Each year on April 7th, the world recognises World Health Day.
World Health Day marks the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO) and is an opportunity to raise awareness of key global health issues and marks the importance of health for productive and happy lives. Every year there is a different theme to the day – this year’s focuses on urbanisation and health: with the campaign “1000 cities – 1000 lives”, events will be organized worldwide calling on cities to open up streets for health activities.

Member states of the UN have pledged to meet the Millennium Development Goals by the year 2015 to deuce child mortality, improve maternal health and combat HIV?AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

Easter is the most important festival in the Christian calendar.
It is the commemoration of Jesus’s death and his rising from the dead, also known as the resurrection. It comes at the end of Lent. The week leading up to it is called Holy Week. Christianity tells us that Jesus was crucified on the cross and died on Good Friday. He was rose from the dead on Sunday, known as Easter Day. But, as the West has become more secular, for some, Easter has become a time to celebrate with chocolate Easter Eggs and little religious ceremony. Bunnies (baby rabbits) are a symbol of Easter. Eggs and bunnies are symbols left over from pagan celbrations of Spring.

Magha is the third lunar month of the old Indian calendar.
It usually falls somewhere toward the end of February or end of March. Magha Puja Day is considered one of the most important Buddhist celebrations.  It commemorates the day on which Buddha recited the “Ovadha Patimokkha” (the Fundamental Teaching) to his disciples. The origins of this festival tell the story of a spontaneous gathering of 1250 fully enlightened monks, who came from separate parts of the countryside,. They had all quite independently decided to go and visit the Buddha and assembled on the full moon day of Magha in the Bamboo Grove at Rajagaha where the Buddha was living. All of these monks were disciples of the Buddha – having been ordained by him. It wa at this time that the Buddha declared that he would pass away in three months time.

Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) is one of the most important
festivals in the Jewish year. It is the occassion when Jewish people remember how they were led away from slavery and out of Egypt towards the Promised Land. Also, the Passover is one of the three national feasts of Israel that were commanded by God that Israel as a nation commemorate annually, and they are; Passover, Shavuot (the feast of weeks also know in the Christian world as Pentecost) and Succot (the feast of tabernacles). A special service called Seder (Order) takes place over a meal around a table in a home. 

Today I’d really like you to spend a few minutes to think about your use –
or most probably wastage – of water.  Annually, the United Nations designates this day as World Water Day as an opportunity for the world to think about the Environment and our impact upon the natural world. Interestingly for me, last year’s theme was water and culture which drew attention to the fact that “there are as many ways of viewing, using, and celebrating water as there are cultural traditions around the world.”  This year’s theme is “Clean Water for a Healthy World” – the overall goal is to raise the profile of water quality at the political level so that water quality considerations are made alongside those of water quantity. It is still a reality that an estimated 1.1 billion people rely on unsafe drinking-water sources.

So, today, instead of drinking your tea or coffee, raise a glass of water and celebrate how lucky we are to be able to drink good, clean and healthy water.

Naw-Rúz (New Day) is the traditional celebration
of the Iranian New Year and is celebrated throughout many countries of the Middle East and Central Asia: Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. For countries outside of the Middle East, the date has been fixed as 21st March, but traditionally it falls at the spring equinox. Originally it is one of the nine holy days of the Bahá’í Faith and is a work holiday.

International Women’s Day is a global day to celebrate the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.  The first IWD was launched by a woman named Clara Zetkin (German) in 1911. In some places like China, Russia, Vietnam and Bulgaria, IWD is a national holiday. However, the plight of women and the hardship they still face in many countries is highlighted by many organisations – see below.

Global issues facing women include:

Official  International Women’s Day site – see how you can help bring about change in the world.

Photograph by web/graphic designer Melanie Cook, used with permission. Thank you!

The coming of Spring is celebrated in the Hindu religion over
several days during the Festival of Colours – called Holi. Holi is a time for fun rather than religious observance. It is the most vibrant Indian festival, when distinctions of caste, class, age or gender are set to one side. The practical jokes and games that surround Holi are thought to arise from the belief that the origin of the festival lies with Krishna who was very mischievous as a young boy and threw coloured water over the gopis (milkmaids) with whom he is believed to have grown up.

Cross-cultural differences in colour meanings are sometimes the least of our worries when communicating internationally. I have just finished off an article which is to appear in the next edition of Winning EDGE magazine for the Insitute of Sales and Marketing. In it, I caution marketers to know their target audience as different cultures ascribe various meanings to colours. How easy is it to convey the wrong meaning by getting colour choice wrong?

White in the west symbolises brides, angels, good guys versus funerals and death in the East; black in the West symbolises death, funerals and bad guys versus a colour for young boys in China and restoring balance in Chakra energy (Indian medicine). Then I went on a hunt to find out more. This is what I found out…

Chinese New Year is rich in traditions, rituals and folklores.
The celebrations take place over 15 days. It has been said that it is a combination of the US Thanksgiving, and Western Christmas and New Year. This is hardly an exaggeration! The origin of the Chinese New Year itself is centuries old – in fact, they say too old to actually be traced. All agree, however, that the word Nian, which in modern Chinese means “year”, was originally the name of a monster that preyed on people the night before the beginning of a new year. Previously, the Chinese lived in a totally agrarian society and only took a ‘holiday’ once a year after the harvest and before planting new crops. this coincided with the lunar New Year. The Chinese New Year is now popularly known as the Spring Festival because it starts from the Beginning of Spring.