All of us have experienced difficult times these 100+days, but my word today is GRATITUDE. Why gratitude? Because it gives us the courage to face difficult situations with a determination that we can overcome adversities if we just work together. The most important thing we have all learned is that we need each other.

 

Gratitude gives us the ability to make changes that we thought were impossible to make. Gratitude creates a new way of living that harnesses our energy to reach out to others in the acceptance of differences. At a time when daily statistics about COVID 19 were most frightening ,all of us did our part to make a tremendous difference in New York City as the cases and deaths declined. It was Gratitude for our community and neighbors that fortified us to change the impact of COVID19.

 

The Preamble of the United Nations states "We the Peoples," not we the government, but "We the Peoples." We now have an opportunity to improve life for peoples throughout the world, thanks for our own Gratitude for life defined in these difficult days.   Since I live in New York City, I am eternally grateful to Governor Cuomo for his daily briefing on COVID19 in the State and the City, and for the facts he gave us that provided guidance on how we should respond to stay safe.

With special Gratitude to all front-line workers in every part of the globe.

 

Blessing to everyone,

Fannie Munlin
President, Global NGO Executive Committee

A new UN initiative aims to push back against the tide of lies and hate that has risen in tandem with the COVID-19 pandemic, by empowering people worldwide to share accurate information to help save lives and promote global solidarity.

  
The United Nations System is working hard to raise awareness and tackle misinformation about the novel coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19, and we are asking for your help. Complete the short survey HERE



Share what your civil society organization is doing
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Introduction

Women have stood at the helm of leadership, both formally and informally, and across disciplines, in improving the health status of their families and communities around the world. Unfortunately, women often face discrimination and have not been given the opportunity to reach their full potential for promoting global good. Today, as we approach the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century and the global community works to achieve universal health coverage, it is of paramount importance that women's political leadership in global health is strengthened in order to advance Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3, to  "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages," and SDG 5, to "Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls".

Read the rest of the article at the UN Chronicle, Here

About the author

Padmini Murthy

Beyond GNEC 1st Vice President, Dr. Murthy is Professor and Global Health Director at the School of Health Sciences and Practice at New York Medical College. She is also Secretary-General of the Medical Women's International Association and Chair-Elect of the International Health Section at the American Public Health Association.

Even before COVID19, the world was struggling to sustain its focus on the seventeen global goals adopted by the United Nations in 2015. COVID19 is crushing global employment, breaking national healthcare systems, and leveling fiscal balance sheets of households, corporations and governments.   The SDGs called for accelerating global partnerships to tackle a wide range of global goals that include climate action targets designed to limit global temperature increases to 1.5 - 2.0 °C and ending extreme poverty.   Today we need those partnerships more than ever.

 

The United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research estimates that COVID19 has the potential to increase global poverty for the first time in thirty years.   UNCTAD, the UN trade and development body, issued an appeal for a $2.5 trillion rescue package for the world's six billion people living in developing countries. Oxfam International has called for an equally expansive 'Economic Rescue Plan for All' to rebuild a more equal world. Together 1st has issued a new Stepping Stones report as part of its UN75 consultation and calls for the UN to appoint a new high-level champion for civil society, create a UN youth council, create accountability for state violations of planetary boundaries, a ban on nuclear weapons, an integrated approach to climate and security within the UN, and people-centered peacekeeping, among its ten recommendations. And at the recent UN75 "People's Forum for the UN We Need," NGOs from around the world have signed onto a new " UN75 People's Declaration & Plan for Global Action," which calls for a "system-wide review of stakeholder participation in UN processes" and a "mandated post-2020 follow-up mechanism to enhance global governance" to advance the Paris Climate agreement, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, human rights, and other critical UN projects.

 

COVID19 has crystalized for the world that poverty is a global vulnerability. Poverty impairs health, the economy, education, human rights, and the environment and increases violence. Human rights are not just for those with power; human rights for all can only be realistically achieved if we reduce economic inequality and empower workers and communities.   The new potential for such an historic shift could easily be lost amid the fear generated by this public health and economic crisis.   Ultimately, the potential for change rests with us: "We the Peoples." The COVID19 crisis gives us an important opportunity to create more legal accountability and structural reform in governments and the United Nations, such as those outlined above.

 

A compelling view of top UN diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello, whose life hangs in the balance during the most treacherous mission of his career.  Director: Greg Barker  Writers: Craig Borten (screenplay by), Samantha Power (based on the book 'Chasing the Flame: One Man's Fight to Save the World') Leading Actors: Wagner Moura, Ana de Armas, Brían F. O'Byrne

 

The film not only entertains but in a more insidiously great way, it educates us along the side lines of recent history. Co-author and former US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power helps illuminate a UN standing alongside warring nations and regional disputes ... in order to articulate a third way.  As the character of the late Sergio Vieira De Mello, passionately recreated by Wagner Moura, demonstrates: even for The World's Mr. Fixit, sometimes peace building works ... at other times, it may end in unmitigated disaster.

Read the rest of the review and see the thrilling trailer HERE

A Review By
Patrick Sciarratta

Delta Days at the United Nations

Founded in 1913 and headquartered in Washington, DC, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. is an organization of college educated women committed to public service, with a primary focus on the Black community. The Sorority is a private, non-profit organization whose purpose is to provide assistance and support through established programs in local communities throughout the world. Since our founding , more than 300,000 women have joined the organization. The Sorority

, Germany, Jamaica, Japan (Okinawa and Tokyo), and the Republic of Korea.