"Is Short News Boring?" 　By Public Relations Committee
Yukio Okusawa, Chairperson of Public Relations Committee

Happy New Year greetings to all! It is a great pleasure to deliver this first Short News of the year to everyone. Despite the year-end rush to wrap-up loose ends and attend to family commitments, many members have sent us articles and helped in editing and sending out this first issue of the new year.

We, the members of Public Relations Committee, produce the English version which has the same content as the Japanese version. The Japanese articles are translated into English by about 10 members, proofread by native English speakers, printed, and mailed to friendship members and all the national embassies in the area. My first dream of the New Year was a realization of my long-time hope of issuing the Short News in Korean, Chinese, French, Arabian, Spanish and Russian languages. But sadly, this was just a dream.

As you may already know, we also publish Short News on our Internet homepage. On our web site, http://www.unesco.or.jp/meguro/ or http://www.meguro-unesco.org/, you can see all the Short News for the past three years. The advantage of the homepage is that we can deliver photographs in beautiful colors at a low cost. Also with the homepage being accessible to anyone, the informational materials about UNESCO, records of lectures, and informational notices are available to people interested in our activities. We have received inquiries from non-members who have sent in applications to become members. There have also been cases where school students have referred to our homepage for their research, and recently, a Japanese magazine requested permission to print the Japanese translation of the "Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity" in their magazine. This declaration was adopted at UNESCO's General Conference in November of 2001 and is said by some people as the second most important declaration following the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". The Japanese translation of this declaration by Meguro UNESCO was used at the "3^rd World Water Forum". We must become aware that we will continue to have wars if we do not recognize the importance of cultural diversity, and the declaration of "Cultural Diversity" was also translated into Japanese by our English translation team. You can find both English and Japanese versions of these declarations on our website.

Meguro UNESCO is proud to be recognized for its high level of translation skills. Especially the recent translation of an NHK radio program interview on the subject of the U.S. return to UNESCO (2-page article in the Short News #201 issue), which was highly praised by the UNESCO Charge de Mission to the Executive Office of the Director-General, Dr. Eiji Hattori (advisor to Meguro UNESCO). With the cooperation of many of our members, we are able to spread the news of our activities to people around the world.

At the end-of-the-year PR Committee meeting, we reflected on the work we did in the past year, and the most common opinion of our members was that "Short News is boring". Members expressed that all the activities organized by Meguro UNESCO are interesting and attractive, but when they appear in the newsletter, they sound boring. Criticisms included the shortage of creative editing and that many articles lacked consideration to capture the reader's interest. I was, in fact, relieved to hear these opinions because it was an indication of the passion our members felt about the Short News. As a result we resolved that each committee member should take the responsibility in creating an interesting Short News that everyone will enjoy reading. I apologize for using this space for internal committee matters, however I promise that our committee will make a big improvement this year.

Meguro UNESCO will celebrate its 50^th anniversary this fall. It is the hope of all members that the next 50 years will finally bring peace to the world. We, as the members of the Public Relations Committee, will give our best efforts to deliver the activities of Meguro UNESCO to our readers in a much more interesting fashion. Please watch over us, and if you have interest or have some ideas for improvement, your participation in our committee will be greatly welcomed.