Hello from Paris! My name is Maha Malik and I am one of the 2022 GW UNESCO Fellows. I am currently completing my fellowship in Paris, France at UNESCO Headquarters.
I work in the Global Citizenship and Peace Education (GCP) section where there is an incredible amount of interesting work going on. Some of the topics the section works in are education for the prevention of violent extremism, education for addressing violent pasts and for the prevention of genocide, hate speech, digital citizenship, culture and arts, conspiracy theories, and of course, global citizenship education and peace education. I had free rein to work on the projects I am interested in, so I am lucky to contribute a little bit to everyone’s work.
Two big things that go on at headquarters are publications and attending/hosting events. For example, I arrived right near the beginning of the Executive Board meeting. This meeting is when representatives from UNESCO member states convene at headquarters to update and discuss their accomplishments, their needs, what UNESCO should focus their work on, and to update legislative/legal documents. It provides a birds-eye view to what each country’s priorities and needs are.
During the Executive Board Meeting, they hoist all of the country flags outside of the building.
I attended one of the Executive Board meeting sessions that was being moderated by Princess Haifa bint Abdulaziz Al-Mogrin of Saudi Arabia.
About two weeks after I arrived, UNESCO hosted the 30th anniversary celebration of the UNESCO/UNITWIN Chairs conference. This was a two-day event that convened about 600-700 UNESCO Chairs from all around the world, including IEP Faculty, Dr. Engel!
For this conference, the GCP section hosted two side-events, one for UNESCO Chairs related to Global Citizenship Education (GCED) and the other for UNESCO Chairs related to the prevention of genocide.
I was most heavily involved with the UNESCO Chairs on GCED event by drafting the Chief of Section’s talking points and presentation, and helping with the room set-up and technical components. Afterwards, I created the reports for both the UNESCO Chairs on GCED meeting and the UNESCO Chairs on the prevention of Genocide meeting.
Dr. Engel and I during the UNESCO/UNITWIN conference. This picture was taken in UNESCO’s vegetable garden that has a beautiful view of the Eiffel tower!
One of my favorite parts of the internship has been meeting and interacting with interns from all different countries.
The room where I sit is representative of many countries – Italy, Belgium, China, Austria, Singapore, Portugal, Germany, and myself from the United States!
The ability to meet, work with, and learn from people from all over the world is one of my favorite parts about being at headquarters.
UNESCO’s canteen, where we eat lunch everyday, also has a stunning view of the Eiffel tower!
Some of the other interns I have met while at UNESCO thus far. Five countries represented in one picture!
This being the first time I am in Paris; I am enjoying trying traditional French food. I have long heard about the amazing croissants and baguettes France has to offer (in fact, UNESCO recently declared the baguette as intangible cultural heritage), and I am pleased to say that I eat croissants and baguettes almost everyday.
Some other traditional French foods I have tried:
Ratatouille
Escargot
One last thing I would like to mention before I end this post is that the workdays here are long and staying late is normal. In the beginning I found myself at the office until 730pm/8 quite a bit because of the amount of work. I will speak more on some of the specific projects in my next post.
For now, here is a picture I took of UNESCO after one of the late nights at the office. Walking out to this view never gets old:
Au revoir for now!