Diverse News 2008®

NEWS FEEDS
Chinese Mondialogo School Contest: Fifty Schools Chosen as Finalists
  * 50 schools at the final of the Mondialogo School Contest in Beijing -
 among them U.S. students from Allison Park (Pennsylvania), Lewisburg (West
                   Virginia) and Land O'Lakes (Wisconsin)
* 36,000 school students from 144 nations have taken part in the Mondialogo
                          School Contest 2007/2008

    STUTTGART, Germany and PARIS, Aug. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- The finalists for
the Mondialogo School Contest 2007/2008 have been decided. Daimler and
UNESCO have announced the 50 best schools at the UNESCO headquarters in
Paris. Participants from a total of 36 countries will be represented at the
final, among them three schools from the USA. The A. W. Beattie Career
Center, the Greenbrier East and the Conserve School have made it to the
final with its partners from the Syrian Arab Republic, Benin and Egypt. The
teams with American involvement (see list below) have been working on
projects dealing with the topics of cultural diversity and war & peace. In
each team students from two schools in different countries have been
working together.

    Key criteria for the nomination were the intensity of the intercultural
dialogue between the partner teams and the creative implementation of the
projects. Areas of special focus in the current competition are "sport and
fair play," "sustainable future" and "cultural identity." The 50 nominated
teams are invited to Beijing/China from 25 to 28 September 2008. Here, the
partner teams will meet in person for the first time and present their
projects to an international jury. The jury will select the best three and
announce the winners at a festive Award Ceremony.

    This year 2,740 school teams with a total of 36,000 school students
between the ages of 14 and 18 from 144 countries took part. More than one
third of the project groups come from Europe (980 schools, 35%) followed by
596 teams from the Asia and Pacific region (22%), 524 schools from Latin
America and the Caribbean (19%), 356 schools from Africa (13%) as well as
237 schools from the Arab states (8%) and 47 schools from North America
(2%).

    The contest, initiated by Daimler and UNESCO in 2003, is the largest
global contest on intercultural dialogue. The aim of this global contest is
to encourage dialogue between school students of different cultural
origins, who work together across continents on a joint project: examples
include musical works, plays, collages, photographic documentation,
sculptures or Internet pages. Through the intercultural project work,
school students are intended to develop understanding, tolerance and
respect for people with different cultures, religions, languages and
origins.

    The Mondialogo School Contest takes place this year for the third time.
Since 2003, a total of 60,000 school students around the world have
participated. Ambassadors of the initiative include the Brazilian author
Paulo Coelho and Swedish writer Henning Mankell. In addition to the school
contest, the Mondialogo initiative includes the Mondialogo Engineering
Award to encourage intercultural dialogue among engineering students and
promote knowledge transfer between industrialized and developing countries.



    For more information: http://www.mondialogo.org

    Nominated teams with US-participation:

    Team:        Kinder Surprise
    City:        Lewisburg, West Virginia
    School:      Greenbrier East High School

    Team:        Beattie
    City:        Allison Park, Pennsylvania
    School:      A.W. Beattie Career Center

    Team:        Internation Conservation
    City:        Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin
    School:      Conserve School
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