The Secretariat of the International Commission initiated the marking of November 16 -International Tolerance Day – in Lithuania. More than 1,300 educational institutions joined the initiative this year.
The core idea for Tolerance Day 2021 is the City of Tolerance. The Secretariat of the International Commission invited educational institutions to use this symbol for developing creative pieces of work, to create a real or imagined tolerant city, paying attention to people-to-people relations and cases of tolerance/intolerance.
The organizers suggested focusing on and analyzing historic examples of how in totalitarian states, such as the Nazis Germany, or the Soviet Union, it was unacceptable for a society to be made up of different people with different opinions, different values, etc. Such societies had no room for different people or those who felt different.
The 16th of November has been celebrated in many democracies since 1995 when UNESCO declared it International Day of Tolerance. The Secretariat of the International Commission has been observing this day every year since 2003. The commemoration of the International Day for Tolerance is part of the International commission’s program on education for the crimes of totalitarian regimes, the prevention of crimes against humanity, and the development of tolerance.
