Thursday chapel was the Salvation Army with the band and a wonderful
liturgical dancer. I think that there are pictures on the facebook page
United Nations Women Adventures. We were all dancing in the aisles and
definitely energized for the day.
The morning briefing was done by Jackie Shapiro, the former chair of
NGOCSW (nongovernment organization of the Commission on the Status of
Women) and Ambassador Gonsalves of El Salvador and Vice Chair of the
Commission.
There are 4 resolutions being debated as well as the Agreed Conclusions:
One on Palestine, one on Malawi, one on natural diasters and one on
HIV/AIDS. At 10 am tomorrow the Commission will adopt the resolutions
and then between 4 and 7 the plan to announce the Agreed Conclusions.
El Salvador has a program and budget to ensure inclusiveness in a public
services ie: they use radios to reach out to rural women and have set
up sites for "one stop shopping" for services including up to 32
services in one site.
The Ambassador explained that UN Women had held regional meetings prior
to the Commission for discussion of the issues in order to make
discussions less contentious in New York. He stated that some countries
had gone back on the agreements that were made at these regional
meetings and were no longer agreeing to previously agreed language
and were slowing down negotiations.
The next speaker was the head of Civil society for UN Women. the
negotiations on Wednesday went from 11 am to 12:45 am with brief meal breaks.
10 paragraphs were discussed and 60 are left. The Executive Director of
UN Women attended as did the Ministers of South Africa and Egypt which
helped to speed things up a bit. She described the vice chair as "heroic"
in her strong desire to move ahead. However "the crucial issue now is
time".
Immediately after the briefing we held a North America/Europe caucus
meeting. We discussed the upcoming meetings on women's issues. One member
brought up the legalities of some member states not following treaties
which they have signed and a discussion ensued on whether the caucus
could do anything about this. Finally it was decided to work on the
Agreed Conclusions by working with our missions and negotiators and
supporting them in any way we can. At the end of the meeting I was
honoured to be asked to consider becoming a co-coordinator of the caucus.
I asked for time to consider this.
At 4:00pm the core group of the SI (Soroptimist International) met in a
hotel room to have an opportunity to visit socially and to discuss the
latest reports from the negotiations. I met some pretty awesome women in
that group and I really enjoyed working with them.
At 6 pm we had an Ecumenical Women debrief at the Episcopal Church
centre. We watched the webinar of Christine Mangale delivering an verbal
"intervention" to the Commission as well as a young woman from the Working Group on Girls speaking. We discussed the lastest release from the
Commission. The day ended with packing because I am going home tomorrow
so that I can go to my daughter's surprise birthday party.
Blessings Judy
Showing posts with label UN Women. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UN Women. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Friday, 14 March 2014
More updates from Judy's week
Day Five
I apologize for not posting last night but this cold is slowing me down some.
Yesterday (Tues) began with Chapel done by the young people and it was awesome. There was singing, clapping, dancing etc. as well as thought provoking scripture. The centre of all our worship services is a door, just a door and frame, sitting in the altar space, sometimes open and sometimes shut.
There was a briefing by the Commission to NGOs at 8:45 and something unheard of until now happened. The Chair of the Commission actually attended the briefing and presented "us" with a hard copy of compilation draft #2. Usually we are scrambling to get a copy of the compilation text and he just handed it to us. I already had an electronic copy about 10 pm Mon evening but what he did changes the tone of the event into a very cooperative atmosphere - it is not "them" in the closed chamber and "us" outside the building trying to figure out what is going on.
After the briefing I journeyed to second Ave. to the Episcopal Church Centre to hear Leymah Gbowee speak. She is one of the two Liberian women who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year and she is an amazing speaker. I thought that I had recorded her speech on my phone but I cannot find it so maybe it did not work. Two quotes from her talk are "Let us do what we profess" and "Good work is bright light and it attracts lots of shadows".
After a quick lunch I headed off to "meet the Canadians" which means meeting the Canadian negotiating team in the UN building itself. They are very good about meeting whoever shows up every day at 1 pm.
However it is a big hike and I guess all the exercise I worked on during the winter is no where near enough. They have moved the entrance to the UN buildings from 45th street to 47th street. So I set out at 12:30 to head over from 44th to 47th, through the entrance and security, through the building to the outside and back to the other building and then all the way across that building, near 42nd. The meeting was good and we heard about the current negotiations as well as a couple of seminars which the Canadians were pushing. I was fortunate enough to negotiate an exit onto 42nd street so that I only had to walk back to 44th street to go to my room and have a nap.
As chair of the advocacy committee, I chaired the "debrief" Tues. At the debrief as many as can, meet and talk about our day and what is happening tomorrow. We meet at 6 pm at the Episcopal Center. I think that it went well.
After the debrief, the Canadian Anglicans had dinner together at "Patsy's" an Italian restaurant. We are not often together all in one place so this was fun. Ellen's husband Tim and daughter joined us as did honorary Canadians Joan and Ross Fraser and Lynnaia Main. Good food and a fun time; delicious calamari.
At dinner I asked everyone to write down the one thing that he or she felt that a Canadian Anglican should say to the Canadian Ambassador. An interestingly diverse set of answers.
We did not get back until about 10 pm so I did my email and played a few games and crashed.
Productive day. Wish I was not so tired.
Blessings Judy
Day Six
As usual Chapel starts at 8 am. We had breakfast in our room this morning from oatmeal I brought .
There is a room on the end of our floor where you can get a complementary breakfast but it is not especially nutritious - cold cereal, pastries, yogurt, and some fruit. Sometimes I go and have yogurt and fruit.They have bread or bagels but their peanut butter is old and dried up.
The hotel is extremely dry and today I scored a humidifier. This is great because the design of the shower does not put steam in the room. By the way - have you ever seen a square toilet? We have square toilets throughout the renovated part of the hotel. Our room looks south I think and our view is the Chrysler building and the Empire State Building.
After Chapel and briefing, the advocacy committee met to start looking at the compilation draft. We met for an hour and then agreed to work on a section each and report back to me.
I returned to my room to have lunch and worked on a draft statement for our meeting at the Canadian Mission tomorrow. I fell asleep around 2 and woke up at 4:30. So much for seminars today. Finished draft one and headed out for a planned "Advocacy" dinner. About 80 people having dinner at the Church Centre, pasta, salad, chicken and grilled vegetables. A nice meal and an opportunity to catch up with some Canadians and some old friends also.
Now I am back in my room and the draft is circulating. For the first time since I got here the TV is on and I will quit working now.
I hear that it may snow here tomorrow. I hope not. It was 55 yesterday and about 45 today.
Blessings Judy
Day Seven
I cannot believe that I have been here 7 days. The time goes by so quickly. We are so busy that you do not realize the time.
Today was blessed. Started with Chapel as usual. Then I went up to the briefing. The tone continues to be very positive and open which is wonderful, and the room was full. Next week there will be less people as many cannot stay for the 2 weeks.
This morning I returned to the Episcopal Centre to hear Lakshmi Puri speak. She is part of UN Women and spoke for nearly an hour. She talked about the Millennium Development Goals and the future beyond 2015 when new goals possibly called Sustainable Development Goals will come into being.
Back to my room to put the finishing touches on our visit to the Canadian Mission this afternoon. I arranged this visit and all of the Canadian Anglicans got a private audience with the Ambassador for 1 hour. He spent some time explaining how things work at the Mission and who works there. We had a prepared statement which he had read before we arrived. I had asked the youth to prepare a 4 or 5 minute presentation as part of our time and they did an awesome job. They talked about access to post secondary education, missing Indigenous women, difficulties for the LGBT community and the problems of stress and other mental health issues in young people.
Our paper talked about poverty and hunger, access to resources and services, access to education, employment and decision making positions and the need to look at violence in a non-gender way ie: violence against a person instead of violence toward women and the need to involve men and boys as well as women and girls in the solution. We had examples from our own experiences to illustrate our points.
We left the Mission quickly because Ecumenical Women were scheduled to have a private audience with the American Mission at 4:30 and we barely had time to get there. This was an excellent meeting and I thanked the mission personnel for their openness and willingness to come to us for this meeting.The meeting lasted nearly 1 1/2 hours.
Immediately after the briefing we held the Ecumenical women debrief which I also chaired. This one was a bit faster because there have been no new drafts of the concluding document and everyone seemed very tired. Alice and I got take out from the Olympia and came back to our room and had a leisurely dinner in our pyjamas and just chatted. Most enjoyable. (I had a craving for meat loaf).
It was cold in New York today and windy, I had to dig out my toque. It will be sunny and warmer tomorrow.
Some of our group left yesterday - I hear they had to stay in Toronto before returning to Muskoka today. More will leave tomorrow. We will miss you all. Caitlin, who has been bunking with her mother til now, will move into our room tomorrow for the next week. Two old fogies and 1 young one.
More tomorrow, Stay warm and safe
Blessings Judy
I apologize for not posting last night but this cold is slowing me down some.
Yesterday (Tues) began with Chapel done by the young people and it was awesome. There was singing, clapping, dancing etc. as well as thought provoking scripture. The centre of all our worship services is a door, just a door and frame, sitting in the altar space, sometimes open and sometimes shut.
There was a briefing by the Commission to NGOs at 8:45 and something unheard of until now happened. The Chair of the Commission actually attended the briefing and presented "us" with a hard copy of compilation draft #2. Usually we are scrambling to get a copy of the compilation text and he just handed it to us. I already had an electronic copy about 10 pm Mon evening but what he did changes the tone of the event into a very cooperative atmosphere - it is not "them" in the closed chamber and "us" outside the building trying to figure out what is going on.
After the briefing I journeyed to second Ave. to the Episcopal Church Centre to hear Leymah Gbowee speak. She is one of the two Liberian women who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year and she is an amazing speaker. I thought that I had recorded her speech on my phone but I cannot find it so maybe it did not work. Two quotes from her talk are "Let us do what we profess" and "Good work is bright light and it attracts lots of shadows".
After a quick lunch I headed off to "meet the Canadians" which means meeting the Canadian negotiating team in the UN building itself. They are very good about meeting whoever shows up every day at 1 pm.
However it is a big hike and I guess all the exercise I worked on during the winter is no where near enough. They have moved the entrance to the UN buildings from 45th street to 47th street. So I set out at 12:30 to head over from 44th to 47th, through the entrance and security, through the building to the outside and back to the other building and then all the way across that building, near 42nd. The meeting was good and we heard about the current negotiations as well as a couple of seminars which the Canadians were pushing. I was fortunate enough to negotiate an exit onto 42nd street so that I only had to walk back to 44th street to go to my room and have a nap.
As chair of the advocacy committee, I chaired the "debrief" Tues. At the debrief as many as can, meet and talk about our day and what is happening tomorrow. We meet at 6 pm at the Episcopal Center. I think that it went well.
After the debrief, the Canadian Anglicans had dinner together at "Patsy's" an Italian restaurant. We are not often together all in one place so this was fun. Ellen's husband Tim and daughter joined us as did honorary Canadians Joan and Ross Fraser and Lynnaia Main. Good food and a fun time; delicious calamari.
At dinner I asked everyone to write down the one thing that he or she felt that a Canadian Anglican should say to the Canadian Ambassador. An interestingly diverse set of answers.
We did not get back until about 10 pm so I did my email and played a few games and crashed.
Productive day. Wish I was not so tired.
Blessings Judy
Day Six
As usual Chapel starts at 8 am. We had breakfast in our room this morning from oatmeal I brought .
There is a room on the end of our floor where you can get a complementary breakfast but it is not especially nutritious - cold cereal, pastries, yogurt, and some fruit. Sometimes I go and have yogurt and fruit.They have bread or bagels but their peanut butter is old and dried up.
The hotel is extremely dry and today I scored a humidifier. This is great because the design of the shower does not put steam in the room. By the way - have you ever seen a square toilet? We have square toilets throughout the renovated part of the hotel. Our room looks south I think and our view is the Chrysler building and the Empire State Building.
After Chapel and briefing, the advocacy committee met to start looking at the compilation draft. We met for an hour and then agreed to work on a section each and report back to me.
I returned to my room to have lunch and worked on a draft statement for our meeting at the Canadian Mission tomorrow. I fell asleep around 2 and woke up at 4:30. So much for seminars today. Finished draft one and headed out for a planned "Advocacy" dinner. About 80 people having dinner at the Church Centre, pasta, salad, chicken and grilled vegetables. A nice meal and an opportunity to catch up with some Canadians and some old friends also.
Now I am back in my room and the draft is circulating. For the first time since I got here the TV is on and I will quit working now.
I hear that it may snow here tomorrow. I hope not. It was 55 yesterday and about 45 today.
Blessings Judy
Day Seven
I cannot believe that I have been here 7 days. The time goes by so quickly. We are so busy that you do not realize the time.
Today was blessed. Started with Chapel as usual. Then I went up to the briefing. The tone continues to be very positive and open which is wonderful, and the room was full. Next week there will be less people as many cannot stay for the 2 weeks.
This morning I returned to the Episcopal Centre to hear Lakshmi Puri speak. She is part of UN Women and spoke for nearly an hour. She talked about the Millennium Development Goals and the future beyond 2015 when new goals possibly called Sustainable Development Goals will come into being.
Back to my room to put the finishing touches on our visit to the Canadian Mission this afternoon. I arranged this visit and all of the Canadian Anglicans got a private audience with the Ambassador for 1 hour. He spent some time explaining how things work at the Mission and who works there. We had a prepared statement which he had read before we arrived. I had asked the youth to prepare a 4 or 5 minute presentation as part of our time and they did an awesome job. They talked about access to post secondary education, missing Indigenous women, difficulties for the LGBT community and the problems of stress and other mental health issues in young people.
Our paper talked about poverty and hunger, access to resources and services, access to education, employment and decision making positions and the need to look at violence in a non-gender way ie: violence against a person instead of violence toward women and the need to involve men and boys as well as women and girls in the solution. We had examples from our own experiences to illustrate our points.
We left the Mission quickly because Ecumenical Women were scheduled to have a private audience with the American Mission at 4:30 and we barely had time to get there. This was an excellent meeting and I thanked the mission personnel for their openness and willingness to come to us for this meeting.The meeting lasted nearly 1 1/2 hours.
Immediately after the briefing we held the Ecumenical women debrief which I also chaired. This one was a bit faster because there have been no new drafts of the concluding document and everyone seemed very tired. Alice and I got take out from the Olympia and came back to our room and had a leisurely dinner in our pyjamas and just chatted. Most enjoyable. (I had a craving for meat loaf).
It was cold in New York today and windy, I had to dig out my toque. It will be sunny and warmer tomorrow.
Some of our group left yesterday - I hear they had to stay in Toronto before returning to Muskoka today. More will leave tomorrow. We will miss you all. Caitlin, who has been bunking with her mother til now, will move into our room tomorrow for the next week. Two old fogies and 1 young one.
More tomorrow, Stay warm and safe
Blessings Judy
Judy's Notes on Phumzile's Opening Remarks for CSW58
In her opening speech, UN Women
Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka highlighted the following:
· In this CSW we also we kick-off
a year-long mobilization for the 20th anniversary and review of the landmark
Beijing Platform for Action. From May
2014 and over a 12-month period into 2015, we will review each of the 12 focus areas that
are part of the Beijing Platform, together with Member States, UN agencies and
civil society groups. This will lead to
national and regional reports culminating in a single global report on the
progress made. The report will be ready by the General Assembly of 2015 for
Heads of State. (NOTE: SI to look into contributing to national reports via UN
Women National Committees)
· The challenge of gender
equality and women’s empowerment is not just a women’s issue. This is an issue
for humanity, which cannot leave out men and boys who are half of
humanity. That is why building up to
Beijing+20, UN Women has launched the He for She campaign so that men and boys
can raise their voices, take a stand and be on the right side of history. We
urge men and boys to come out and embrace the campaign as well as take action
in their own spaces. (NOTE: SI to learn about possible partnerships in the He
for She campaign)
· She emphasised UN Women’s three
key areas for the Post-2015 Agenda:
o
The first is freedom from violence for women and
girls
o
The second is equality in
capabilities – Access to
opportunities and resources. This means
recognizing, reducing and redistributing the burden of unpaid care work;
ensuring equal access to assets and resources such as education, land and
finance; equal pay and working conditions; and guaranteeing sexual and
reproductive health and rights.
o
The third area is equality in agency, voice,
participation and leadership across the full range
of decision-making arenas in public and private institutions.
Wednesday, 12 March 2014
Judy's Early Days in NYC
Day One in New York
Well we are safely here in Manhattan at the Millenium UN Plaza Hotel across from the UN and the Church Centre. This afternoon we went to the UN and got our passes (thanks to the Soroptimists). We unpacked some and then we had dinner with the Primate's delegates from around the world. There are 20 of them, one Canadian, one American, several from Africa, South America, The Phillippines, Samoa, Australia and Scotland. For some it is their first time to the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
Although the actual Commission does not start until Monday, tomorrow the Ecumenical Women are hosting an orientation day. We, the steering committee, must be there at 8 am and registration begins at 8:45.
There are about 150 people registered. The highlight of the day will be a presentation by the Executive Director of UN Women. There is a panel and workshops etc with Chapel in the morning and at the at 4 pm. We end with a reception with wine and snacks around 6. It should be a fun packed day.
The best news is the all my luggage arrived safely, unlike last year AND my daughter is curling in the Ontario Intermediate competition and her team is 4 wins and 1 loss. Great curling ladies.
Well I need to do some more preparation for tomorrow so I need to sign off now.
Blessings Judy
Day Two
Well today is over and I think that we did well in our presentations. In the morning the New Executive Director for UN Women spoke for about 1/2 an hour to a packed chapel. She is very inspirational and very faith based. She arrived in traditional African garb with several in her entourage and ended her presentation by urging us to sing again with enthusiasm.
As chair of the Advocacy Committee for Ecumenical Women my committee and I were responsible for much of the content of our orientation day. Morning and afternoon worship were very rousing and we ended the day marching in the Chapel to " We are marching in the light of God".
After the ED of UN Women spoke we all returned upstairs to hear a panel put together by Christine Mangale of the Lutheran delegation. There were 4 speakers on various aspects related to beyond 2015 and the accomplishments and roadblocks that have been encountered. The chief of the civil society section of UN Women, Lopa Banerjee, was on the panel and gave a great talk on the challenges of post 2015.
Then I spoke for about 1/2 hour on several procedural items and our "talking points" and how to use them. The Talking Points are on a postcard sized piece of card stock and are an abbreviated form of our original statement to the Commission. We will use the talking points when meeting with other groups in negotiating around the concluding document.
In the afternoon we split into 3 workshops.
1. Mission Visits which was a 1 hour presentation on how to arrange and prepare for a meeting with a mission. Here they do not have embassies, but rather missions by a country to the UN.
2. How does your Story fit into the Millenium Development Goals.
3. Looking at the Zero Draft of the agreed conclusions in light of our submission to the Commission in the fall and looking for gaps or overlaps in the document. Again I chaired this section and Alice and Lynnaia helped facilitate small group discussions. People did not seem to want to stop talking so I presume that the discussion was successful.
OK the clocks change tonight and I have a sore throat so it is time to quit
Until tomorrow.
Day Three
For a person who hates early mornings, this junket is a pain. Up at 7 am again and in a cab by shortly after 8 to head to East 7th street for the UN NGO Consultation Day. It is an introduction to our 2 weeks here with speakers, panels, and music. about 900 people were registered. The morning began with Umuada Igbo Massachusettes who are traditional African dancers who got our blood flowing and energized us.
We were welcomed by Soon-Young Yoon, Chair of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/New York. Then the new Executive Director of UN Women and Under-Secretary-General Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka gave a wonderful address.
The panel was on Cities for Sustainable Development and Women's Human Rights - How can cities ensure women's human rights in sustainable development? The speakers were excellent (but I have a bad habit of dozing in large rooms full of people when I am not the teacher....so I missed a little bit.) As I had another activity for the afternoon I left the hall at noon. I missed a panel on the "Legacy of the 1990's UN conferences" and "What do we want from Beijing Plus 20"
I returned to my hotel to attend a training for Soroptimist International on Advocacy. It was fun and educational and it was impossible to fall asleep in as they kept us very engaged. I must lend SI our Advocacy Handbook because they could use one too. We all cleared out of the suite at 6:30 and returned at 7:30 for a reception. Lasagna, sweet and sour Chicken, salads and breads followed by fruit and cookies and accompanied by wine or water (I took the water).
The other significant event today was that I got the hotel to stand by their original quote for my room. When I arrived they were charging much more than the quote. I realized that the room had been upgraded and wireless was now free and there is a complimentary breakfast but I could not see over $400 for some of the nights when my quote ranged from $150 to $271. Thank you "Michael" the manager today.
Finally I want to congratulate my youngest daughter Jennifer who has been curling in the Provincial Intermediates since Wed. She and her team skipped by Sue came second overall with a record of 5 wins and 2 losses. Job well done ladies and CONGRATULATIONS.
I'll be back tomorrow
Blessings Judy
Day Four
Well we are now officially under way, us officially we started long ago.
Chapel at 8 am was wonderful and a great way to start the day. There is no briefing today and since I am feeling a bit under the weather I returned to my room to do some emailing etc and stay quiet. At 12:30 I went to the North America/Europe (NA/EU) caucus. This is a meeting of all the NGOs (non governmental organizations) in the North America/European region. There are other caucuses from other regions. I have never attended a caucus with so many people present, it was awesome. Betty Levy chaired and the mentioned the document which was circulated about 10 days ago as a statement. I helped with the Canadian portion of the paper. Pierette from Geneva has already done a 2 page commentary on the draft agreed conclusions which she presented and the the floor was open to comments. There were comments about poverty, food, immigrants and migrant workers, faith based organizations, sexual/reproductive rights, employment, and more. I commented on the immigrants in the Lindsay jail and about the fact that transportation is not mentioned in the document.
Several informal meetings ensued and I returned to the hotel to have lunch about 2:30.
More emails trying to arrange meetings for tomorrow and a half hour nap and it was time to get ready to go to the reception at the Canadian Mission (the equivalent to an embassy but the UN is not a country). A good reception, wine beer and soda and several trays of excellent food. The Minister for the Status of women from Canada spoke, Kellie Leitch I think) and introduced several other members of the delegation. There are 3 provincial ministers, another MP, and 6 young women sponsored by YWCA. Or YMCA . There is increasing emphasis on young people which is great. We have 3 under 18 and 2 more in their 20s in our group. The world YWCA is quite prominent and I met the Canadian head at the reception. The World Wide Girl Guides are also well represented.
One of the staff recognized me immediately and we chatted and I talked with several other NGO reps.
Back at our room and more work to do and emails to answer. I want to get to bed early to avoid getting overtired and making this throat worse.
Till tomorrow then
Blessings Judy
Well we are safely here in Manhattan at the Millenium UN Plaza Hotel across from the UN and the Church Centre. This afternoon we went to the UN and got our passes (thanks to the Soroptimists). We unpacked some and then we had dinner with the Primate's delegates from around the world. There are 20 of them, one Canadian, one American, several from Africa, South America, The Phillippines, Samoa, Australia and Scotland. For some it is their first time to the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
Although the actual Commission does not start until Monday, tomorrow the Ecumenical Women are hosting an orientation day. We, the steering committee, must be there at 8 am and registration begins at 8:45.
There are about 150 people registered. The highlight of the day will be a presentation by the Executive Director of UN Women. There is a panel and workshops etc with Chapel in the morning and at the at 4 pm. We end with a reception with wine and snacks around 6. It should be a fun packed day.
The best news is the all my luggage arrived safely, unlike last year AND my daughter is curling in the Ontario Intermediate competition and her team is 4 wins and 1 loss. Great curling ladies.
Well I need to do some more preparation for tomorrow so I need to sign off now.
Blessings Judy
Day Two
Well today is over and I think that we did well in our presentations. In the morning the New Executive Director for UN Women spoke for about 1/2 an hour to a packed chapel. She is very inspirational and very faith based. She arrived in traditional African garb with several in her entourage and ended her presentation by urging us to sing again with enthusiasm.
As chair of the Advocacy Committee for Ecumenical Women my committee and I were responsible for much of the content of our orientation day. Morning and afternoon worship were very rousing and we ended the day marching in the Chapel to " We are marching in the light of God".
After the ED of UN Women spoke we all returned upstairs to hear a panel put together by Christine Mangale of the Lutheran delegation. There were 4 speakers on various aspects related to beyond 2015 and the accomplishments and roadblocks that have been encountered. The chief of the civil society section of UN Women, Lopa Banerjee, was on the panel and gave a great talk on the challenges of post 2015.
Then I spoke for about 1/2 hour on several procedural items and our "talking points" and how to use them. The Talking Points are on a postcard sized piece of card stock and are an abbreviated form of our original statement to the Commission. We will use the talking points when meeting with other groups in negotiating around the concluding document.
In the afternoon we split into 3 workshops.
1. Mission Visits which was a 1 hour presentation on how to arrange and prepare for a meeting with a mission. Here they do not have embassies, but rather missions by a country to the UN.
2. How does your Story fit into the Millenium Development Goals.
3. Looking at the Zero Draft of the agreed conclusions in light of our submission to the Commission in the fall and looking for gaps or overlaps in the document. Again I chaired this section and Alice and Lynnaia helped facilitate small group discussions. People did not seem to want to stop talking so I presume that the discussion was successful.
OK the clocks change tonight and I have a sore throat so it is time to quit
Until tomorrow.
Day Three
For a person who hates early mornings, this junket is a pain. Up at 7 am again and in a cab by shortly after 8 to head to East 7th street for the UN NGO Consultation Day. It is an introduction to our 2 weeks here with speakers, panels, and music. about 900 people were registered. The morning began with Umuada Igbo Massachusettes who are traditional African dancers who got our blood flowing and energized us.
We were welcomed by Soon-Young Yoon, Chair of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women/New York. Then the new Executive Director of UN Women and Under-Secretary-General Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka gave a wonderful address.
The panel was on Cities for Sustainable Development and Women's Human Rights - How can cities ensure women's human rights in sustainable development? The speakers were excellent (but I have a bad habit of dozing in large rooms full of people when I am not the teacher....so I missed a little bit.) As I had another activity for the afternoon I left the hall at noon. I missed a panel on the "Legacy of the 1990's UN conferences" and "What do we want from Beijing Plus 20"
I returned to my hotel to attend a training for Soroptimist International on Advocacy. It was fun and educational and it was impossible to fall asleep in as they kept us very engaged. I must lend SI our Advocacy Handbook because they could use one too. We all cleared out of the suite at 6:30 and returned at 7:30 for a reception. Lasagna, sweet and sour Chicken, salads and breads followed by fruit and cookies and accompanied by wine or water (I took the water).
The other significant event today was that I got the hotel to stand by their original quote for my room. When I arrived they were charging much more than the quote. I realized that the room had been upgraded and wireless was now free and there is a complimentary breakfast but I could not see over $400 for some of the nights when my quote ranged from $150 to $271. Thank you "Michael" the manager today.
Finally I want to congratulate my youngest daughter Jennifer who has been curling in the Provincial Intermediates since Wed. She and her team skipped by Sue came second overall with a record of 5 wins and 2 losses. Job well done ladies and CONGRATULATIONS.
I'll be back tomorrow
Blessings Judy
Day Four
Well we are now officially under way, us officially we started long ago.
Chapel at 8 am was wonderful and a great way to start the day. There is no briefing today and since I am feeling a bit under the weather I returned to my room to do some emailing etc and stay quiet. At 12:30 I went to the North America/Europe (NA/EU) caucus. This is a meeting of all the NGOs (non governmental organizations) in the North America/European region. There are other caucuses from other regions. I have never attended a caucus with so many people present, it was awesome. Betty Levy chaired and the mentioned the document which was circulated about 10 days ago as a statement. I helped with the Canadian portion of the paper. Pierette from Geneva has already done a 2 page commentary on the draft agreed conclusions which she presented and the the floor was open to comments. There were comments about poverty, food, immigrants and migrant workers, faith based organizations, sexual/reproductive rights, employment, and more. I commented on the immigrants in the Lindsay jail and about the fact that transportation is not mentioned in the document.
Several informal meetings ensued and I returned to the hotel to have lunch about 2:30.
More emails trying to arrange meetings for tomorrow and a half hour nap and it was time to get ready to go to the reception at the Canadian Mission (the equivalent to an embassy but the UN is not a country). A good reception, wine beer and soda and several trays of excellent food. The Minister for the Status of women from Canada spoke, Kellie Leitch I think) and introduced several other members of the delegation. There are 3 provincial ministers, another MP, and 6 young women sponsored by YWCA. Or YMCA . There is increasing emphasis on young people which is great. We have 3 under 18 and 2 more in their 20s in our group. The world YWCA is quite prominent and I met the Canadian head at the reception. The World Wide Girl Guides are also well represented.
One of the staff recognized me immediately and we chatted and I talked with several other NGO reps.
Back at our room and more work to do and emails to answer. I want to get to bed early to avoid getting overtired and making this throat worse.
Till tomorrow then
Blessings Judy
Monday, 10 March 2014
Let's play catch up!
It is day one of UNCSW58 and I am just now getting around to writing this year's inaugural post for IAWN Canada. I will be blaming this on the jetlag that I am suffering.
Though this is my third time attending UNCSW, it was my first chance to participate in both the Ecumenical Women Orientation Day and NGO-CSW Consultation Day.
Orientation Day was wonderful, and I believe it would have been really helpful in my first year when I found the whole process of participating in the events of UNCSW fairly confusing. I hope it helps some of this year's first timers to get their feet under them before they begin the week.
Since I am on Ecumenical Women's communications team this year, I have been given the job of taking pictures at events - with someone's fancy DSLR camera. It is pretty much the most fun ever. If you'd like to see some of my pictures so far, then you should really go on facebook and like Ecumenical Women. You can then look through all our pictures there (although I will include a few pictures with posts as well).
Yesterday was the Consultation Day for non-governmental organizations, I must confess that by yesterday, with the time change and the loss of another hour of sleep, my jet lag got the better of me and I decided to skip the afternoon in order to sleep before the first day of CSW today. Nonetheless, I was glad to be able to hear Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the new Executive Director of UN Women address the group in the morning. She had spoken at the Ecumenical Women Orientation Day on Saturday as well and I have already become quite a fan of hers. We have posted a video of that first address to Ecumenical Women on our website and on our facebook page as well.
In conclusion, you should really go check out all the wonderful things that have already begun to be posted through ecumenical women, but continue to watch this space for more from the Canadian Anglican delegates to UNCSW.
-Caitlin Reilley Beck
(moderator of IAWN Canada blog)
Though this is my third time attending UNCSW, it was my first chance to participate in both the Ecumenical Women Orientation Day and NGO-CSW Consultation Day.
Orientation Day was wonderful, and I believe it would have been really helpful in my first year when I found the whole process of participating in the events of UNCSW fairly confusing. I hope it helps some of this year's first timers to get their feet under them before they begin the week.
 |
| Listening Intently at Ecumenical Women Orientation Day |
Since I am on Ecumenical Women's communications team this year, I have been given the job of taking pictures at events - with someone's fancy DSLR camera. It is pretty much the most fun ever. If you'd like to see some of my pictures so far, then you should really go on facebook and like Ecumenical Women. You can then look through all our pictures there (although I will include a few pictures with posts as well).
 |
| Phumzile Mlambo-Ncguka address NGO representatives |
 |
| Praying for the women of the world on International Women's Day |
In conclusion, you should really go check out all the wonderful things that have already begun to be posted through ecumenical women, but continue to watch this space for more from the Canadian Anglican delegates to UNCSW.
-Caitlin Reilley Beck
(moderator of IAWN Canada blog)
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