hello everyone! sorry for the delay, it was a long trip home. Here are some pictures of International Women's Day at the UN.

Yes, a promise is a promise...even a kid knows that!

The room is packed!

We're here..can you see us? :) 

Microphones for audience to participate

You can photograph inside the UN, just not at the entry where security is..

UN women are stylish too..

Brave 13 year old girl from India speaks out and gets huge round of applause

Us later together in the lobby, I was very humbled to meet her.

UN Women Executive Director/
Former President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet being interviewed

Very inspiring moment meeting Michelle Bachelet who thanked me for my
participation at the event. She is so down-to-earth!

Getting people to sign the VOW petition

More signatures..

Interesting panel on faith and spirituality

Our last event of the week and more signatures to get after that

Me, my mom, Adrienne and Yusur - roommates 

Me and my mom at the UN...Thanks Mom!!!

International Women's Day- Day 5

Yesterday was International Women's Day! wooohooo

The first event i went to was the general assembly. That was great. The room was filled with women from many different countries, which was so beautiful. There were many men who came out to support IWD which i thought was really good. The Secretary General for the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, addressed the assembly and it was inspiring. They showed the UN Women's first ever theme song "One Woman", which had 25 different singers in it from all over the world.  It was about each woman's right to shine. http://song.unwomen.org/  

The panel was an open discussion and the topics ranged from elder women's rights to women living with hiv, to women living with disabilities, trafficking, child brides and then there were questions from the audience and there was a 13 year old girl from India that spoke about the idea of children's parliament. She got the most claps from the audience and that was impressive given her young age. I had the chance to meet her and her mother afterwards and thanked her.

After the assembly we went to get some snacks in lobby cafeteria . I was sitting down near the end of the hall and my mom came back and told me that she had bumped into the Executive Director of UN Women, Michelle Bachelet. Before I knew it, she was standing in front of me with people standing all around her with cameras interviewing her. After she finished, I jumped up to meet her. She was very down to earth, sweet and approachable. She asked me how old I was and congratulated me for being involved in advocating for women's and girls rights at such a young age. She said it was nice to meet me and I said the same. I'll post pics tomorrow..

I heard that Malala, the Pakastani girl who was shot in the head also gave a video address to the UN Women. Here is what I found...

http://surfer53.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/malala-speaks-out-in-un-video-released-tomorrow-2/

Later in the afternoon, we went to a panel on interfaith and spirituality from the Al-Hakim Foundation. They were mostly Iraqi except for one who was from New York but original with Iraqi roots..There was one male clergyman and one man from the United Nations  and three women doctors who spoke. I found them very interesting and learned a lot more about how religion can be used to either protect or abuse women depending how it's interpreted. It went really late and  me and my friend Yusur from Vow tried to get their signatures for a petition to reduce military budgets by 50% as that is a factor in VAW (Violence against Women).  I'm learning to use short forms this week.

Day 4: Voices Against Violence

Yesterday was one of my favourite days.

The events I went to were mainly to do with World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS).  The first one was a panel discussing stopping violence against girls, and promoting Girl Guide’s new non-formal education program called "Voices Against Violence".  This program is split up into age groups, to keep things age appropriate. Some of the things they do in the program include:

-     Empowering girls/ boys to be leaders

-     The girls/boys learn to talk about violence and use their voices.

-     Helps create safe spaces for girls.

-     Breaks down negative stereotypes

This event was important to me because appealed to my age group more than the others. Their program is targeted towards youth and there were many youth I could relate to at the event. It featured an informal play; this method is used in the actual program. The play was about how to stand up for yourself and stay firm if someone, like a boyfriend/girlfriend tries to control you and your decisions. I thought this method was really effective, I can see it working with the kids in the program.

Some things I have learned are that:

-     Seven in ten girls will experience violence in their lifetime.

That number is way too high!

-     ¼ of girls will experience one or more episodes of violence in their lifetime.

-     60 million girls are assaulted at or on their way to school.

These things happen to girls my age or even younger.

An 18 year old girl from Madagascar spoke at the session. She spoke about the issues facing Madagascar.

There are different forms of violence- not easily seen, invisible.

65% of girls and women experience violence.

Many girls don’t have money to attend school.

Parents STOP educating their kids at 7-10 years old.

Every year 1000 children disappear.

These statistics shocked me. I have never known too much about Madagascar, nor do I believe many people have. The reason it shocked me, personally, is that it is a place that is not focused on much, but needs people to help address the violence, just like any other place facing these issues.

Afterwards, I went to the Girl Guide reception, where I met many amazing women. Everyone was very friendly and it made me feel empowered. The Girl Guide leaders did a flash mob dance to One Billion Rising.

Later, VOW had a dinner at the Nations Café, where we had Cora Weiss, Betty Reardon, and Tony Jenkins, speak to us. It was really interesting,

Here are some pictures that I took yesterday

World Association of Girl Guides & Scouts panel

Waggs demonstration of non formal education 

UN Executive Director, Michelle Bachelet. 

A campaign to stop the violence

Some pretty cool programs and badges!

The head of World Association of Girl Guides & Scouts,
Mary McPhail

Add caption

Got invited to their party and met a lot of really nice girls here.

They did the One Billion Rising dance and changed it up a bit too...

Day 3 Recap

Yesterday was day 3 of CSW57.

The first workshop i went to was the Safety for Women Journalists. The room was packed. I had the opportunity to sit at the round table. That was really interesting, as it is something I've never seen before. The panelists were experienced journalists who raised interesting points about how journalists are targets of violence, but the women journalists are more likely to experience sexual violence and intimidation. The representative from UNESCO talked about their efforts to educate and keep women journalists safe. They said that on average 2 women journalists per week have been killed over the past 10 years.. One of the participants from India mentioned a saying that really rang true for me. She said "we should have peace, not pieces". I agree completely, violence of any form tears our world apart.

 The next event I went to was the Millenium Development Goals Prepatory Panel for CSW58 2014. This event was in the large room with all the representatives from the different countries. The panel talked about the MDG’s-with a thousand days remaining to complete the goals. It was so powerful and inspiring to see how many different countries were there and all the pressing questions that they had. The director of the UN Women, Michelle Bachelet, said “education is like a vaccine for girls & a necessary prevention tool”. 

There was one thing I learned in particular that shocked me. There was supposed to be a child bride on the panel, but she couldn't come to the event because she didn't have any form of identification, no birth certificate, nothing to even say she existed. This was shocking because there must be thousands, maybe even millions, of people who technically “don’t exist”, so if they die… will anyone know? 

Some things I learned yesterday that I found to be important include these facts (according to UNESCO):

-     69 million children don’t attend primary school 54% of them are girls

-     Millions of children  leave school without acquiring basic literacy and numeracy skills

-     Almost 85% of young people live in developing countries.

-     Over 200 million people  live on less than $1 a day

-     Over 500 million people  live on less than $2 a day

-     300,000 children and youth under the age of 18 are currently participating in armed conflict

On the way home we took a cab, there was a very nice driver named Ally  from Gambia who had asked us about if we were from CSW57. We said yes of course! He said “when women get together we’re done! We are gonna have to learn a few things”.(referring to men).

got a question? 

Ambassador of Costa Rica..who was a journalist before,
speaks on safety for journalists

Ambassador from Austria

one of the panelists speaking on trauma

a lot of panelist on at this table..we're sitting right beside them.

we're behind the window waiting to get into the room and I saw the
UN Women director standing in front of me.

here she is again

the world we want

That was the very end of the day, thank you for reading!
Kasha

Hello again!
here are some pictures from yesterday's events.

The following pictures are some from the meeting VOW had in the morning with Ambassador Rivard

Janis Alton, Co-Director
Canadian Voice of Women for Peace

Marilou MacPhedran, Board member
Canadian Voice of Women for Peace

Eryl Court, Vow member  for a long time

Meeting with the Canadian Ambassador Mr. Rivard and his staff

group photo of our meeting with the Canadian Ambassador

the following pictures are some from the YWCA event: what women and girls want

The Minister of the Australian Commission on the Status of Women & Girls,
a really nice lady!

Later in the night was Plan International's event on gender-based violence.Here are the pictures

President of Plan Int'l Canada

Thanks for reading!
follow @vowpeace on twitter for updates on CSW57
You can also follow me on twitter @ExpressionACTv8

Day 2

Hello everybody!
Today was day 2 of CSW57 and it has been a very busy day.  I am VERY tired tonight as i only had four hours sleep so i will name some of today's highlights and will elaborate tomorrow as well as post some pictures.So far, the conference has been very exciting and inspiring!

HIGHLIGHTS:

-YWCA -What young women want.
This was a really informative workshop that featured young women from all around the world who discussed the things that they need for their countries to have gender equality and safety.
- For example, one woman from Pakistan who talked about how they need safe transportation to and from school..
- At the YWCA we learnt an African tradition called the love clap, which was used to show appreciation.

-Plan Canada's- A girl's right to learn without fear.
There was a panel of people discussing gender-based violence at school. Afterwards, they featured a film made by 10x10 called Girl Rising.

- I met a lovely woman named Lynn who is a professional photographer and let me use her GINORMOUS camera. That was really awesome.. maybe a glimpse into the future?
That's it for tonight.

Thank you for reading..

Day 1 part 2

Reporting on the second half of the day. I went to the Human Rights Activism Through Art and Film workshop put on by Women's UN Report Network ( WUNRN) and the Women News Network  which featured great documentary films and wonderful speakers. There were so many eye-opening issues presented, some including gendercide and a recurring theme today, sexual assault. There was a great film-maker/director from Toronto, Tiffany Hsiung. Tiffany made a documentary called 'Within Every Woman' which discusses war crimes that were committed against women, also known as "comfort women" who are women and girls forced into prostitution  in the second world war by the Japanese army. Girls as young as me, or even younger. I was shocked and appalled.  Later  tonight I went to the Canadian government reception for all the Canadian NGO's. There, I had the opportunity to meet great people working on important issues. I also met with the Minister of the Status of  Women, Rona Ambrose. Here are some pictures of the night..