Message from the IPRA President: A call to action September 2021
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2 years, 7 months ago
Allow me to update you on the UNESCO International Declaration of Communications Professionals and Researchers for a Healthier, Viable, Better World. You will recall that we announced in February IPRA is a signatory to the above declaration. Seven months on, we see that the fourth wave of covid -19 is rolling across the planet with new resistant variants, and floods and fires are all too common. This second decade of the century seems to be one of an out-of-control planetary crisis.
A world in crisis
2020 will be remembered as the first year of a pandemic that reverberated around the four corners of the earth. It weakened the most vulnerable populations and regions of our world. Now in 2021 to this pandemic we must add climatic emergencies. We see images of devastation in all parts of the world and climate scientists tell us we are in a phase that will shape the history of humanity.
What can we do?
Faced with this disturbing picture, we must refuse to be powerless, for we are a community of communication expertise. Such expertise is a strength that should allow us to look to a future with resilience and hope. In this context, we should remember that after the Second World War, when our world had to be rebuilt, resilience and hope were our adopted values. The IPRA code of ethical communication grew directly out of these values. Seventy-five years later a new commitment may guide us through this new emergency. The UNESCO International Declaration of Communications Professionals and Researchers for a Healthier, Viable, Better World is a call for action.
A declaration supported
This declaration, published seven months ago, has since gained widespread support from over a hundred organisations in over 35 countries including colleagues from other international communication associations. It is available in 8 languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, Turkish and Dutch.
How to proudly support the declaration
Let us together make the UNESCO declaration more visible. Let us have a vision. A vision that embodies the changes to create a healthier, more viable and better future in every corner of our planet. As IPRA members please communicate with your local contacts. As IPRA association partners please add the declaration to your association website and communicate to your members and add to your newsletter. At this link you will find a variety of logos and the “proudly support” badge in formats for social media and other communication tools. I invite you to show your solidarity. Let's reiterate what Omar Kane, general secretary of the International Network of UNESCO Chairs in Communication stated at the launch of the declaration: "Inaction and withdrawal have no place in the face of the emergencies of our time".
Let's bring about the changes we want to see, for the sake of our eco-system and its people. In hoping to see a great mobilisation of global communicators, I wish you a dynamic and healthy start to September.
Philippe Borremans
President 2021
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