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Inauguration of the UNESCO/Madanjeet Singh Chair on promoting tolerance and non-violence in Chile and Latin America through education
The UNESCOMadanjeet Chair on promoting tolerance and nonviolence in Chile and Latin America through education established at the Metropolitan University of Educational Sciences in Santiago de Chile Chile was inaugurated at a ceremony on 3 October 2017 in the presence of France Marquet Principal Trustee of the Madanjeet Singh Foundation The Chair aims to promote the values of the UNESCOMadanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and NonViolence to contribute to fostering a culture of inclusion rights and citizenship and to strengthen the values of tolerance and nonviolence at universities and higher education institutions including teacher training institutions in Chile and Latin America The Chairholder Professor Francisco Javier Estévez Valencia is the colaureate of the 2014 edition of the Prize Historian and the Executive Director of the Museum of Human Rights and Memory in Chile he started his nonviolent struggle for human rights and democracy during the years of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and became one of the wellknown leaders of the democratic resistance of young Chileans As coordinator of the Cinta Amarilla citizen campaign he contributed to the abolition of the death penalty in Chile in 2001 and to the removal from the public space of monuments symbolizing the military regime France Marquet and Francisco Javier Estévez Valencia met with Michelle Bachelet Jeria President of Chile on 6 October 2017 and visited the Ministry of Education and the UNESCO National Commission for Chile The UNESCOMadanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and NonViolence was established in 1995 on the occasion of the United Nations Year for Tolerance and the 125th anniversary of the birth of Mahatma Gandhi It is awarded every two years to individuals or institutions for their outstanding contribution to the promotion of tolerance and nonviolence and aims to advance the spirit of tolerance in the arts education culture science and communication