Nelson Mandela day

By Joel Suñé

This year Mandela Day was celebrated for the first time, on July 18th. It is an international day established by the United Nations. Individuals, communities and organizations were asked to devote 67 minutes to doing something for other people. Nelson Mandela served his community for more than 67 years.

Nelson Mandela was born on July 18th, 1918. In 1962 he was arrested and sentenced to life in prison. He was imprisoned in Robben Island, where he spent eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison; after that he was moved to Pollsmoor Prison. He was released on February 11th 1990. He was the President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999. He was the oldest elected President of South Africa (at the age of 75), as well as the first to be elected in a completely democratic election. Before becoming president, Mandela had been an anti-apartheid activist. In July 2001 Mandela was diagnosed with, and treated for, prostate cancer.

Mandela has been married three times. The first marriage was to Evelyn Ntoko Mase, the second to Winnie Mdikizela-Mandela, and the third to Graça Machel. He has six children, twenty grandchildren, and several great-grandchildren too.

Nelson Mandela has received over 250 honours, including the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Award.

The year of Miguel Hernández

By Xènia Nogué

2010 was the year of Miguel Hernández year as we celebrated the hundredth anniversary of his birth. To mark the occasion, on September 23rd Joan Manel Serrat launched a new CD with 13 songs, all of them based on the poems of Hernández. The CD is called “Hijo de la luz y de la sombra”, after one of his best poems.

Miguel Hernández was a poet born in 1910 in a little village called Orihuela. He studied in a Jesuit school. He published his first book of poetry at the age of 23 and by the time of his death he had written 500 pages of poems. After his death he became more and more famous. When he was young, he admired the Spanish Baroque lyric poet Luis de Góngora. On March 9th 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, he married Josefina Manresa Marhuenda. They met when he was in Orihuela in 1933 and they had two children: Miguel Ramón and Manuel Miguel, although his first son died a year after his birth. Hernández was put in jail many times because he was an anti-fascist. While in prison he wrote a lot of poems, which were kept by the jailers. Before his death he wrote on the wall of the prison sickbay: "Goodbye, brothers, comrades, friends: let me take my leave of the sun and the fields". He died of tuberculosis in 1942.

The poet's works include: Perito en lunas (1934), El rayo que no cesa (1936), Vientos del pueblo me llevan (1937), El hombre acecha (1938-1939), Cancionero y Romancero de Ausencias (incomplete, 1938-1942).

International Day of Peace

By Marson Mesa

Every year The World Peace Day takes place on September 21st. It's dedicated to peace and the absence of war. Many nations, political groups, military groups, and people celebrate it.

The United Nations General Assembly established the International Day of Peace in 1981 for “commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace”.

On Tuesday, September 21, 1982, took place the first International Day of Peace.

In September 1998, the General Secretary of the United Nations asked to all the leaders of the nations in war to resist the temptation to conquer and recognize the capacity to govern peacefully.

If we want our future generations keep the fruits of this day, we must act now. We must:

●Promote education for peace, human rights and democracy, tolerance and the international understanding.

●Protect and respect all the human rights and fight all forms of discrimination.

●Promote democratic principles in all the society.

●Live tolerance and solidarity.

●Fight poverty and able to give each person a part of life on keeping with the notion of human dignity.

●Protect and respect our environment.