The UNESCO Chair in Global Adult Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Malta opened its programme of activities this month with two global events.

The first was a three day online conference titled the Paulo Freire Birth Centenary Fest.  It was intended to mark the 100 years since the birth of arguably the 20th Century's most heralded educator. The event was huge and the line up of presenters, 24 in all, reads like a 'who's who' of Freirean scholarship and critical education. Convened by Peter Mayo, author of a number of books on Freire, it included people such as Carlos Alberto Torres (collaborator of Freire), Donaldo Macedo ( 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 mainstay 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 from Brazil. Nita Freire, Paulo Freire's wife and widow was meant to contribute but failed to connect because of an unfortunate hitch. She openly supported the event and promptly accepted the invitation to speak. Participation across the world and different time zones was great.

The Maltese presenter at the conference was  Isabelle Gatt, herself steeped in Boal's Freire-inspired Theatre of the Oppressed. The event was co-convened by Joseph Vancell who ensured the smooth running of the event especially from the technical side. The recordings of the three day proceedings are being edited by Joseph Vancell for international circulation.

A second fest was held two days after the closure of the Freire Fest.  It was a one day birth centenary fest in honour of Raymond Williams who, apart from being a literary scholar, novelist and cultural studies pioneer, was also an adult educator having taught in the programme of the Oxford Delegacy for Extramural Studies before finally returning to Cambridge University as academic in drama.

This one day fest was coordinated by  Peter Mayo, UNESCO Chair in Global Adult Education, and Joseph Vancell. Presenters included Sharon Clancy, Chair of the Raymond Williams Foundation and academic at the University of Nottingham, Lynden West (prominent Williams 's scholar), from Christ Church University at Canterbury, Emilio Lucio Villegas from University of Seville, Ian Menter (author of an imminently published book on Williams and education by Bloomsbury Academic), Oxford University, Eugenio Enrique Cortes Ramires, University of Castilla La Mancha, Cuenca and Handel Khashope Wright ( cultural studies in education leading scholar and former incumbent of a Canada Research Chair in the area), University of British Columbia (UBC). Again the recordings of the proceedings are being edited for international circulation.