September 7, 2003 - Launching of the office

The joint NGO-office of the Society of the Sacred Heart and the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary was launched on Sunday, September 7, 2003 in New York. General Councilor Pat Murray ibvm, NGO Representative for the Institute Evanne Hunter ibvm, and the Society's NGO Representative Cecile Meijer rscj, met for the first time. Joan Kirby rscj, joined us to share her insights and experience of working with the United Nations and agreed to serve during the coming months as an informal mentor for Evanne and Cecile. We discussed different aspects of our new partnership and focused largely on what it entails to create a new culture, a new awareness, both with the world and the United Nations (UN), as well as among the two congregations. Needless to say that the energy was almost tangible as we surfaced ideas, desires and plans, and started our first "to-do" list. By uniting our religious voices to make them heard at the United Nations, we began a partnership that is exciting, promising, and challenging.

September 8-10, 2003 - DPI/NGO Conference at UN headquarters

Together with 2,000 other participants largely from the NGO world, Gwen Hoeffel, Evanne Hunter, Joan Kirby, Cecile Meijer, Lolin Menendez and Pat Murray attended the 56th Annual DPI/NGO Conference that was held September 8-10, 2003 at UN headquarters. Three days of panel presentations and discussions, as well as a broad variety of midday workshops centered around the general theme "Human Security and Dignity: Fulfilling the Promise of the United Nations." This year's conference was dedicated to the personnel from the UN and other agencies who lost their lives in Baghdad on August 19, 2003.

In the General Assembly Hall

The opening session took place in the General Assembly Hall with official words of welcome, including an address from Louise Fréchette, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. A keynote address by Fernando Henrique Cardoso, former president of Brazil and Chair of the High-Level Panel of Eminent Persons on United-Nations-Civil Society Relations, set the tone of what could easily have been the sub-title of the conference, i.e., the undeniable need of collaboration in today's world between the United Nations and civil society because "global problems call for global responses."

Five panels highlighted different facets of the theme of human dignity and security, speaking to the issues from the perspective of the UN or of civil society. The topics of the panels touched on the Psychological Aspects of Human Security and Dignity; Educating for a Secure Future; From Oppression to Empowerment; Sustainable Development in the Context of Globalization; and A Conversation with Eminent Persons on Global Trends and Strategies. The text of most presentations as well as the Final report are available on the web at www.un.org/dpi/ngosection/56conf.htm. For the first time, the conference was webcast live, giving internet users around the world the opportunity to follow the proceedings and raise questions or comments with panel presenters. Video archives of plenary panel sessions and daily press conferences can be accessed at www.ngodpiexecom.org/conference/home.html. Joan Kirby moderated one of the midday workshops, "Womens stories of inclusion and exclusion from the Abrahamic traditions sacred texts: their application to contemporary issues." (For a report on her workshop, click here).

What did we bring home from these three days? A lot of business cards for sure, for networking has already started. But more important, we were inducted into the larger NGO world at the United Nations, we heard the pleas for more peace education and the role of youth, we heard the cries for value-oriented education and the role of religious leaders, and we heard the need to humanize global economics and to press for actual implementation of pledges made by governments of all UN member states on the Millennium Development Goals (for more information on the Millennium Development Goals, see www.un.org/millenniumgoals/index.shtml).

Sadako Ogata, former High Commissioner for Refugees, gave the closing speech of the conference. Mrs. Ogata spoke to the recently released Final Report of the Commission on Human Security which she co-chaired (the report is available at www.humansecurity-chs.org). Paul Hoeffel, Co-Chair of the Conference Planning Committee, and Chief of the NGO Section of the United Nations Department of Public Information, gave the closing remarks of another successful DPI/NGO Conference, the first one for the RSCJ-IBVM partnership at the UN.