Like most former unicef staff and retirees I was very pleased to read about plans for celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of the Convention on Child Rights on 20 November 2019. This was indeed an iconic occurence in unicef's long and illustrious career in improving the welfare of children around the world.
On the other hand, this upcoming celebration should also take into account the other notable events that occured on the same date, November 20 th. In order to refresh and emphasize unicef's historical evolution it might be appropriate to consider highlighting the following:
The 65 th anniversary of 20 November 1954; the UN resolved to call this day "the Universal Children's Day" in celebration of activities aimed at assisting children around the world;
The 60 th anniversary of 20 November 1959; the UN General Assembly adopted "the Declaration on the Rights of the Child", the main formal precursor to the CRC;
The 40 th anniversary of the "International Year of the Child" , the UN's and unicef's most important year-long celebration of children and their needs.
While emphasis should clearly be placed on the CRC and its impact on child related developments and on unicef programmes and activities, it would be useful to reference the other dates and events and their impact on the evolution of children's well-being throughout the world.
Boudewijn Mohr
ReplyDeleteA beautiful thought Fouad. I totally agree. We often forget dates long ago that have led to the culmination of the final and most memorable decision of them all.
'Stephen Umemoto'
ReplyDeleteFouad,
It is great of you to remind us all of the arc of history toward enhanced rights and protection for children. I would hope that UNICEF and UNICEF national committees around the world will somehow celebrate this series of milestones for children under the umbrella of the United Nations. Steve
Akram Piracha
ReplyDeleteJan 1, 2019, 1:38 PM (13 days ago)
to Stephen, CRC30, Fouad, allmembers
Dear Fouad, Steve et all:
Thanks for the memories.
I am reminded of the episode that eventually led to converting ICEF to UNICEF.
Those of us who need to know, can read about Elanor Roosevelt's encounter in
Maggie Black's and Judy Spiegleman's books about UNICEF history.
Michelle Siegel
ReplyDeleteJan 3, 2019, 2:37 PM (11 days ago)
to Ruthia, Lily, Nicolas, Paloma, fouadkronfol@videotron.ca, allmembers@xunicef.com
Dear Fouad, dear all,
Thank you for reminding us that the manifestation of the CRC in 1989 would not have been possible without prior decades of action and achievement for children.
We will impress upon our colleagues that this history should be better integrated into the communication for the CRC commemoration.
Would you kindly let us know where you receive updates about CRC30 plans? We would like to take this channel into account for sharing information. Hope we can count on continued support from you for CRC30 efforts.
Best regards,
Michelle
Michelle Siegel
Project Manager, Division of Communication
Email: msiegel@unicef.org
Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, unicef.org
for every child, every right
Fouad Kronfol
ReplyDeleteJan 4, 2019, 11:31 AM (10 days ago)
to smadowo, Gretchen, Michelle
Happy New Year Michelle ! Thanks for your email reply to my communication on CRC 2019. As you say, it is important for the current unicef staff to at least remember and to note that so many earlier accomplishments and events had occured that led up to where the present organization is positioned. In unicef this "institutional memory" has generally been weak, hence the concerns for reviving the History Project which our XUNICEF network has been pushing for. We are hoping that we will continue to interact with unicef through Nicolas Pron and others in our quest to keep both past and present staffers mutually informed of our organization's activites and development.
While I am with you I have a favour to request from you if it is not too complicated or time consuming: in late 1979 the unicef GSA hosted a goodbye party for the retiring Executive Director, Harry Labouisse and Eve Labouisse, at the UN Delegates Dining room, as I recall. At that time I was the Chair of GSA, hence my wife and I were the official" hosts" of the party. It was by all measures a very elegant and successful party, and I remember the Labouisses commenting that it was one of the most enjoyable events they had attended.
What I am looking for is any photographs taken at that event. I went through all my documents, albums and other unicef related paraphernalia but could not find anything on that evening or photos. I am quite sure that our archives must have a few pictures taken at that memorable evening. Would it be too difficult to check it out? I am also copying this to Scholastica and Grechen, for their info and assistance if possible.
Thank you in advance. Cheers.
ReplyDeleteFouad Kronfol
Jan 7, 2019, 11:13 AM (7 days ago)
to Michelle, me
Hi Michelle, it is not easy to find anything on the UN site with itts 800,000 items, most of which is related to UN matters, and not the other UN organizations. Since ours was a unicef affair I thought our own archives would be a more appropriate place to search for the photos..if photos there are !!!
Yes, we are all getting a lot of info on unicef in general, including the latest on CRC, from the XUNICEF network where a great deal of communication has been going on ever since we instituted the XUNICEF appelation, here in Montreal after a successful Reunion of Retirees which my wife and I hosted in 2008.
Of course many of the more recent retirees still have friends and colleagues with whom they are in contact and so this is another channel. Even I who retired in 1995 still communicate with a few current staff members on sundry matters...the network is very much alive and doing well. We do however, wish that serious efforts will be done to revivie the History Project and have hopes that Nicolas Pron will help speed up the process.
By the way on archival materials and Library matters, my earlier correspondence with the current Librarian was not very positive, as her answer was that unicef is moving into a new system and thus is unable to provide us with info on what the XUNICEF group can access..I guess this is the ECM you have mentioned. We hope once this is in place we wil have a system that the XUNICEF group can also access, both for past and for current information.
Cheers,
Fouad
rom: Michelle Siegel [mailto:msiegel@unicef.org]
ReplyDeleteSent: Friday, January 04, 2019 2:35 PM
To: Fouad Kronfol
Cc: Scholastica Madowo; Gretchen Luchsinger Sidhu; Ruthia Yi
Subject: Re: The Significance of "20 November" in unicef History
Dear Fouad,
Happy New Year to you, and to Scholastica and Gretchen as well!
UNICEF's strong brand and positive reputation was earned by its staff, partners and its historical achievements over 70 years, but UNICEF's culture has always been focused on getting things done and not praising its past accomplishments. Thankfully, until we revive the History project, we have the history monographs, archives that were managed by Adhiratha Keefe and Howard Dale and books like Maggie Black's and a handful of others.
We are working closely with Nicolas on the CRC and supporting with liaison with former staff, and would like to set up an efficient way to share information about CRC plans. It will help to know where you read about the plans, was it through the newsletter produced by Tom McDermott and other alumni or some other source?
Unicef has transitioned to an Enterprise Content Management system in which archival materials are now being managed. We can make a request for the images you are seeking, but be forewarned it may take a while. Since this event was held at the UN Delegates Dining room, perhaps you might find a photo in the UN photo library https://www.unmultimedia.org/photo/
United Nations Photo - unmultimedia.org
www.unmultimedia.org
UN Photo contains a selection of images from the United Nations photo collection, which contains approximately 800,000 photographs dating back to the mid-1940s chronicling the history of the Organization and its work.
Let us know if you find anything here.
Best regards
Michelle