freedom of movement

Fostering freedom of expression through the UPR process: Enhancing Synergies between UNESCO and the Human Rights Council

High-level discussion on “Fostering freedom of expression through the UPR process: Enhancing Synergies between UNESCO and the Human Rights Council”

When: 5 September 2022 15:00-16:30 (CEST)
Where: Room XVII – UN Palais des Nations, Geneva. The event will be open for in-person participation in Geneva and will be live-streamed on the UNWebcast.
Read more (full invitation, concept note and registration link for those without a UN badge will be posted here as they become available)

Programme:

Ms. Nada Al-Nashif, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, OHCHR
Mr. Tawfik Jelassi, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, UNESCO
H.E. Mr. Santiago Irazabal Mourão, President of the General Conference of UNESCO
H.E. Mr. Federico Villegas, President of the Human Rights Council
Q&A session

Guidelines for Civil Society Organizations:

Built upon a joint Amnesty-UNESCO survey of more than 70 civil society respondents from different regions; these guidelines offer recommendations and insights about the key challenges and needs for NGOs to effectively contribute to the UPR process.

For more information please contact hrcpresidency@un.org or f.amoros-cascales@unesco.org.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Human Rights, please email the co-chairs at bobbinassar@yahoo.com or bknotts@uua.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Education, Learning, and Literacy, please visit facebook.com/NGOCELLatUN. For more information on the NGO Committee on Language and Languages, please email the co-chairs at fmhult@umbc.edu or tonkin@hartford.edu. For more information on the NGO Major Group, please visit ngomg.org.

High-level meeting to mark the commemoration of the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious & Linguistic Minorities

High-level meeting to mark the commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities

The President of the General Assembly will convene a High-level meeting to mark the commemoration of the thirtieth anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National or Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities on Wednesday, 21 September, at the UN Headquarters in New York, pursuant to General Assembly resolution 76/168.

The high-level meeting offers an important opportunity to take stock and evaluate the implementation of the Declaration, identify constraints and achievements, showcase examples of good practices and set priorities for the future, consistent with minorities’ effective participation and based on their own realities and needs. As the world moves toward a post-COVID-19 future and a new social contract, diversity must be inclusive and just in order to build a resilient global community of individuals equal in rights and opportunities regardless of nationality, ethnicity, religion, language and other features. The President’s summary of the discussions at the High-level meeting will further assist the international community to chart the way forward and recommit its engagement to actively and fully implement protection of the rights of minorities as expressed in the Declaration 30 years ago.

Format

The high-level meeting will take place in-person on Wednesday, 21 September 2022, in the Trusteeship Council Chamber, at United Nations Headquarters in New York. The high-level meeting will consist of an opening meeting, a general debate, and a closing meeting. A detailed programme will be circulated in due course

Participation

In order to promote a constructive and inclusive dialogue, participation in the high-level meeting will be open for Member States, observers, the United Nations system, as well as representatives of non- governmental organizations in consultative status with ECOSOC that are actively engaged in minorities issues.

Registration will be open at: indico.un.org/event/1002409 from Monday, 1 August until 5:00 pm EST on Friday, 12 August 2022.

The proceedings of the high-level meeting will be webcast live on UN Web TV in all six official languages of the United Nations.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Human Rights, please email the co-chairs at bknotts@uua.org or bobbinassar@yahoo.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Language and Languages, please email the co-chairs at tonkin@hartford.edu or fmhult@umbc.edu. For more information on the NGO Committee on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, please visit facebook.com/NGOCoRIP. For more information on the NGO Committee on Migration, please visit ngo-migration.org. For more information on the NGO Committee on Social Development, please visit ngosocdev.org.

The Human Face of the Migration Crisis: A Faith-Based Response

The scale of human migration can be overwhelming—estimates are that more people are on the move in our time than at any time in human history. To each “number” there is a human face, a person made in the image of God.

How can people of faith respond to this crisis in tangible ways? How can the Bible inform our response? To look at these and other questions related to the migration crisis we will be joined by a panel from across North America with a variety of experiences and perspectives on migration.

Register here!

Speakers:

vănThanh Nguyễn, S.V.D., is the author of the new book What Does the Bible Say About Strangers, Migrants and Refugees?. Nguyễn came to the United States as a refugee from Vietnam in 1975 and he is today Professor of New Testament Studies and the holder of the Francis X. Ford, M.M., Chair of Catholic Missiology at Catholic Theological Union.

Dannia and Aida Pena were born in San Salvador, El Salvador. In the 1990s they fled the Civil War in El Salvador and came to Los Angeles, California. Today, Dannia serves as an Accounting Manager at a Mental Health Center in San Antonio and Aida works just outside San Antonio in Bilingual Education. Both sisters are married with children and are active in the Focolare Movement.

Sean Ryan and Monica Nugent are university students living in Vancouver, British Columbia. As an outgrowth of their Catholic faith, both are both active in Dignity Inherent, a group working to raise awareness about human trafficking and Canada’s laws on prostitution.

________________________________________________________________________________________

CoNGO Notes: For more information on the NGO Committee on Migration, please visit ngo-migration.org. For more information on the Committee of Religious NGOs at the United Nations, please visit rngos.wordpress.com. For more information on the NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values, and Global Concerns-NY, please visit csvgc-ny.org.

Language and Migration: Experience and Memory

Language is a vital, but under-explored, factor in the lives of migrants, immigrants and refugees. It has a direct impact on the experiences and choices of individuals displaced by war, terror, or natural disasters and the decisions made by agents who provide (or fail to provide) relief, services, and status. Distilled through memory, it shapes the fictions, poems, memoirs, films and song lyrics in which migrants render loss and displacement, integration and discovery, the translation of history and culture, and the trials of identity.

This interdisciplinary symposium will convene humanists and social scientists, field-workers and policy-makers, artists and writers, to think together about migrants as resourceful users, interpreters, and creators of language.

The symposium will take place online between Monday, April 19 and Saturday May 1, 2021. Amid the disappointment of not being able to hold the symposium in person, we’ve managed to find two advantages to the virtual format: to enable participation by those without the means or time to attend, and to achieve a more satisfying exchange among humanists, social scientists, and people who work in the fields of education, language policy and language justice. We encourage you to attend as many sessions of the symposium as you can, which are spread out over two weeks to avoid zoom fatigue.

Special events: Our symposium will feature two keynote speakers: Prof. Sarah Dryden-Peterson of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, who will open our symposium with a lecture on Monday April 19; and Prof. Viet Thanh Nguyen, Aerol Arnold Professor of English, University of Southern California, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for The Sympathizer, who will give the closing lecture on Saturday May 1. On Friday evening, April 30, we are delighted to host a reading by Jhumpa Lahiri, Yiyun Li and Aleksandar Hemon, three distinguished members of Princeton’s Creative Writing faculty.

Access the full detailed program here: https://migration.princeton.edu/symposium/program

Learn more here: https://princeton.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_GNf33xbFR1O9wdsn38Hk6Q