The UNESCO-UV Chair for Global Education emerged from the proposal of the Università di Messina (Italy), in collaboration with the Gandhi Centre (Italy) and the Operazione Colomba (Italy). Its aim is to incorporate other Mediterranean universities and to establish collaboration networks between universities and different organizations of the civil society (secondary education centres, Development NGOs and associations with national and international relevance such as UNICEF, Save The Children, ACNUR, etc.).

This project responds to the current need of promoting the peace, the interculturality and the sustainable development in the area of the Mediterranean, a plural political, economical and social reality. The Mare Nostrum is a cradle of civilizations, the maritime silk road since the antiquity, a place of wars, myths and legends, a mix of languages and of different cultures and religions. Nowadays, the Mediterranean is also a huge blue graveyard and, at the same time, a hope of life, as each year hundreds of migrants try to reach the coasts of European countries, as Italy or Spain, to make real the rightful life project they have always dreamt of.

The diversity of the Mediterranean is the foundation of identity, a vector of development and a reconciliation instrument. It represents the common heritage required to establish a pluralist society, one that integrates marginalized groups and promotes interfaith dialogue, mutual understanding and coexistence, honouring human rights without borders.

Our UNESCO-UV Chair for Global Education in the Mediterranean intends to slow down the current attempts to discredit the culture of peace, question the equal human dignity and overshadow the ethical values that underlie our democratic societies. Therefore, it assumes the ethical and political validity of a broad interculturality programme in a more than ever globalized world, which demands internationally coordinated action before indisputably human, global and shared problems such as the exclusion, the rejection of the impoverished and the different ones and the environmental degradation.

It is an historic, unprecedented opportunity for the countries and the citizens of the world to decide together the paths that should be taken in order to improve people’s lives, no matter where they live. Nevertheless, this extraordinary opportunity demands a great effort from political and economical institutions as well as from the citizens and the secondary education institutions. Only through a synergetic relationship and an interdisciplinary collaboration is it possible to contribute to the approach of a global and peaceful society, one that is both respectful of fundamental human rights and sustainable, taking into account justice and the well-being of present and future generations.