As a guide, here are some of the activities that you can help organize:

1. Use mass media, including newspapers, radio, television and social media, to draw attention to World Habitat Day celebrations. If possible, issue press releases, display posters, organize press conferences, broadcast video, audio spots and online media.
2. Highlight the problems and opportunities on this year’s theme, which envisions a sustainable urban world through exhibitions, events and discussions with policy makers including government officials, academics, journalists, other professionals, and community representatives.
3. Organize public information campaigns and use popular theatre to create awareness of the problems and issues.
4. Use the occasion to publicize, reward and demonstrate tangible improvements and best practices in ensuring a sustainable urban world that harnesses potentials and possibilities, mitigates inequalities and disparities, and provides a home for people of all cultures and ages, both rich and poor in your community.
5. Organize competitions to find solutions to human settlements and urban problems. Essay and painting competitions help create awareness and enhance the World Habitat Day theme in schools and colleges.
6. Organize fund raising, recreational or entertainment activities like football matches, or concerts, and use the proceeds to upgrade and extend services for poor communities.
7. Encourage postal authorities to issue special World Habitat Day stamps.
8. Encourage the introduction urban sustainability and shelter aspects into the school curriculum of teaching programmes.

UN-HABITAT support

To support city and country-level activities, UN-HABITAT will compile an information kit including a poster, and a short video on the theme for use by any partner planning a World Habitat Day event. Information kits are mailed to our partners including governments, inter-governmental organizations, private sector and non-governmental organizations and United Nations agencies, information offices and country offices.

Keep us informed

Please let us know if you wish to organize a local awareness-raising event by sending an e-mail to whd@unhabitat.org providing as many details as possible about the event. And once World Habitat Day is over, please provide us brief details of your event including media coverage and photographs if possible. We will post these on the World Habitat Day page of our website www.unhabitat.org, which receives millions of visitors. We will also include them in the final World Habitat Day report, which is sent to all our partners.