Finishing Up CSW58 with Judy

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

What is it like at CSW?

A lasting impression of attending the Commission on the Status of Women (SW) meetings for the first time is of tears...... lots of tears...  pouring freely down my cheeks... 

Tears of gratitude to be able to participate in something I had dreamed of for years. Tears of sadness at the stories and statistics of women's plight around the world one heard in every meeting and conversation Tears of wonder at the thousands of people from all parts of the globe that cared, that came, that advocated, that dared to believe it could be different, that knew that while some progress had been made there was still a long way to go and were committed to go the distance. 

Anglican delegates to UNCSW58 from around the world.

 Other highlights include: 

* sitting in a small group discussion with a dear woman from Pakistan (who she knew "Mother Alice"); a woman from the south of Italy and a woman from Madagascar and discovering that, while there were many differences to our lives and work we shared a desire to learn from each other and take something tangible back to the women we represented.
* singing with Phumzile and hearing her share her heart
* worship times with women of so many nationalities and denominations
* attending the Europe and North America caucus meeting at the UN
* learning how intentionally the YWCA develops young women leaders

And perhaps, most powerfully, watching the democratic practice at its best as woman after woman used her voice to advocate for the  girls and women she came to represent in the NA/Europe caucus meeting. Everyone was invited to speak into the document that would help craft the  CSW58 Agreed Conclusions. As person after person came to the microphone and respectfully yet with conviction shared their suggestions I was struck by how amazing it was that thousands and thousands of words, about hundreds and hundreds of concerns, representing millions and millions of real people's lives were being systematically gathered in what must be one of the most beautiful manifestations of the heart of God for the oppressed being lived out in human form, on a global scale, from people of all backgrounds,  that I have ever seen.

-Ellen Duffield

Delegate from the Diocese of Algoma