Yesterday afternoon the little-head-from National Commission for UNESCO held a meeting at the new Skills Training Center on Magazine Road– where they distributed cheques to 3 different organizations. The recipients were the Belize Red Cross, Help Age and the Fisheries Department. We found out how the money will be used:
Rev. Dr Rudolph Anthony - Secretary General, UNESCO
"This afternoon's meeting is actually to try and bring the National Commission together because for a long time the National Commission for UNESCO was dormant, was ineffective and wasn't working. So what I'm trying to do is to renew and to bring them back together because the National Commission for UNESCO plays a vital role in terms of assisting, implementing and planning and certain issues for UNESCO Belize. They also help and assist in liaising with the office in Paris, France and also the government of Belize. But apart from the National commission, I am also bringing together the five committees that are under UNESCO Belize that are also dormant. Those five committees are education, culture, information and communication, the natural science and social and human science.
What UNESCO also does is they have a program called the participation project and each country around the world about 192 countries that are under the banner of UNESCO and each country could apply for 10 small projects. Those projects would have to be sent to Paris, France to be approved so what the 5 committees do also is when we get these projects we would advertise and these projects would come in. The five committees, depending in what area the project is in let's say there are 5 projects in culture and 6 in education and 6 in information and communication and sciences -then we would send those projects to the different committees and then they would choose the best two from each and then we would send those projects. The secretary general of UNESCO Belize would stamp them and send them to Paris - ten of them and they would approve them. Each project is worth up to $26,000usd but some of the projects don't really get that - it all depends on when UNESCO Paris goes through and see the projects and their needs and then they decide how much they will give to each organizations."
