Following a speech by the Mayor Zoltán the Conference wasopened by Christopher Clouder who spoke of the value of thediversity of the cultures assembled and the strength it gives to ourindividual and universal efforts. We are living in an age of great opportunity as well as great insecurity and children “should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be: the ‘unknown person’ inside each of them is the hope for the future” (Janusz Korczak). *Geseke Lundgren continued this theme with herlecture, ‘Development Towards Freedom: Childhoodas the Source of Creativity’. She began with thisthought: “In order to be able to meet needs we don’tknow will exist, to solve problems we don’t yet have,to be able to think in a way we cannot imagine today,how can we possibly prepare the children of today tobe the generation of tomorrow and create a better world?”