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.