Management Department Chief to Officiate at Inauguration of United Nations Learning Centre for Multilingualism and Career Development, 23 May

Yukio Takasu, Under-Secretary-General for Management, will officiate at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the recently built United Nations Learning Centre for Multilingualism and Career Development, to be held at Headquarters at 10 a.m. on 23 May.

Escorting Mr. Takasu will be Carole Wainaina, Assistant-Secretary-General for Human Resources, and Victor Kisob, Director of the Department of Management’s Learning, Development and Human Resource Services Division, who will serve as master of ceremonies.

The Centre is located in the third basement of the former North Lawn Building, and serves as the home of the Language and Communications Programme and the Career Resource Centre, both managed by the Office of Human Resources/Department of Management.

A spacious, state-of-the art facility, it is equipped with a Career Resource Centre, computer labs, a meeting room and many classrooms, all furnished with large computer monitors and software applications that allow for innovation in teaching and interactive participation among the learners.  TV5Monde, a global television network broadcasting several channels of French-language programming, has contributed pedagogical resources to the new space to support such new teaching methods.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony will also commemorate the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, whose platform stresses the need for people and organizations worldwide “to combat polarization and stereotypes to improve understanding and cooperation among people from different cultures”.

Every day at the Learning Centre is a world day for cultural diversity.  More than 2,000 learners from within the global Secretariat, and from the 193 Permanent Missions to the United Nations, will use the facility each trimester as they participate in language and communication skills training in the six official United Nations languages — Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Spanish and Russian.  As such, the facility will advance the Organization’s goals of spreading multilingualism and multiculturalism “as a means of promoting, protecting, and preserving diversity of language and cultures globally” (document A/RES/69/324).

The Learning Centre will also host other types of learning and career-support programmes, such as management training, and programmes related to cultural diversity and gender equality, among others.  Local and international staff in field missions, regional commissions and offices away from Headquarters can participate in many of its workshops and courses online.