Passing By: The United Nations Delegations Women’s Club
By Timothy Wall
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Nearly 8,500 children in a devastated zone of Darfur, Sudan, will be able to return to school because of a humanitarian effort originating 7,000 miles away. The United Nations Delegations Women’s Club (UNDWC) held an international food fair and bazaar in April 2005 in New York City to fund the repair and rebuilding of 40 brick schoolhouses in the villages of Arara, Masterti, Beida and Knavo Haraz, close to the border with Chad. Created by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the project also helps in building capacity for school authorities and parent-teacher committees, mobilizing community participation and encouraging enrolment and retention of girl students.
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| The spouses of the Ambassadors to the United Nations are pictured above with Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Humanitarian Relief Coordinator: Shekrieh Mekdad (Syria); Rima Salah, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director; Danara Kazykhanova (Kazakhstan); Fay Vassilakis (Greece); Kyung-ai Lee Kim (Republic of Korea); Lady Lynn Jones Parry (United Kingdom); Sylvie de La Sabliere (France); Elizabeth Loizaga (Paraguay). |
Similar projects supported through bazaar sales have been a hallmark for many years of UNDWC, which seeks to promote and display cultural diversity while doing good in diverse corners of the world. Women delegates and spouses of diplomats are eligible for membership in the Club. “At the beginning of its existence, UNDWC was largely a social club in which the wives would inform each other about their respective cultures and help one another to contend with life in New York”, said Danara Kazykhanova, chairperson of the 2005 bazaar and wife of Kazakhstan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations.
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| Taken at the UNDWC International Food Fair and Bazaar 2005.
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Since the Club’s founding in 1963, its mainstay programme has been its National Displays and Teas, hosted by different Permanent Missions, which provide a unique opportunity to exchange views and develop an appreciation for different cultures and traditions. UNDWC also organizes language lessons, home nursing classes, and bridge and canasta tournaments. Among its recent projects are: construction of a home-craft centre in Zambia; a literacy education in Bangladesh; a school network in Nicaragua; a women-run clothing factory in Timor-Leste; a women’s literacy centre in the Solomon Islands; and a day-care centre for mentally and physically disabled children in Georgia.
The bazaars fulfil an educational and a philanthropic objective. The first effort of UNDWC to take on a more philanthropic role started with selling UNICEF Christmas cards by volunteer women dressed in their national garb. Eventually, Club members began raising funds for substantive projects overseas, which are designed to benefit women and children directly, and their in-the-field deliveries are carried out by a UN agency, usually UNICEF or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The 2005 fund-raiser was open to the general public, with over 100 Permanent Missions donating goods and items for sale that reflect the art, culture and handicrafts of Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe. The Club has raised over $120,000. “These events not only give something to the world from New York”, said Mrs. Kazykhanova, “but also bring the world to New York.”
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United Nations Staff Dig Deep for Hurricane VictimsLess than a week after Hurricane Katrina tore through the southern states of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana on 28 August 2005, wreaking havoc and devastation across the Gulf Coast of the United States, the United Nations system had pledged disaster relief support for the hurricane-ravaged areas and mobilized efforts to aid the victims of the disaster. At the same time, UN staff members were already planning to personally help by organizing the United Nations Staff Relief Committee and a clothing drive.
In its first three days of operation, the United Nations Staff Relief Fund, created by the Committee, had collected over $22,000 in cash and checks, with more donations expected through wire transfers. Committee Chairperson Rosemarie Waters said contribution was also coming in from other UN offices around the world. “Seeing the compelling pictures on television, you can’t turn away from something like this”, she said. With over 90 volunteers involved with the Committee, response had so far been overwhelming.
The clothing drive, coordinated through an NGO group called “Give Them a Hand”, was held on 2, 7 and 9 September, with UN staff donating over 450 boxes of clothing, baby food, towels and more, which were flown to the devastated areas by the non-profit Airline Ambassadors International. UN staff member Gordon Tapper, founder of “Give Them a Hand”, said that the organization’s experience in coordinating relief responses to other emergencies allowed it to respond swiftly to Hurricane Katrina, adding that they have been doing a lot of relief work in different countries, such as supporting orphanages and children’s homes in Latin America and the Caribbean affected by Hurricane Irene in 2004, “but this is the first time that we have responded to a natural disaster in the United States”.
All money raised by the Staff Committee was donated through the American Red Cross, the lead agency coordinating the disaster relief effort, and Habitat for Humanity for reconstruction projects.
—Sally Bolton
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