Day of the Girl 11 October, preceded by 11 Days of Action 1-11 October 

Since 2012, this day has been marked as the International Day of the Girl. The day aims to highlight and address the needs and challenges girls face, while promoting girls' empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights.

2019 Theme — GirlForce: Unscripted and Unstoppable

For more than 25 years, women have pressed this agenda forward, leading global movements on issues ranging from sexual and reproductive health rights to equal pay. More girls today are attending and completing school, fewer are getting married or becoming mothers while still children, and more are gaining the skills they need to excel in the future world of work.

Today, these movements have expanded. They are being organized by and for adolescent girls, and tackling issues like child marriage, education inequality, gender-based violence, climate change, self-esteem, and girls’ rights to enter places of worship or public spaces during menstruation. Girls are proving they are unscripted and unstoppable.

Click here for a series of Good Shepherd stories: Sr Winifred Doherty's blog

http://winifredd.wordpress.com/

Click here for Prayer for the Day of the Girl:  Sr Jane Kailu, Province of East Central Africa

Prayer for the Girl Child 2019

 

Acknowledgment of photo on Home Page   Young adolescent girls in Rajasthan India - UNICEF/2018/Soumi Das

 

On 21 September we celebrate the International Day of Peace, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1981. 

The dove with an olive branch is a symbol of peace. This image recalls the story of the great flood, which is part of multiple religious traditions. According to the biblical account, God asked Noah to enter the ark with his family in order to save humanity from destruction.

Today, in order to preserve peace, we need to enter together, as a single human family, an ark that can cut through the stormy seas of the world: the ark of fellowship.

The first step is to recognize that God is the origin of this one and only human family, the Creator of everything and everyone, who wants us to live as brothers and sisters, in the common house of creation.

Here, at the roots of our common humanity, is where fellowship and solidarity start. We all have the same dignity and nobody can be the owner or the slave of anybody else. We are called to preserve the creation and the whole universe, to take care of each other, particularly supporting those who are most in need.

Today, fellowship is ripped apart by policies of fundamentalism and division, by excessive profit systems and ideologies of hate, which manipulate the actions and the destiny of humanity.

 

Click here for NGO Prayer Network Reflection, by Sr Teresa Linda, Province of Italy-Malta - Fellowship as an Ark of Peace

 

The Parliament of the World’s Religions announces the launch of the Climate Commitments Project. This web-based resource is the virtual face of the Climate Commitments Project, which is the effort of the Parliament to coordinate and strengthen interfaith and faith-based climate action campaigns. 

Religious and spiritual leaders from every corner of the globe have confirmed their dedication to the Earth as our planetary home and pledged to address climate change as the greatest threat to our future. 

The web hub provides some of the tools to do that. Please join us and help build a global interfaith climate action movement.

This groundbreaking tool invites participants to Explore, Collaborate, Assess, and Celebrate with colleagues and peers in the global faith-based climate action community.

 

Today we celebrate the 70th anniversary of the the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This milestone document proclaims the inalienable rights which everyone is inherently entitled to as a human being -- regardless of race, colour, religion, sex, language, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. It is the most translated document in the world, available in more than 500 languages.

While its promise is yet to be fully realized, the very fact that it has stood the test of time is testament to the enduring universality of its perennial values of equality, justice and human dignity.

The principles enshrined in the Declaration are as relevant today as they were in 1948. We need to stand up for our own rights and those of others. We can take action in our own daily lives, to uphold the rights that protect us all and thereby promote the kinship of all human beings.  

#StandUp4HumanRights

• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights empowers us all.

• Human rights are relevant to all of us, every day.

• Our shared humanity is rooted in these universal values.

• Equality, justice and freedom prevent violence and sustain peace.

• Whenever and wherever humanity's values are abandoned, we all are at greater risk.

• We need to stand up for our rights and those of others.

 

 

Some other key dates to save in your calendars

February 20 - World Day of Social Justice

March 8 - International Women's Day (IWD)

March 22 - World Water Day

April 22 - International Mother Earth Day

April 24 - Feastday of St Mary Euphrasia Pelletier

May 26 - June 24 - Ramadan (varies)

June 5 - World Environment Day

June 14 - 20 - Refugee Week

June 20 - World Refugee Day

June 24 - Good Shepherd Day (Australia)

July 22 - Good Shepherd Day (Aotearoa/New Zealand) 

July 30 - World Day against Trafficking in Persons

August 9 - International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples

August 19 - Feastday of St John Eudes

September 1 - World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation

September 21 - International Day of Peace

October 6 - World Habitat Day

October 11 - International Day of the Girl Child

October 16 - World Food Day

October 17 - International Day for the Elimination of Poverty

November 2 - All Souls Day

November 11 - Diwali festival

November 18 - World Day of the Poor

November 25 - International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

November 25 - 10 Dec - 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence

December 2 - International Day for the Abolition of Slavery

December 5 - International Volunteer Day

December 10 - Human Rights Day