November 16 is International Tolerance Day and UAE is taking this chance to celebrate it with a week-long festival. For the first time ever, the UAE Ministry of Tolerance holds its first National Festival of Tolerance in the country from November 9 to 16.

The activities will also highlight the principles and values of the founding father late Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan in co-ordination with the Year of Zayed being celebrated this year.

The International Day of Tolerance was first observed in 1996 as per a United Nations declaration. 1995 was also observed as the Year of Tolerance by UN.

Keeping up with international events decades later, the UN has launched a new campaign to promote tolerance, respect and dignity across the world - Together.

The campaign aims at increasing awareness specifically about tolerance towards refugees and migrants, and combating negative perceptions towards these affected groups of people across the world and in host countries.

In Abu Dhabi, UAE Foreign Minister Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Indian Ambassador to the UAE Navdeep Singh Suri were joining joining the walk at the Umm Al Emarat Park in Abu Dhabi on Friday evening. They had a closer look at a replica of the spinning wheel, a symbol of self-reliance promoted by Mahatma Gandhi during the India's freedom struggle.

The event marks the opening of the Tolerance Week celebration in Abu Dhabi. VTV Damodaran, an NRI and president of Gandhi Sagitta Vedi, an organisation promoting Gandhian ideas in the UAE capital, demonstraed the wheel to the Shaikh. Damodaran brought the spinning wheel from Payyanur in Kerala, a small town where Gandhi had visited in 1930s.

SOURCE : GULFNEWS