared culture of intellectual social responsibility. As of September 2011, about 700 universities in 108 countries have joined the UNAI, and there are 10 participating universities from Japan including Tohoku University as of today.

 

Consisting of two parts in the morning and the afternoon, the UN Day symposium will examine the experiences in Tohoku from several different angles, inviting representatives from various sectors. In the morning session, professors of Tohoku University and Kobe University as well as private sector representatives will report on their efforts in disaster prevention and reconstruction. In the afternoon, representatives from UN agencies, NGOs and trade union who collaborated in disaster relief activities with local governments will discuss the significance of “partnership” in such effort. Also, student volunteers who actively participated in the disaster relief activities will share their experiences, with a view to sharing their messages with the world.

 

Onsite information booths will also be set up, to display information materials from UN agencies and partner organizations. Please join us at this UN Day 2011, co-hosted by Tohoku University and the UN agencies of Japan．As global citizens living in Japan, let us spread the messages from Tohoku to the world.