St Patrick's Day at UNCSW58 According to Judy

St Patrick's Day is a big deal in New York City. A huge, and I mean huge, parade, everyone in green, green beer etc etc.  I managed to stay clear of the celebrations as getting about was apparently difficult.
It has turned cold again here, warmer than Fenelon but below zero degrees celsius in the morning. I was late to chapel this morning because I could not stop coughing for a bit; got there about 15 minutes late. The Anglican Consultative Council did worship today and the preacher from Africa I think, did a wonderful job talking about maternal child health and MDG (Millennium Development Goal) number 3. My roomie, Caitlin did the prayers of the people and I discovered that she has a wonderful singing voice.
The briefing from the UN this morning was attended again by the Chair of the Commission who spoke at length about procedure. There were no negotiations today, instead the Commission received oral statements from NGOs and negotiated behind closed doors. Another member of the Commission also spoke briefly. This is new to me - usually the briefings are done by UN Women and/or the NGO/CSW NY. This Commission is trying very hard to be more open.
Following the briefing I met with some Soroptimists for a while and then went back to my room for a tea before I headed out to once again make the trek to meet the Canadian negotiators in the UN building - about a 1/2 hour walk for slow, old me. Suzanne was the government rep today and her news was some good and some bad. The good is that a new compilation text is due out today. The bad is that there are some "coalitions:" in the negotiations who are trying to hold a hard line against previously accepted language. The Commission operates on consensus rather than majority and so even one dissenting vote can stop the conclusions.The contentious wording falls in the areas of  "family", "gender", "sexual and reproductive rights and education",
"sovereignty" mostly. Some of this language was accepted back in 1949 and some just last year, but there are strong feelings around these subjects.
At about 3pm the new text came out - only 28 pages this time with 2 paragraphs already accepted (only).
 
Frantically, groups called meetings to review the text because tomorrow is the beginning of the final round of negotiations and it is harder to influence the negotiations from outside the rooms and almost none of us get to go inside. Soroptimists met upstairs in my hotel and other groups too.
At 6:15 there was a North America/Europe caucus meeting that went on for 2 hours. 
More tomorrow
Blessings Judy

More from Updates Judy

Day Seven

Friday....where has the time gone?
 
This cold has interfered with what I had planned to do here in New York but I am still doing some exciting things.
 
Today started, as always,with chapel. There was no briefing today because the second floor space has been turned into a market. Woman from many countries have brought hand made items from their homeland to sell. There is everything from area rugs to earrings. This year I managed not to but anything. Pakistan has its usual wonderful dresses, pashminas and clergy stoles. There were hand sewn dolls and books for children table runners, lots of varieties of jewelery etc.
At 9:30 I returned to my room to arrange it for a meeting and we held an advocacy meeting here working on our view of the outcome document and any changes that we would like to see. One person was nodding off during the meeting showing how exhausted people are after the first week. My roommate actually returned during the meeting and went soundly to sleep on her bed for the rest  of the meeting. We did not get to the end of the document but we did make progress.
Lunch and a nap. Later I held some discussions about the document and at 4:15 I walked up to a pub to meet the SIA President  Cheri Fleming.
At 6:30 the North America /Europe Caucus met and that was kind of exciting.We were reviewing the document and a ":discussion" broke out I think on the inclusion of  "prostitution" vs sex trade. I stood up and said that if we are unable to reach consensus at our level then how do we expect the Commission to reach consensus. There was a lot of emotion in the room as several of the attendees are survivors of sexual exploitation and abuse. Canada was slammed regarding the disappearing aboriginal women especially in BC.
 
During the caucus I also spoke about the mission visit with Canada and with the US mission.
The meeting went well beyond the allotted time but some agreement was reached and we are circulating our recommendations.
 
At the meeting we also heard that the Muslim countries and some of the African countries have issued and ultimatum of sorts which would remove previously agreed upon language but we urged our negotiators to continue on with our support to work towards a progressive document.
The meeting ended after 8 so Alice and I returned to our room and ate our left overs.
So endeth the first week.
Blessings Judy

Day Eight

Wonderful....none of us needed to set an alarm, I forgot to mention that Caitlin moved into our room yesterday so now we are 3. She is the youngster at 29 while Alice and I are the old fogies.
 
However I went to bed at 11:15 Fri night so I was awake at 8 anyway. Today is take it easy day and my only "job" is to try to put our suggestions into the document. Well, I discovered that I am not as good at computers as I thought because I could not figure out how to do track changes. After two hours of trying and then a bite to eat I gave up around noon and went to sleep

After a blessed 2 hour sleep I showered etc because our honourary Canadian (from Long Island ) is coming and we are all going out for dinner when Ross, her husband, arrived. Joan had a 15 minute nap and we visited. Ross had been running and arrived about 6pm and we headed to the "Mint" and wonderful Indian food restaurant where we ate Lamb, Chicken, nan bread. rice, some kind of vegetables and yogurt with Tiramisu and cheese cake for dessert. Great food and great company makes for a wonderful evening. By the time we got back it was after 10pm, so we were not long getting ready for bed. A relatively quiet day in New York City.

Blessings Judy  

Day Nine
 
The three of us had breakfast together this morning and then the other two headed out to church and I returned to the room to work on the response to the outcome document with which I have been having great difficulty. I worked until nearly 1:00 and then went to bed for a quick nap. Alice called at 2 and we agreed to meet at the Cathedral of St John the Divine at 3 pm,  The cathedral is one of the largest buildings in the city meaning that it has a vast amount of open space in the church itself. Early in March they opened an exhibit of 2 sculptures called the phoenix. The work was designed and implemented by a Xu Bing in China as a work to join 2 new large buildings there. He made the sculptures from materials discarded when the buildings were being built. They are 2 gigantic birds which are suspended above the nave of the Cathedral. I got some good pictures but I am not sure how to attach them.

We taxied back and I prepared for the meeting of the "core group" of Soroptimist International. In the meeting we discussed process going forth into the second week as well as started the groundwork for planning CSW59 next march. It was a productive meeting with lots of good ideas flowing.

Alice went to the deli and got us some food and we sat and ate together. I have gotten to know her a lot better this year. She is a wonderful role model.

I tried to work on the outcome document some more but only made a small amount of progress.
 
Tomorrow the Anglicans are doing chapel so I'd better be on time. Tomorrow marks the beginning of our second week. It will be somewhat less frantic but with more pressure on lobbying and negotiating.
Wish us luck... not really luck but think of us.

Blessings Judy  

Youth Transforming the Unjust Structures of Society for Women and Girls

For two weeks each year around International Women’s Day on March 8th, thousands of delegates from governments and civil society gather at the United Nations in New York City for the annual Commission on the Status of Women. As part of civil society, faith based organizations such as the Anglican Church send delegates to participate in the Commission. This year, the International Anglican Women’s Network in Canada will be represented by Evie Byrne, a member of St Mary’s Kerrisdale, in the Diocese of New Westminster, at the 58^th Commission on the Status of Women. Evie will be one of three teenagers who will join the thirteen person delegation from IAWN Canada.

Canadian youth delegates with Katharine Jefferts Schori and their chaparone.

This represents a significant increase in the number of young people as a part of the Canadian Anglican group at UNCSW. Beth Adamson, the Anglican Consultative Council’s representative on the UN Working Group on Girls, points out why this is particularly crucial this year: “We are reviewing the Millennium Development Goals this year – and one of the underlying purposes is to be positioned more effectively for the Post-2015 (Development) Agenda.  And that is the agenda that girls today will inherit tomorrow.” The Millennium Development Goals are a set of eight priorities for international development that were established following the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. The Anglican Consultative Council in 2005 recognized the implications of the Millennium Development Goals for gender equality in the Church when it passed motion 13-31 stating that it “acknowledges the Millennium Development Goal for equal representation of women in decision making at all levels, and so requests … all member churches to work towards the realization of this goal in their own structures of governance.” The priority theme of this year’s Commission on the Status of Women, as alluded to above, is “Challenges and achievements in the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals for women and girls.” In addition to the three young Canadians, this year’s Anglican group will also include eight teenagers from the Episcopal Church in Virginia and one from the Anglican Church in Papua New Guinea.

Youth leading prayer in the Opening Eucharist

While at UNCSW, these young delegates will attend orientation and events put on by the Working Group on Girls as well as other organizations, according to their individual interests. Through the orientation day, the Working Group on Girls hopes to prepare these young delegates for what is always a busy week of events, and empower them to share their own experiences and opinions with the Commission. One of the first events following orientation is the drafting session for the Girls’ Statement to UNCSW 58 – in addition to the encouragement to speak their mind, this process is also helped along by one of the other fundamental values of the Working Group on Girls, which is to work as collaboratively as possible. The youth delegates, a smaller group within UNCSW, are together not just for training and work, but also for several fun community building events throughout the first week of the Commission.

Praying for the women of the world with Ecumenical Women

Community building and collaboration are also priorities amongst the Anglican group. The girls attending this year have connected with one another and with chaperones ahead of time on Facebook. They were also be asked to collaborate on preparing and leading intercessions for the Opening Eucharist of the Anglican Communion delegation. During CSW, the Anglican group works with Ecumenical Women, a coalition of progressive, Christian, faith-based organizations; we also gather every morning in the Chapel of the Church Center at the UN for worship, led each day by one of the member groups. For the members of Ecumenical Women, our activism and passion for gender justice finds its source in our faith. Morning worship allows us time to reconnect with God and one another and provides us with the strength and energy for the important and often difficult work of the Commission. It is also an opportunity for celebration of the achievements we have made together towards the goals of gender justice.

But the work of the delegates is not limited to the two weeks of the Commission. There is a great deal of preparation before anyone even arrives in New York. They must prepare reports on what contributions they hope to make to the Commission and how the priority theme connects to their own life and experience. In her letter to IAWN Canada, Evie spoke about how gender inequality in her school has affected her: “I play rugby as a school sport and with a community team in the summer…men and women play with the same rules and regulations.  Rugby empowers women as it proves men and women can achieve the same goals and participate in the same activities…The Vancouver School Board does not yet promote or support rugby as a sport for girls.  It is taught in gym class for boys,…but it is not taught in gym class for girls.  Even at a community sport level, women’s rugby teams who play internationally have to pay their expenses, with little support from the Rugby Union of Canada, or sponsors…” Evie cited this as one of several examples of how the school environment treats people unfairly according to their gender identity or expression.

In addition to these reports, prior to their trip, delegates from Canada, must find ways to cover the cost of their trip to UNCSW which for someone traveling from Vancouver can reach $2500 for just one week in New York. This can be especially challenging since in Canada, there is no national source of funding to support delegates participating in UNCSW and in most Dioceses there is no money earmarked for this purpose and so funding is dependent on what is available in discretionary funds. Since being able to find one’s own funding is actually a condition of being chosen as a delegate, this places participation in UNCSW outside of the financial reach of many people, for example youth and young adults.

Evie and other youth set up for her fundraising lunch.

The situation is not without hope, however, as parishes and individuals have stepped up to provide funding for delegates. This year, St Mary’s Kerrisdale has been the base of operations for fundraising to cover the costs of Evie’s trip. With the help of the combined youth group from St Philip’s Dunbar and St Mary’s, Evie hosted a fundraising lunch on Sunday, February 2^nd at St Mary’s. She also made and sold cookies after Church on Sundays, which then inspired more generous bakers from the parish to make and donate baked goods for her to sell each week. These different kinds of support offered to Evie by many generous people are all ways in which we are living out the Marks of Mission. Through these efforts, we are seeking to transform the unjust structures of society which have prevented the voices of many women and girls from being heard and valued.

Evie, along with Caitlin Reilley Beck, Youth and Family Worker at St Philip’s, Dunbar in Vancouver, and this year’s official Primate’s delegate to UNCSW, will share their experiences from New York at an event supported by their Diocesan chapter of the International Anglican Women’s Network, presently coordinated by the Ven. Ellen Clark-King sometime later in the spring.

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. 

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

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. 

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)