Despite giving a specific number does not seem achievable, it is calculated that there are around 7,000 languages in the world.
This would sound wonderful, if it were not for the fact that only 600 of them, approximately, have more than 100,000 speakers, what compromises their permanence on the medium term. Actually, to be more specific, about 2,000 of those languages have less than 1,000 speakers.

On the other hand, the languages with more native speakers are Mandarin Chinese, Spanish, English and Arab, and the languages with the most speakers (do not mistake for native speakers) are English, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi and Spanish, in that order.

​According to Wikipedia, our long-time friend, ‘International Mother Language Day, is a worldwide annual observance hold on 21 February to raise awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and promote multilingualism.
It was Bangladesh who proposed it to the United Nations, arranging the date to match the anniversary of the fight for recognition of the Bangli Language happened in 1952.

This day has been observed annually for, as today, 19 years (since 2000), with different mottos each year, being the one for this year: ‘Indigenous languages matter for development, peace building and reconciliation’, as this is the year of the Indigenous Languages, according to the UNESCO.

Truth be told, as a Spanish native speaker myself, I have been told several times that English is the [only] language that matters, since business are done and deals are made in that language.

Should we delete all literature in other languages? Should we delete the culture beneath each language, the meaning of thousands, even millions of words, and the language we identify the most with, to just speak English in name of progression?

Don’t take me wrong, I think speaking English eases communication tremendously, and makes possible for people like me (who do not speak Greek whatsoever) to do an EVS here, or to a German person who does not speak Italian at all to carry out the same program in Italy.

It is just that I think no one should renounce to their mother language, even if it has as many as 1,000 speakers. In Spain people from secluded areas have a strong conviction about this and speak languages such as ‘leonés’ or ‘aragonés’ on top of speaking Spanish.

For all these reasons, such as boosting linguistic and cultural diversity, spreading out our mother tongue or inspiring solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue, it is important to hold this annual observance.

For this, and much more: ¡Feliz día de la lengua materna!
 
Alba San Juan Gudiña

Sources:
https://en.unesco.org/events/international-mother-language-day-2019-opening-event-unesco-hq
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mother_Language_Day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

 Nacemos y nos enseñan una lengua, a veces incluso dos, raro son los casos de tres...
Sin embargo, el tiempo pasa y la sociedad nos va demandando cada vez que estemos mas preparados, que sepamos cuantos más idiomas mejor, y es verdad, así siempre será más fácil comunicarnos con el resto de mundo... Pero creo que como nos expresamos, como nos sentimos hablando nuestra  lengua materna es muy difícil hacerlo en otro idioma...  
Por ello, por ser nosotros mismos, por la historia, la tradición, la cultura... conservemoslas, que no se extingan y queden en el olvido.
¡Comparte la tuya!
 

I have written my article in Spanish because is my Mother Language, but here you have the translation, although for me it doesn’t sound as well as in Spanish =)  
 
The International Day of the Mother Language
 
We born and our parents teach us a language, sometimes even two, rare are the cases of three ...
However, time passes and the society demands us to be better prepared, to know as many languages as we can, and it is true, it’s very usefull and it will be easier to communicate with the rest of the world ... But I think that as we express ourselves in our original language, how we feel speaking it, is very difficult to do in another language ...
So for that, to be ourselves, for the history, the tradition, the culture... we should keep them and that they do not become extinct and forgot.
Let's share them!

Rakel Colás Gorricho
 

"We need love, and to ensure love, we need to have full employment, and we need social justice. We need gender equity. We need freedom from hunger. These are our most fundamental needs as social creatures."
- David Suzuki

World wide about 2 billion people live in a unstable and conflict ridden situation, of whom the majority by far consists of young people under 29.
They suffer under unemployment, bad labour conditions, low wages, discrimination and or persecution.

For that exact reason the world day of social justice is held, yearly on the 20.th of february.
The day promotes the implementation of the principles of social justice and raises awareness on problems that can be solved through social justice.
The theme for 2019 is: “If You Want Peace & Development, Work for Social Justice”
It urges people world wide to fight for job creation, better working conditions and higher wages for the bottom 40%, to ensure a more equal and peaceful environment.

For myself, being born in to a very privileged position, I do not suffer under these problems, but still I am for more equality and more social justice and I think everybody should fight for this cause regardless of their status, position and privilege.
If we work together we can achieve the goal of defeating conflict and suffering and make the world a more equal place.

-Bjarne Hundt

Sources: http://www.un.org/en/events/socialjusticeday/
http://www.un.org/en/events/socialjusticeday/background.shtml​

Today we are celebrating The International Day of the Radio supported by the United Nations and the chosen topic is “Tolerance, dialogue and peace”.
But... Do you know how the radio appeared in our life to connect us?
A lot of genius developed theories and invents until the radio appeared as we know it nowadays. Here you can see a simple summary about these first years:
 
Firstly, in 1867 James Clerk Maxwell developed the Electromagnetic Theory in which, he predicted the possibility of creating electromagnetic waves and propagating them through space. And it was Heinrich Hertz, 20 years later, when certificated it and showed that building suitable transmitting and receiving devices, it was possible to transmit messages by radio waves instead of wires.
Also Edouard Brandly invented “the coherer”, an apparatus capable of detecting electromagnetic waves and Alexander Popov developed the first antenna,1895. The next year, along with Oliver Lodge transmitted by radio the first Morse signals.
However, Guglielmo Marconi (Italiy) in 1896 was considered the inventor of the radio. He joined all the devices that had been invented before and managed to build the first complete wireless telegraphy system and emitted the first transmission in 1894. After two years he patented it, but it was the 12th December 1901 when he did the first communication transoceanic 3500 km far.
Nevertheless, some people said that Nicola Tesla is the main inventor of the radio because in the same years he did some experiments and were successful, so is not definite clearly that fact, although the official inventor for the history is Marconi.
In 1906, Ernst Alexanderson developed the first alternator to make transmission of speech. In the same year, Reginald Fessenden made the first long range transmission of voice from Brant Rock, Massachusetts
What is more, Lee DeForest is another inventor who is considered the “father of American radio” because with his invention the “Audion” (1907), he could send music from his laboratory to anyone.
The first radio station with a regular programme started in 1921 in the the city of Pittsburgh la KDKA. And for 1950 had appeared the transistor, created by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and Wiliam Shockley.
 
As you can read and investigate, there were a lot of collaborators in the invention of the radio and maybe is not very clear the history of that. However, we can be very thankful to have and enjoy it; to turn it on an listen the song that you were waiting for or maybe the song that bring to your mind some old memories; or to hear the daily internationals or local news, but always it makes you feel well informed even if you don’t have time; or just to enjoy the programs that help you to understand a bit more the world in which we are; and overall, to feel accompanied.
 
Moreover, through the history of the radio we can find lots of curiosity and funny facts as the followings: 
Do you know that ...?
               -The first message in 1886 was an energy transfer in form of spark.
               -The first sound signal reached up to 250 meters away.
               -In 1899, the ship's crew, R. F. Mathews was saved after reporting on the radio that they had hit a lighthouse.
               -The first radio phonic transmission was a Christmas greeting and the song “O Holy Night” played by the same Fessenden with his violin and read a passage from the Biblie. And all it was with an antenna of 128 m.
               -In 1920 the British company Marconi Wireless emitted a concert of classic music.
               -In 1921 the Torre Effiel was used as antenna for the TSF radio in París, and some people said that The Eiffel Tower was supposed to be scrapped but survived because the military started using it as a radio tower.
               -The first portable radio weighted 10 kg and it cost 180$.
               -In 1922 a guy from Philadelphia used it in his car and for 1927 was famously the “Philo Transitore” as the radio for the cars.
               -Until 1921 the radio station didn’t exist, so who had a radio needed one antenna of 10 m in his garden.  
               -The Armed Forces of Colombia commissioned a pop song that included a Morse code message to kidnapped military personnel, “19 people rescued, you’re next. Don’t lose hope”, because the kidnappers would let their captives listen to the radio.

Sources:
-https://www.hiru.eus/es/medios-de-comunicacion/historia-de-la-radio
-https://www.curiosfera.com/historia-de-la-radio/
-https://965thebull.iheart.com/content/2018-08-20-fun-facts-about-radio-for-national-radio-day/
-https://www.kickassfacts.com/radio-facts
-https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Portada
                                                                                                          
Raquel Colas Gorricho

International Day of Women and Girls in Science

In my opinion it is a really difficult topic because the practice is often done by family members or even the mother, who has faced all this infections and got hurt. It is something, which has no exactly origin but is given from one generation to the other. The first step is to inform the people by doing events and other activities. In order to stop FGM as fast as possible the United Nations decided also to introduce the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation, which is celebrated every year on 6th of February.   
 
Sources:
http://www.un.org/en/events/femalegenitalmutilationday/sgmessage.shtml?fbclid=IwAR13NyT8fdehcDY-xu9uA0f9dyBLpLUZM-qEX_12hT_y5a0ZFRHBNnXi8-o
 

Anastasios Veligradis

If you want to be more informed about the subject, I recommend you to visit the official website of the World Cancer Day to be aware: https://www.worldcancerday.org/ ​

Sources : https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323648.php
https://www.worldcancerday.org/
https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/primer/basics/cell
https://www.passionsante.be/index.cfm?fuseaction=art&art_id=16974
https://www.wcrf.org/dietandcancer/recommendations/during-after-cancer
https://www.e-cancer.fr/Dictionnaire/C/chimiotherapie
https://www.passeportsante.net/fr/Maux/Problemes/Fiche.aspx?doc=cancer_sein_pm
https://www.passeportsante.net/fr/Maux/Problemes/Fiche.aspx?doc=cancer_poumon_pm