UN

I happened to be on a trip last week and decided to do my own little cultural outing like you all did.  My husband surprised me for my 40th birthday and let me tag along on his business trip to New York City!  It was amazing, and huge, and yummy, and stinky, and loud, and interesting and about 30 other adjectives!

As he worked, I explored the city sights. One of the top things that I wanted to see was the United Nations.  My father was in the Army and growing up I moved around the world every 1-3 years so I am very interested in international and diversity topics. In fact, one of my side hobbies is learning, studying, and writing about the "third culture kid" or "transnational student" which is a child that has a home country but lives around the world for most of their childhood, and is used to change, languages, cultures, and frequent mobility.  These types of TCK kids are very resilient, and learn a great deal of literacy and content learning from their life experiences. These kids are usually military children, ex-patriot children, ambassador and diplomat kids, and any families that work globally.  

So you can see why the United Nations would be one of my first stops.  I thought I'd share with you some of the things I learned on my own little field trip.  

Across the street from the UN was this building, the Institute of International Education and also the UNICEF building.  I want to learn more about UNICEF as a charitable organization in the future because I was really impressed with it's director Anthony Lake and his world report that I heard of the Children, Not Soldiers campaign that just completed it's first round of goals this July.  He reported to the UN special commission that since Jan 2016 to July 2016 80,000 children around the world have been released from being soldiers and have begun rehabilitation efforts by UNICEF to learn how to be children, go to school, and live peaceful lives rather than being taught to weaponry, be suicide bombers, and spies.  His world report was truly shocking and I've since bought some books on the topic to find out more about current peacekeeping efforts for children.  If you want to read more about that, click here to go to this website:  https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/we-are-children-not-soldiers/24696

To get in for the UN tour, you have to sign in through a number of security steps across the street.  After that, you find the tour in your language that has about 20 people and lasts an hour.  My tour guide gives the tour a few times a day in three languages:  English, Portuguese, and Hebrew.  I was the only American in my English speaking tour.  All the other 19 people were from other countries.  

In case you don't know about the UN:  here is a quick overview...

The UN has six principal organs: the General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly); the Security Council (for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security); the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) (for promoting international economic and social co-operation and development); the Secretariat (for providing studies, information, and facilities needed by the UN); the International Court of Justice (the primary judicial organ); and the United Nations Trusteeship Council (inactive since 1994). 

The organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize.

There are works of art in many different kinds of mediums gifted to the UN by the member state countries. This was one of my favorite works of art.  It was a collection of stamped wood that documented the 16 Human Rights that the UN has established as rights of all people regardless of origin.  The original document is the most translated document in history.  

There are 193 countries that are member states to the UN with 2 non state members currently.  The two non state members that participate in all discussions but cannot vote are the Vatican and Palestine.  The latest member state to join the UN was in 2011.  The United Nations is not a legal government but is a multi-national organization that is identified as it's own entity.  It is considered international ground and has it's own postal service, it's own stamp for passports, it's own police force, hospitals but no army and no legal right to make laws, only resolutions and peace talks.  The resolutions are heavily moral.  There are six official languages for the UN which means that if one speaks an unofficial language, they must bring their own interpreter that can translate to one of the 6 official languages.  

This is one of the 3 assembly halls.  You might recognize it as the room where Malala Yousafzai, the teenage peace activist recently spoke to the UN sharing her survival story. The countries sit in English ABC order, so poor Zimbabwe is always in the back.  There are ear phones with different languages on channels to choose from.  There I am wearing one.  

In the room next door an open debate was taking place with the special committee of 15 members moderated by the current Secretary-General from Malaysia.  The Secretary General role rotates each month.  I was so interested in the topic of their debate that day that I listened to it for over 5 hours. Each representative on the committee reported from their region of the world using their own intel and information about the topic by the Security Council titled "Children and Armed Conflict." The reports of hospital, and schools as targets of war were highly discussed, using children as participants in armed warfare and not just victims was collectively discouraged, programs that report and make accountable countries that use children as weapons and soldiers were discussed, and moral issues of protecting childhood globally as an innate human right was debated.  Some of the latest statistics shared were shocking.  In Syria, they report that 5 schools a day are bombed purposefully.  The refugee efforts are of high concern because children who are abandoned are often adopted into armies.  Children as young as 7 are trained and sent on suicide missions.  

It was truly a fascinating topic that felt so... important.  I was very disappointed that in the press room, the media that attended to report on the open debate was only 3 men.  It seemed like the topic should have been more publicized.  If you would like to watch the video of the debate, you can go to this website. http://webtv.un.org/meetings-events/watch/part-1-children-and-armed-conflict-security-council-7753rd-meeting/5068559812001  There is also a UN live feed at all times where all proceedings are transparent and recorded found here http://webtv.un.org/.  

There were many, many, many things I learned on my little adventure, but there's only so much room here so I'll end with these...

These are the Sustainable Goals adopted in January 2016 with a deadline of December 2030.  In the next 15 years, the United Nations hopes to meet goals in all of these areas through international decisions, communication, and agreements.  There are 5 categories with 17 sections within each category.  The first one listed here is "No Poverty" with goals in that committee to help end world poverty.  This is defined as having no person make less than $2.50 per day anywhere in the world.  Currently in more than 75% of the world, a person in poverty makes $1.25 per day as reported by the World Bank.  Another goal I liked learning about were some of the education programs like "School in a Box" which supplies to war-torn countries and emergency situations a large metal box filled with everything needed for a make-shift school.  It was recently used in the US during Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy.  

If you would like to learn more about the United Nations, or visit one day... I'd highly encourage it.  The weapons hall was quite interesting, the information about peacekeepers was new to me, the gifts from the various countries were amazing, and I can't tell you how much I was moved by the Children debate that I sat in on.  The http://www.un.org/ website has a lot of wonderful materials and educational resources as well.