Calls for Action at the UN General Assembly

The United Nations General Assembly met in September, focusing on sustainable development goals and climate change. This article appeared in the November-December 2019 issue of NewsNotes. 

The 74th Session of the United Nations General Assembly occurred September 23-27, bringing together representatives from member countries to discuss the issues of poverty reduction, inequality, violent conflict, and the climate emergency, among others. Meetings of officials included one on universal health coverage, the UN Climate Action Summit, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summit. Member states reviewed previous agreements and took stock of their nations’ progress in addressing these issues, noting successful strategies and identifying gaps. 

Although the discussions allowed for some optimism, the data presented on SDGs demonstrates that states are lagging in the implementation of these development goals set for 2030. Likewise, at the Climate Action Summit, it was clear that states are far behind in implementing their goals to reduce emissions in order to keep the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees Celsius, the goal set in the Paris climate agreement in order to limit the worst effects of climate change. Sr. Marvie Misolas, MM, who represents the Maryknoll Sisters at the UN in New York, noticed the limited space for non-governmental and civil society participation in the summits, which she believes speaks to the continuing decline in their ability to participate in high-level UN gatherings. She also noted that the private sector continues to team up with governments to help implement the SDGs.

For the first time, a landmark agreement was reached at the September 23rd High-Level Meeting on Health Care in which world leaders pledged to help all people gain access to health services. Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General at World Health Organization (WHO) said, “The world has 11 years left to make good on its sustainable development goals. Universal health coverage is key to ensuring that happens.” The WHO and eleven organizations will launch a Global Action Plan for health and wellbeing for all. The plan seeks to provide more streamlined support to countries to help deliver universal health coverage and achieve the health-related SDG targets. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation welcomed the decision, stating, “Universal health coverage is a political choice: today world leaders have signaled their readiness to make that choice.”

Youth played a big part in the Climate Summits. On September 21, the UN Secretary General António Guterres held a forum with young climate activists and listened to the voices of youth representatives from various countries. Greta Thunberg, a 16-year old Swedish climate activist, spoke strongly to heads of states about their failure to act on the climate crisis and protect the future of youth. “The eyes of all future generations are upon you,” she told them. “If you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you.” She led the young people in a worldwide School Strike for Climate Action on September 20. The youth called on the member states  to take the following actions, among others: treat the climate crisis as an emergency, hold major carbon emitters responsible, include women and girls, prioritize climate education, and include youth in discussion and decision-making. 

Representatives from several countries announced ambitious and innovative plans to reduce and mitigate climate change. The representatives from China and New Zealand announced plans to work together to significantly reduce their emissions through “nature-based solutions,” or actions that work with nature to prevent and adapt to climate change. The French ambassador announced that France will no longer partner in trade agreements with countries whose policies do not align with the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. The German representative said that Germany is committed to be carbon neutral by 2050. Leaders also pledged to increase their contributions to the Green Climate Fund to assist developing countries with adaptation and mitigation. A coalition of 87 companies with combined capital of US$2 trillion committed to significantly reduce their emissions. Participants from the finance sector also agreed to direct their portfolios toward carbon-neutral investments. Finally, preparation began for the COP25  gathering, which will focus on protecting oceans from the effects of climate change.

On this 74th Anniversary of the United Nations, the Secretary General António Guterres reflects, “We are working for fair globalization and bold climate action. We are pushing for human rights and gender equality – and saying ‘no’ to hatred of any kind. And we are striving to maintain peace – while bringing life-saving aid to millions caught up in armed conflict.” The UN gatherings in September reflected this vision of hope but also highlighted the significant work that is yet to be done.

Published originally in Newsnotes, Maryknoll Office for GlobalConcerns

UN Addresses Global Homelessness

In the following article, Sr. Marvie Misolas, MM, summarizes the 58th Session of the Commission on Social Development at the UN in New York. The following article was published in the March-April 2020 issue of NewsNotes.

An international gathering at the United Nations in February focused on the issue of homelessness, which was the first time the issue of homelessness has been addressed in the history of the UN. This focus on homelessness at the 58th Session of the Commission on Social Development was fitting given that the gathering also used the slogan “Everyone Included” in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Copenhagen Declaration, a landmark document that placed social development and human well-being at the heart of the UN’s work for development. In work for social development, homeless people are often forgotten. The decision to focus on this issue was the result of years of preparation and advocacy by experts on homelessness.

Presenters at the gathering highlighted the relationship between increasing inequality around the world and the increasing exclusion of vulnerable people in many societies. The trends named in a progress report by the UN Secretary General include the increasing income gap between the rich and the poor in many countries, the increasingly uneven distribution of wealth, and the disparity in power between wealthy and impoverished countries. The conference presenters noted that one of the indicators of this extreme inequality is the increasing incidence of homelessness in many societies. According to the 2019 Pope Francis Global Poverty Index, a multi-dimensional poverty index published by Fordham University, in 2016 over 26 percent of the global population (or 1.9 billion people) lacked adequate housing. According to the National Center for Homeless Education, the number of homeless students in the U.S. in 2017-2018 reached 1.5 million, the highest number in history. 

Although the right to adequate housing is included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, member states at the UN struggle to find a single definition of homelessness. It is a manifold issue with a variety of social and economic factors, and its causes and appearances are different in each society. Without defining homelessness, governments struggle to create and implement policies to address and end homelessness. The lack of a single definition also results in difficulties for collecting data on homelessness. 

At the gathering it was acknowledged that a lack of housing also has a myriad of other social and economic consequences. The progress report by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres acknowledges that “homelessness is not merely a lack of physical housing, but is also a loss of family, community, and a sense of belonging. It is a failure of multiple systems that are supposed to enable people to benefit from economic growth and lead a safe and decent life.” The report also suggested a working definition of homelessness as “a condition where a person or household lacks habitable space with security of tenure, rights, and ability to enjoy social relations, including safety.” This was a definition that had been proposed by an expert group on homelessness that met in Nairobi in May 2019.

While several countries at the conference showcased their policies and approaches to ending homelessness at the February gathering, only a few have consistently managed to reduce the number of people lacking housing. For example, Finland’s “housing first” policy is an example of a successful, holistic approach to helping those who have experienced homelessness by combining housing subsidies, social protection and health care benefits, as well as other supportive services. Finland’s system is designed to prevent individuals and families from becoming homeless again after an initial intervention. More than a dozen U.S. cities operate “housing first” programs as well. 

The Commission approved the final document of the gathering, called the draft resolution, as its contribution to future UN gatherings which will touch upon the issue of homelessness. The United States expressed several reservations on the contents of the draft resolution, issuing a disclaimer that the U.S. only has obligations to the specific sections of the draft it signed. The Holy See welcomed the draft resolution and called for its urgent implementation. 

Published originally on Newsnotes by Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, March 2020

UN World Day of Social Justice

Affirming the dignity of those forgotten, shunned, ignored
UN World Day of Social Justice is Feb. 20

Feb 17, 2020

by Chris Herlinger

Social Justice

When I interviewed Maryknoll Sr. Angela Brennan late last year for a story about gangs in El Salvador, I was struck by her quiet passion to affirm the humanity of a group often shunned in society: those in prison.
Brennan spent eight years in prison ministry in El Salvador, working at maximum- and other high-security prisons before returning to the United States in 2018. (She became involved in prison ministry while working in Brooklyn, New York, for 12 years.)
As I said in my story, Brennan called herself "privileged" to minister to incarcerated gang members. She told me it is grossly unfair to think those in prison are not "redeemable."
"You are not your crime," she recalled telling prisoners. But, Brennan said, "society looks at them like they are."
While not for a moment minimizing the gravity of the crimes the gang members committed, Brennan said she "sees the other side of things," which in El Salvador is the underlying reality of a country where violence and economic inequality fueled the horrifying 12-year civil war that ended in 1992.
I reported: "Gang members grew up in a war-fueled environment in which families were divided and separated."
We are talking about real desperation, the kind of desperation and fear that makes a family leave their village or country. Those kind of gaps remain a grave problem in El Salvador and elsewhere in the world.
Those gaps, of course, are also a real source of concern for sisters like Brennan and for the wider humanitarian world that is doing its best to tackle these challenges
Meet our new Notes from the Field blogger, Celine Reinoso.
Later this week, on Thursday, Feb. 20, the United Nations will focus attention on these problems by marking its annual World Day of Social Justice. The annual commemoration is a moment to reflect and affirm the need for action, something the United Nations is seeing to through its 17 sustainable development goals.
In its explanation for the annual commemoration, the United Nations says: "Social justice is an underlying principle for peaceful and prosperous coexistence within and among nations. We uphold the principles of social justice when we promote gender equality, or the rights of indigenous peoples and migrants. We advance social justice when we remove barriers that people face because of gender, age, race, ethnicity, religion, culture or disability."
In other words, to affirm the dignity of those who are forgotten, shunned or ignored.
I recently asked two of Brennan's colleagues, Sr. Marvie Misolas, who represents the Maryknoll Sisters at the United Nations, and Sr. Nonie Gutzler, the president of the congregation, to reflect a bit on what this United Nations theme means to them in the context of their work and the charism of the Maryknoll Sisters.

Misolas took a broad view, telling me that social justice "is the antithesis of power."
"Who has power defines the rule, what gets prioritized in terms of values," she said. "Collectively in societies, those who have power get to define what is important for a particular group, leaving another perspective as not so vital." Arguing that there are "four interrelated principles of social justice: equity, access, participation and rights," Misolas said, "social justice puts the voice of those who are weak at the center of power. Social justice does not leave anyone behind." Not leaving anyone behind has special resonance this year, as the specific theme for the 2020 social justice commemoration is "Closing the Inequalities Gap to Achieve Social Justice."

Gutzler told me her congregation's response to that call is grounded in the Gospels, specifically the fourth chapter of Luke, in which Jesus declares, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
That text is a cornerstone for her congregation, Gutzler said.
"It is carved into the heart of every Maryknoll sister. It guides us in everything we do," she said, adding that Jesus' example "calls us to our vocation."

I asked Gutzler about the need for finding the humanity of those who are ignored or shunned, and she reframed that, saying the challenge is not in "finding" such humanity — that God-given humanity already exists, she said — but in "exposing and affirming it."  There are countless examples of Catholic sisters, not just Maryknolls, doing just that, Gutzler said. In the East African nation of Tanzania, she said, Maryknoll Sr. Jareen Aquino serves as teacher and mentor to girls at the Emusoi Centre, an educational institution dedicated to providing girls "with opportunities for better lives," as a profile of the center noted. More broadly, Gutzler said, "it's about trying to build a just life," whether that is in Tanzania or El Salvador or Brooklyn.

And that aligns the sisters' work with the Feb. 20 U.N. commemoration, which, as the United Nations notes, "recognizes that social development and social justice are indispensable for the achievement and maintenance of peace and security within and among nations and that, in turn, social development and social justice cannot be attained in the absence of peace and security, or in the absence of respect for all human rights and fundamental freedoms."
It may border on cliché, but it's true: If you want peace, work for justice — social justice.

Originally published in Global Sisters Report

https://www.globalsistersreport.org/news/social-justice/blog/affirming-dignity-those-forgotten-shunned-ignored

Focus on Social Protections

UN Commission on the Status of Women to Focus on Social Protections

When thousands of women converge on the United Nations today, March 11, they will have a singular focus: exploring the ways the world can move forward in promoting social protections that help women and their families live more dignified lives.

The 63rd annual session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the U.N.’s principal commission “dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women,” comes at a critical moment in the history of women’s rights and gender equality, say Catholic sisters who plan to participate in the March 11-22 events.

“Women’s awareness of our situation in the human family has been growing,” Loreto Sr. Cecilia O’Dwyer, U.N. representative for the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, said in a recent interview with GSR. “What’s so exciting about CSW is that women come from throughout the world to discuss ways to improve the situation of women, and they came from the most remote places in the world and from Wall Street. There’s work to be done everywhere.”

The annual meetings, which this year start three days after the March 8 commemoration of International Women’s Day, always relate to a theme. This year’s theme is the interconnection of “social protection systems, access to public services and sustainable infrastructure for gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.”

What does that mean? As the commission notes, “Social protection systems seek to stabilize incomes, promote livelihoods and protect households from economic shocks to social vulnerabilities, including from social exclusion, abuse, natural hazards and disasters.”

Put another way, said Daughters of Charity Sr. Catherine Prendergast, “it’s a level below which no one should be.”

The role of the commission is to bring women together to promote the rights of women and girls and document “the reality of women’s lives throughout the world, and [shape] global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women,” the commission says.

The hope, O’Dwyer said, is to present and air the issues at the United Nations, pressuring U.N. member countries to initiate or continue work on gender equality to which they say they are committed.

Events during the two weeks of meetings all in some way focus on how to empower women. For example, a March 14 event by the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd focuses on grassroots empowerment work among rural Dalit communities in India. Also on March 14, the Society of Catholic Medical Missionaries and Sisters of Charity Federation will sponsor an event on transformative spirituality.

The work of sisters and other women during the meetings is one kind of advocacy. The other is following up within the countries promising to do more to support and help women: Sisters, other women and those working in grassroots organizations pressure governments through advocacy work, whether by meeting one-on-one with government officials, conducting media campaigns or involvement in public demonstrations.

“You can have all of the U.N. documents you want, but you need that follow-up at the national, regional and local level. That moves the process forward,” O’Dwyer said. “You need legislation [at those levels].”

Sr. Eileen Reilly, director of the School Sisters of Notre Dame’s U.N. office, said one reason the issue of social protection is coming to the fore this year is that in so much of the world, the work of women and girls — particularly the “care” work of family and households — is not paid and therefore is not recognized in terms of pensions or other societal recognition.

So when a catastrophic event occurs, such as the loss of income because of a death of a breadwinner, women and girls who have done unpaid care work are often “left behind” with no means of support, she said.

An added dimension, Reilly said, is that social protections in many places in the world are still thought of as charity. Social protections, she said, need to be seen as issues of “dignity and of basic human rights.”

Sr. Janet Kinney, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Brentwood, New York, and the executive director of the Partnership for Global Justice, a U.N.-based advocacy group, agrees with Reilly.

“All of the unpaid work women do is significant,” she said, and needs to be more fully recognized in debates about work and anti-poverty protections.

Kinney’s assessment is shared by U.N. Women, the United Nations’ secretariat focused on women and girls, which notes, “Women carry out at least two and a half times more unpaid household and care work than men.”

“As a result,” U.N. Women says, “they have less time to engage in paid labor, or work longer hours, combining paid and unpaid labor. Women’s unpaid work subsidizes the cost of care that sustains families, supports economies and often fills in for the lack of social services. Yet, it is rarely recognized as ‘work.’ ”

The U.N. body adds: “Policies that provide services, social protection and basic infrastructure, promote sharing of domestic and care work between men and women, and create more paid jobs in the care economy, are urgently needed to accelerate progress on women’s economic empowerment.”

Maryknoll Sr. Marvie Misolas, representative of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns at the U.N., said in her country, the Philippines, government austerity measures are resulting in cutbacks of social protections, like pensions, hitting already-struggling families, particularly those headed by women.

“Burdens like that always fall on women,” she said.

Sr. Elsa Muttathu, who represents the International Presentation Association at the United Nations, praised the Commission on the Status of Women’s attention this year on social protections, noting it sharpens the United Nations’ focus on eradicating global poverty and other social ills by the year 2030 through its 17 sustainable development goals.

But this year’s themes also focus on the growing consensus by advocates at the United Nations that those who need social protections need to claim them as a human right — “a right-based perspective,” she said.

“We need systems that protect people from going too far into poverty: public health services, education, infrastructure, maternity care,” she said.

Muttathu grew up in the 1960s in the southwest Indian coastal state of Kerala, long governed by leftist political parties that, despite national and global trends of cutbacks to government-provided services, continue a commitment to social protections.

Muttathu recalls government-run health services and school programs like subsidized bus passes.

“We didn’t think of those things as ‘social protections,’ but that’s what they were,” she said. “And in Kerala, they prevented people from slipping into real poverty.”

Originally published by Global Sisters Report.

The An Tairseach Experience

The An Tairseach (Threshold) Experience

“Widening Circles"

I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.

The Flaring Forth…

I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I've been circling for thousands of years
and I still don't know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?

~Rainer Maria Rilke~

One of the colleagues in the course bought my first ever small glass of Guinness.  He said, you will like it as you drink it along.  And he was right, the first sip was bitter-ish, but as I took the next sips, slowly, the taste grew on me, so to speak.  If I were to describe what the “An Tairseach experience” was like, it would be like that of drinking the Guinness slowly.  The slow and mindfulness of processes that took place during the ten weeks enabled me to absorbed joyfully what the sabbatical course was meant to be.  The title of the course was, “Exploring Spirituality in the context of: An Expanding Universe, An Endangered Earth and The Christian Tradition.”  

There were twenty-two participants in our autumn group, from Philippines, New Zealand, Australia, Nigeria, United States, Canada and Ireland with varied work/mission experience from Ireland/United Kingdom, Africa, Asia, South America, the Carribeans, North America, and Islands of the Pacific and Oceania.  We have all in common our Christian faith, our love of the Earth, and dare I say we are all “Seekers” --- as Mary Oliver’s poem, “My work is loving the world.  Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—equal seekers of sweetness…”  Most, if not all, are seasoned missioners and religious, and are in some kind of ‘transition’ needing closures and new beginnings.  While seventeen were residing at the Dominican Ecology Centre, five of us were housed in lovely ‘Self-catering’ cottages in Ashford, about six kilometers away from Wicklow town. 

We met the seven Dominican Sisters of Cabra who direct the program during opening liturgy. We introduced ourselves to the group and named our expectations.  Mine was to have deepened understanding of evolutionary spirituality.  Our main inputs for the ten weeks are Cosmology, Theology and Processing Theology, and talks on Creation, Evolution and Faith, Celtic Spirituality and the Mystics, Organic Agriculture (Soil, Seeds and Sustainability), Climate Change and Climate Justice, Ecological Footprint, Women and Christianity, Biblical Ecology, Poetry of Patrick Kavanagh in Theology of the Common Place, Changing Worldviews and Challenges of Living out Laudato si and the implication of evolutionary paradigm to our faith and its basic tenets. Our prayers in the Cosmic Garden held our deep awareness of the oneness in creation and its continuing process of unfolding and expanding. The arts and creativity workshops challenged us to use and develop the right brain.  The circle dance and dream workshops enabled our bodies and the deep consciousness to understand our connections to ourselves, others and the cosmos. 

The ten weeks have passed by, seemingly quiet and natural to the pulse of life in An Tairseach even as we joined the celebrations of two of the four important Irish festivals:  Autumn Equinox and the Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in) held during the end of autumn and the beginning of the new Celtic year.  This was the ancient origins of Halloween, when people of those days wore masks to ward off evil spirits.  We celebrated the Halloween by remembering deep time by each participant wearing the masks we painted ourselves in according to the geological periods.   

Our Wednesday nature and pilgrimage walks with Fr. Michael Rodgers, infused with nature poetry and celebrations of the Eucharist, brought us to a new level of expression and understanding of the new meaning of ‘universal communion’.  On Fridays, the wisdom circles listened as individuals shared their ‘pearls’ as well as the burning questions of the week. 

The image I have now is a word, “seamlessness,” if I were to describe what the whole experience was like.  The universe, we learned, is continuously working in seemingly ‘seamless’ patterns of creating and recreating.  The life and studies we had at An Tairseach was a microcosm example of being diverse and one.  I looked often at the rolling hills and forests of green all seem stitched to the beautiful tapestry of the sky and its weather, the cows and the sheep break the greens like speckle of pearls white and black.  The trees with their branches joined forming verdant arches on the roads.  Slowly, their colors changed, much like the work of the quiet artist fanning the brush with yellow, red, gold and brown in the canvass of God’s books of revelation.  We see incarnation everywhere.  Yes?  It is that easy to see if we have the eyes to see and the heart to take it in.  Truly, these encounters are expansions of oneself and our communities, much like ripples, widening circles, as the poet Rainer Maria Rilke said, “I live my life in widening circles that reach out across the world. I may not complete this last one but I give myself to it.”