We’re reaching the end of 2013 — and the end of this year’s calendar of special anniversaries declared by the UN and other international bodies. In these pages we have highlighted some of these anniversaries and events that we feel are especially relevant to Friends of Londiani and its supporters. And a surprising number are very relevant: from International Volunteer Day to the Year of International Water Cooperation, from World AIDS day to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. As the year winds down therefore, we’d like to highlight one last anniversary — an anniversary that ends the events calendar on what we hope is a positive — or at least hopeful — note: International Human Solidarity Day. International Human Solidarity Day takes place this Friday, the 20th of December. As the UN General Assembly recognised in 2005, solidarity is one of the fundamental and universal values that should underlie relations between peoples in the 21st century. So the UN declared a special day to highlight that fact, a day with a number of important aims: a day to remind governments to respect their commitments to international agreements; a day to raise public awareness of the importance of solidarity; a day to encourage debate on the ways to promote solidarity for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals including poverty eradication; and a day of action to encourage new initiatives for poverty eradication. A day, in short, to celebrate our unity in diversity. You can find out more about this day — and the associated World Solidarity Fund — at http://www.un.org/en/events/humansolidarityday/. And let’s hope that we move closer to achieving its aims in the coming year.