UN-HABITAT and its partners held a three-day conference to help senior officials in Southeast Asia gain a better understanding of the agency’s Water for Asian Cities Programme and the idea of bringing the concepts of water conservation, sanitation and hygiene into school classrooms across the region. The three-day regional meeting 21-24 November, follows a cooperation agreement between the agency and the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization on promoting water education. Seminar partners with UN-HABITAT were Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Society for the Preservation of Water, Thailand. Mr. Tran Ba Viet Dzung, Director-General, International Cooperation of the Ministry of Education and Training of Vietnam hailed the conference in a keynote address saying it was a positive step towards fulfilling the mandate set by regional education ministers. The project aims to develop a set procedure for conducting an assessment of water and sanitation facilities in schools with the end-view of encouraging Southeast Asian nations to conduct national surveys, and then help teachers get to grips with bringing the programme into the school curriculum at primary and secondary level. The programme will provide various teaching aids. Other speakers included Mr. Wahdi S. A. Yudhi, Deputy Director of the education ministers’ secretariat, and Mr. Art-Ong Jumsai na Ayudhya, Director of the Society for the Preservation of Water and the Centre for Sathya Sai Education in Thailand, UN-HABITAT officials and other partners.
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