Earlier on this month, Prof. Peter Mayo, who holds the UNESCO Chair in Global Adult Education at the Faculty of Education opened the programme of activities with two global events celebrating the birth centenaries of Paulo Freire and Raymond Williams. The first event was a three day online conference called the Paulo Freire Birth Centenary Fest. It was intended to mark the 100 years of the birth of what can arguably be considered to be the most heralded educator of the twentieth century: Paulo Freire. The event was huge and the line up of presenters, 24 in all, reads like a 'who's who' of Freirean scholarship.
This event was convened by Prof. Mayo, author of a number of books on Freire, renowned on an international level. The event line-up also included scholars such as Carlos Alberto Torres (Freire's collaborator), Donaldo Macedo (a prominent Freire co-author), Anne Hickling Hudson ( leading scholar in comparative education), Ira Shor (prominent Freire co-author), Margaret Ledwith (community development author and practitioner, well known for her Policy Press books on critical community development which engage Freire's ideas), Alicia Cabezudo, Didacus Jules (Coordinator of the mass literacy campaign during the Grenada revolution), Walter Kohan (Argentinian author of a most recent study on Freire), Ali Abdi, Tal Dor, Colin Kirkwood ( community development stalwart and author of a great book on Freire in Scotland) Ines Barbosa ,Ramon Flecha (leading Spanish sociologist and critical pedagogue ), Alessio Surian , Maria Teresa Muraca, and many others. A number of these also hailed from Brazil.
Nita Freire, Paulo Freire's wife, was meant to contribute to the event, but failed to connect because of an unfortunate hitch. She openly supported the event and promptly accepted the invitation to be one of the main speakers. Participation across the world and different time zones was massive. The Maltese presenter at the conference was Dr. Isabelle Gatt, herself well steeped in Boal's Freire-inspired Theatre of the Oppressed. The event was co-convened by Dr. Joseph Vancell who oversaw the smooth operation of the event, especially from the technical side. Currently, he is also editing the recordings of the three day proceedings, so that they will be ready for international circulation.
A second event was held two days after the closure of the Freire Fest. It was a one day birth centenary fest in honour of Raymond Williams. Apart from being a literary scholar, novelist and cultural studies pioneer, he was also an adult educator who taught in the programme of the Oxford Delegacy for Extramural Studies, before finally returning to Cambridge university as a drama tutor. This one day fest was coordinated by Prof. Peter Mayo, UNESCO Chair in Global Adult Education, and Dr. Joseph Vancell.
Presenters during the second fest included Sharon Clancy (Chair of the Raymond Williams Foundation), Lynden West (Christ Church University, a prominent Williams scholar), Emilio Lucio Villegas (University of Seville), Ian Menter (Oxford University, author of an imminently published book on Williams and education, published by Bloomsbury Academic), Eugenio Enrique Cortes Ramires (University of Castilla La Mancha, Cuenca), and Handel Khashope Wright (University of British Columbia, a leading scholar in cultural studies in education, and former incumbent of a Canada Research Chair in the area). Both events were held under the aegis of the UNESCO chair in Global Education and the footage for this event is also being edited, so that it will be ready for international circulation.