The Academic University for Nonviolence and Human Rights – AUNOHR and Pressenza have just signed a new partnership with very distinct objectives. The university also took part in the ceremony to launch the Arabic version of Pressenza, congratulating its team on this special initiative to spread the culture of non-violence among readers in the Arab world.
We have chosen to announce this agreement on October 2, the International Day of Non-Violence, designated by the United Nations in 2007, honouring the birth date of Mahatma Gandhi. Moreover, AUNOHR officially instituted October 2 as “The National Day for the Culture of Nonviolence in Lebanon”, by government decision in 2016, which included a grand cultural and artistic ceremony, with the inauguration of the international sculpture of nonviolence (the knotted gun by Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd), in Beirut, the first Arab capital to welcome this symbol of peace.
We are also pleased to announce this partnership, on the occasion of our participation in the “World March for Nonviolence and Peace”, which begins in Costa Rica on October 2, 2024 and travels across the five continents until January 5, 2025. We are convinced that “ In the face of humanity’s apparent setback, it is urgent to make heard and strengthen the voice of those of us, on every continent, who wish for a world without war and violence ”, as the march’s website states.
As for the convention, the university will have a special section in the Arabic version of Pressenza under the title “Nonviolence”, where the topics and articles published will have the advantage of being based on an academic reference in nonviolence.
It comprises five types of objectives and lines of action:
1. To enable readers from all over the world to discover this university, its programs and specializations, its international students, professors and members, as well as its publications, research and creative activities.
2. Respect public opinion and raise its awareness, by disseminating information and analysis on what is happening in Arab countries, under the eye of non-violence.
3. Offer young non-violents the opportunity to express themselves, after studying non-violence and human rights in the fields of education, theater, mediation, social work, training, interfaith culture, non-violent communication, strategies for social and political change, citizenship, etc.
4. Focus on publications and translations: Pressenza is interested in the “Book of Nonviolence and Peace” and devotes an annual festival to it, and the university has a special program for publishing books and translations.
5. Organize training courses on non-violent journalism, drawing on Pressenza’s special expertise.
For AUNOHR, this agreement will strengthen awareness of the culture of nonviolence, which is desperately needed throughout the world, especially at a time of so much violence in Lebanon, Palestine and other countries in the region. And as the team of students who will be helping to prepare the topics put it: It’s a great opportunity for sincere partnership, full of hard work and innovative ideas, so that “Perhaps the culture of non-violence might in the end penetrate this thick of dark clouds that besiege us in a prison of anxiety, violence and absurdity, in order to re-establish communication with a sun that does not despair of greeting us each morning”, in the words of thinker Walid SLAYBI, founder of the university.
For Olivier Turquet, coordinator of the Italian edition, Pressenza considers collaboration with AUNOHR essential in its drive to internationalize the agency, promote dialogue between different cultures and advance towards the humanist aspiration of a Universal Human Nation, where the best qualities of each people can unite in Nonviolence and the Golden Rule that has always inspired the best human actions, such as that of imagining and building a University of Human Rights and Nonviolence.
Farid Adly, a member of Pressenza’s Arabic-speaking editorial team, emphasized the importance of this new partnership in spreading the idea of nonviolence among second-generation Arab immigrants. In addition to consolidating partnership between the two shores of the Mediterranean, in an egalitarian and progressive manner, with a fruitful exchange of experiences and positions, in order to limit the derailment of the Arab region and the world towards the unknown, to which the policies of the arms manufacturers and exporters are leading us.
The University Academy for Nonviolence and Human Rights – AUNOHR is an independent institution for higher education, officially recognized under Lebanese law. Founded by Walid SLAYBI and Ogarit YOUNAN, it is considered unique of its kind locally and worldwide. Following a pilot experience (2009-2011), it launched its programs in 2015, offering Master’s and DU degrees in several specializations based on a mostly innovative curriculum. Its students are from Lebanon and other Arab countries, accompanied by pioneering professors and experts from around the world, as well as an international board of thinkers and Nobel Peace Prize laureates.
Its aim is twofold: academic professionalism in nonviolence and human rights, and societal change, all within a framework of self-rehabilitation for each student.
www.aunohr.edu.lb
