The Asia South Pacific Association for Basic and Adult Education (ASPBAE) celebrates its 50^th anniversary in 2014. Founded by a small group of passionate adult education practitioners on 30 January 1964 in a UNESCO regional workshop in Sydney, Australia, ASPBAE has grown to a more than 200 strong membership-based organisations, with members operating in 33 countries in the Asia Pacific region.

The theme for ASPBAE’s 50^th anniversary year is ASPBAE at 50: Daring to Persist. Transforming Lives with Lifelong Learning.

ASPBAE will commemorate this momentous occasion through celebratory events in the region, national consultations involving the active involvement of its members, and with a series of communication tools that highlight ASPBAE’s journey over the last 50 years and that also capture people’s journey with the organisation and with the adult education movement.

ASPBAE’s 50^th anniversary coincides with the period when the global community debates the new development and education agenda. In this process, ASPBAE offers an important role in bridging global and regional processes with national and local responses and action, and in enhancing civil society capacities to engage their governments on issues such as the right to education, education quality, lifelong learning, equitable access, and education financing.

The 50^th anniversary celebrations will culminate in a Festival of Learning to be held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, in November 2014. The Festival of Learning will bring together individual members, organisations, networks, and coalitions who are a part of ASPBAE to creatively share, learn, and agree on advocacy asks and a plan of action to be championed at the World Education Forum in Korea in 2015.

Importantly, the Festival of Learning will be an opportunity for ASPBAE and all those associated with it to pledge to continue working towards quality education and lifelong learning opportunities beyond 2015.

You can visit ASPBAE’s website at www.aspbae.org for regular updates on the 50^th anniversary events. You can also know more by subscribing to the monthly Bulletin by writing to ASPBAE’s Information and Communications Coordinator, Medha Soni, at [email protected].