Int’l Friendship Day today

DHAKA, Aug 4: International Friendship Day is being celebrated today (Sunday) in the country as elsewhere in the world with due festivity.

Friendship’s Day is a day that is celebrated for friends on the first Sunday in the month of August.

 

The exchange of Friendship Day gifts like flowers, cards and wrist bands is a popular tradition of the occasion in many Asian countries, including Bangladesh.

 

It is a day for celebrating friendship. The day has been celebrated in several southern South American countries for many years, particularly in Paraguay, where the first World Friendship Day was proposed in 1958.

Friendship Day celebrations occur on different dates in different countries. The idea of a World Friendship Day was first proposed on 20 July 1958 by Dr. Artemio Bracho during a dinner with friends in Puerto Pinasco, a town on the River Paraguay about 200 miles north of Asuncion, Paraguay.


On April 27, 2011, the General Assembly of the United Nations declared July 30 as the official International Friendship Day.

However, some countries, including Bangladesh and India celebrate Friendship Day on the first Sunday of August.

Friendship Day was originally promoted by Joyce Hall, the founder of Hallmark cards in 1919, intended to be the 2nd August and a day when people celebrated their friendships by sending cards.

In honor of Friendship Day in 1998, Nane Annan, wife of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, named Winnie the Pooh as the world’s Ambassador of Friendship at the United Nations.

The event was co-sponsored by the U.N. Department of Public Information and Disney Enterprises, and was co-hosted by Kathy Lee Gifford.