Past Events
Membership Meeting 2023
As is annual tradition, the NGO Committee on UNICEF organized a Membership Meeting. This year's Membership Meeting took place on Thursday, February 2nd, at the UNICEF House of New York and served as an opportunity to increase collaboration between the NGOs and the work of UNICEF.
The meeting was opened by José Alejandro Vázquez, co-chair of the NGO Committee on UNICEF. He highlighted the importance of reinvigorating the Committee and using the session as a first step to do so.
During the session three topics were presented. First, Pernille Ironside, the Deputy Director, Division of Data, Analytics, Planning and Monitoring (DAPM) and Lead, Programme Effectiveness Team (PET) shared a brief presentation which overviewed how CSOs feature in UNICEF’s Strategic Plan (2022-2025).
Secondly, as an introduction to the second topic, representatives from UNICEF, Bee Khan and Sarah Wilbanks shared different opportunities to engage with the work of UNICEF and demonstrated support for open collaboration.
The last topic of the session was introduced by a brief presentation about the family measures included at the Strategic Plan 2022-2025. During this presentation the importance of the family was highlighted , as the first layer of protection of children.
During the ceremony, there were some interventions. The Co-chair, representing the NGO Committee, asked about ways to better engage with the work of UNICEF and highlighted how UNICEF was, in many ways, an open door for the NGOs. Ignacio Socias from IFFD stated the importance of working together, leaving differences behind and underscored the gains felt by every party, which aided in achieving better results.
To continue, some important dates of upcoming engagements and events were introduced during this last part of the session, including the Final Statement for the UNICEF Executive Board. Finally, the meeting was closed with recent activity of the Committee and opportunities and ways to join the advisory group.
UNICEF House
Address:3 United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017, Estados Unidos
CRC@30: The Civil Society Perspective
8:00 am - 9:30 am
The NGO Committee on UNICEF hosted a breakfast discussion on the morning of Wednesday, November 20th, 2019: World Children's Day and the 30th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The committee invited child blogger Sophie to the event to document her experience at "CRC@30: The Civil Society Perspective." Read about this inclusive, interactive discussion from Sophie's perspective below.
For questions about the NGO Committee on UNICEF's side event, please email ngocomunicef@gmail.com.
The room we sat in was quite modest, ordinary—save for the stunning view of the United Nations displayed behind the panel. What was special about the room was not the physical aspects, but the people in it. At first, I felt like an outsider who had the temerity to intrude. The camaraderie shared by each person in attendance made it seem like an extended family. Dozens were found united under a common goal. Then I got to talking to everyone, and I realized I wasn’t an outsider. I wasn’t a spectator; in fact I, too, was family, for I too shared the passion for Child Rights that they did. That was what was so special about the event on November 20th, World Children’s Day. Organizational events are so often colored and governed by jargon and documents, and I was taken aback to see that this event was about emotion instead. It was about passion and love, and that was what shone through in the panel discussion.
Opening the NGO Committee on UNICEF’s panel on “CRC@30: The Civil Society Perspective: was H.E. Jan Kickart, the Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations. He expressed gratitude and thanks for all the work all the members in the room had put into the child rights initiative in the last 30 years, standing in awe of all that the community has accomplished. However, as he explained, the fight is never over. With that he introduced our panel, which would highlight what we still have left to do. The first speaker was a 17-year-old boy named Lukáš from the Czech Republic, who has been living in institutions since the age of 9. When asked by Sofia Garcia-Garcia what aspects of policy are most important to protect, he elucidated something major: Love. He told us how growing up, he never really got the chance to be brought up in a family. By a family, Lukáš doesn’t mean a sheet of paper legally documenting you as such, but a group of people bonded by a mutual loving and caring for each other. Not a single facility Lukáš spent time in could offer him the love of a family. He elaborated on how representatives for Child Rights can do better: listen to the children. Listen to our needs and wants, our desires. Listen when we say we need to grow up in a caring environment. Listen when we say we need love.
The next panelist to talk was Cristina Napolitano, board member of the International Federation for Family Development (IFFD). Napolitano spoke on how imperative parental training is to the Child Rights movement: better parents lead to better children. It’s hard to raise a child in a safe, secure, and loving manner when you enter into the endeavor blind. Parenting training is a preventative measure, nipping child abuse early in the bud. Our next speaker was Barbra Alcena, a social worker who grew up in the foster care system. She extended Napolitano’s notion that parents often have no idea what they’re doing. Adult issues stem from bad childhoods, and anything we can do to improve childhoods will be for the good of the next generations of adults in our society. Children should be brought to the table in the discussion of child rights, because every case is different and we cannot issue an objective rule that fits all children. Children deserve individualized love. She showed us photos of her with foster children, telling us captivating, upsetting, and at the same time uplifting stories regarding each of the photos. Alcena then spoke on the importance of education, leading into the following speaker’s field.
Alexandra Teitel is a Community School Director at PS 284 in New York City, or as she and her colleagues like to call it, an “assistant principle of love.” She spoke on the importance of support systems for students. Families actually want to change, so one cannot blame the family for the perpetuation of poverty. Schools need to offer better support. Budgetary restraints lead to harsh environment changes for students. Students need to be taught that they are legendary (the theme of her school), and be provided a voice to ask for what they want. Carol Smolenski, the immediate past Executive Director of ECPAT USA, discussed how we can operationalize what is presented in the CRC. She was in awe of the conversation they’d been having, explaining that love never used to be a part of the discussion. She spoke with the experience of someone who has been involved in the movement on a person-to-person level for years, working both with policy and the people the policies will affect. The panelists continued to expertly field questions, hammering in the points they had already made. The event concluded with the remarks of H.E. Dang Dinh Quoy, Permanent Representative of Vietnam to the United Nations, who further emphasized and agreed to the points made in the morning’s program.
The theme of this event was love: how we can explain to the world that love is a necessity and a right for children, and that it is imperative we involve children in the discussion so we can hear their emotional perspectives. Unlike the room it took place in, this panel was anything but ordinary: it provided perspectives from people working to actualize and implement the policies being presented. It was an honor and immensely comforting to see all of these people taking the feelings of children into account, and working together to help further the movement. Child Rights isn’t just about fulfilling the basic needs of children but about love, and making sure no child grows up without it.
United Nations Church Center
Address:777 UN Plaza at 44th Street and 1st Avenue, New York, NY 10017