A PO Box Peace guest post from QUNO New York!

Dear readers,

Greetings from New York!  After working as a Program Assistant at the Quaker UN Office for the past 9 months, I am now entering the final stretch of my year here. It thus seems appropriate timing to reflect on my experiences so far, and what better place to do that than here!

I’m sure that P.O. Box Peace readers are already aware of the wonderful work that our friends at QUNO Geneva are doing. Activities in New York, although similar in practice, are focused on different subject areas; our work revolves largely around peacebuilding and the prevention of violent conflict. Like QUNO Geneva we are fortunate enough to have a Quaker House, just a few blocks away from UN Headquarters. It is here that we host informal meetings with civil society organizations, UN staff and delegates from country missions.

During my time here we have organized events on topics such as the Somali political transition, the Post-2015 Development Agenda, and peacebuilding in Liberia, Burundi, the DRC and Guinea. In the upcoming week we will be joined by Friends from Canada who will be attending the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which I am very much looking forward to.

It’s been a year characterized by big events (or maybe everything is just plain big in New York). The UN passed the Arms Trade Treaty and recognized the state of Palestine. The office also had a month of mayhem following Hurricane Sandy and we are currently anticipating a hoard of cicadas, expected to descend on the East Coast any day now!

In peace,

Amelia

Amelia Breeze and Olivia Ensign, Program Assistants QUNO New York

Quaker Peace and Social Witness Spring Conference

The weekend before last Ellie and I attended the annual Quaker Peace and Social Witness (QPSW) Spring Conference in sunny Swanwick, Derbyshire. QPSW works on behalf of Quakers in Britain, running a wide variety of programmes from Peace Education to the Ecumenical Accompaniment programme in Palestine/Israel (EAPPI), as well as the scheme for our fellow Peaceworkers.[1]

QUNO receives a lot of practical, financial and moral support from QPSW and Quakers in Britain and thus it was an extremely useful opportunity to give an overview of our work to Quakers who were, on the whole, relatively new to Quakerism. I have found that working at the international level means that it is all too easy to feel far removed, not only from the groups that we are researching and writing about (such as the children of prisoners) but also from the concerns and activities of individual Friends. We have returned from this conference inspired by those we met: their interest, enthusiasm, support, challenges and suggestions, and filled with motivation to continue this valuable work.

Ellie and Haifa at the ‘meet the staff’ session at the QPSW Spring Conference

 

[1] For more on the work of QPSW see http://www.quaker.org.uk

An update genevois

Dear all,

I recently attended a meeting of the Inter Quaker Criminal Justice Liaison Group (also known as IQCJLG, one of many acronyms I encounter on a daily basis), formed by different Quaker organisations and individuals worldwide who work on Criminal Justice issues.  I found this particularly interesting as whilst Quakers may often have similar objectives, their specific focus may well differ between different contexts and it was interesting and useful to find out what Friends are working on, to share contacts and information. A number of the participants will represent Friends’ interests and concerns under the Friends World Committee for Consultation (QUNO’s parent body) in the UN Crime Commission in Vienna this April. As the meeting was in Friends House in London I was also able to take the opportunity to meet up with fellow Peaceworkers Owen and Rhiannon, who I had not seen since the blissful days at Woodbrooke Study Centre back in August.

The winter in Geneva has not been as bitterly cold as we were lead to believe, I think last year’s lows of minus 12 degrees were exceptional. The emergence of crocuses and daffodils in the Quaker House garden herald the impending arrival of spring, whilst the odd snowflake reminds us not to be too hasty in our anticipation of warmer times. I haven’t yet ventured into the mountains, which many have chastised me for, so we are planning to go ‘snow-shoeing’ this weekend. I’m working my way up to skiing… possibly. Certainly the lifestyle here is generally a very healthy one (my monthly unlimited swimming pass must be heavily subsidised as it costs just £14) despite the endless fondue. On my recent trip to Spain I met a Ecuadorian lady who told me she wanted to leave the country (like the 40,000 people who fled the financial crisis there in the first six months of last year) and head for Switzerland, hoping that she can tap into some of the wealth and opportunities that reside here. Geneva’s 40% expat population certainly make it an interesting place to socialise, I found myself running between two parties last weekend and speaking four different languages at both – definitely an advantage of living here!

The next session of the UN Human Rights Council has just begun, when the vast corridors of the UN become alive with activity, exhibitions, events, networking opportunities, political negotiations and new resolutions. We are holding a side event on the issue of children of prisoners, to disseminate the results of the EU-funded COPING project that QUNO was involved in for the last three years.

A plus,

Haifa

Swiss Occurings

Dear all,

In recent months, one of my main areas of work has been connected to the COPING project. COPING is a three year EU funded research project on the mental health of children of prisoners. QUNO has been involved, alongside a consortium of nine other NGOs and academic institutions across Europe. Whilst my involvement comes at the very end of the project, I am enjoying participating in the process of making recommendations from the research findings as well as disseminating the results in and around the UN. One disturbing statistic from the research is that 25% of children with a parent in prison are at high risk of mental health problems. Key recommendations include seeing a child’s visit to see their parent in prison as a right of the child rather than a privilege of the offender. I attended the final conference of the project in Brussels in November. Whilst I was there, I was fortunate to be able to meet fellow Programme Assistants; Chris and Bethany in person at the Quaker Council for European Affairs. QUNO’s counterpart represents Quaker concerns at the European level. Look out for a guest blog post from them, coming soon to PO Box Peace!

As stipulated in my recent journal letter, another of my highlights so far, has been seeing Turkey give their first ever report to the Human Rights Committee relating to their obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The issue of Conscientious Objection to Military Service featured strongly. With this and other issues raised by NGOs and Turkish human rights activists, in a prior meeting with the Committee, being subsequently put to the State by individual Committee members. Whilst the topic of the lack of recognition of Conscientious Objectors (and their subsequent imprisonment and exclusion from access to government services) has often been raised at the European Court of Human Rights, due to the language barrier and lack of general knowledge about UN processes, many lawyers and NGOs in Turkey have not been aware of the Human Rights Committee as another method with which they can hold their government to account under its international legal obligations.

Outside of work, I have been sampling wine in local vineyards, practising Tai Chi by the lake, visiting thermal baths, enjoying the snow in Quaker House garden (see below), venturing to a Christmas market in Basel and generally enjoying what this part of Switzerland has to offer. I have also been busy with different writing projects. Fellow Peaceworker Owen and I wrote a review[1] in The Friend of David Gee’s excellent book on peace and nonviolence Holding Faith, and an article I co-wrote called Genocide and settler colonialism: can a Lemkin-inspired genocide perspective aid our understanding of the Palestinian situation? ^[2] was published in the International Journal of Human Rights. All in all it has certainly been a busy few months!

Joyeux Noel à tous!

 

Haifa

---

[1] Please note you will need to register for a free trial to The Friend to access this article.

[2] The views expressed in said article are entirely that of myself and my co-author and do not in any way claim to represent the Quaker position on the situation in Israel/Palestine.

Greetings from Geneva!

Hello everyone,

I am spending this year working at the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva, (QUNO) on their well established and respected Human Rights & Refugees programme. QUNO represents the concerns of Quakers worldwide at the international level, which for the Human Rights and Refugees programme means engaging with UN human rights processes. QUNO is known and respected for its lunches whereby diplomats and country representatives are invited to meet at Quaker House over lunch in an informal setting and I was privileged to witness such an event in my first week. It was refreshing to observe the relaxed atmosphere and see how a safe space is created for questions to be asked openly.

Quaker House is a lovely place to work. As the name implies it is house, converted into an office but retaining its dining room, kitchen, balconies, garden and ‘fumoir’ –smoking room (see below and I should add that it is no longer used for smoking!).

 

The UN Human Rights Council was in session for three weeks in September, which meant that as well as following the events in the spaceship-like chamber (see below) there were also many different meetings, side events, and receptions all clamouring for my attention.

 

I spent a lot of time getting lost in the Palais des Nations (the main UN building in Geneva) through the labyrinth of corridors and rooms, passing a few peacocks on the way…

 

I like the way that the government representatives are referred to by their country’s name, how people say “Germany is in the room” as though the room were of Tardis-like proportions. My highlight of the month was undoubtedly reading an oral statement in the Human Rights Council on behalf of the Quakers, regarding children of parents sentenced to death. You can view the video here.

Outside of work, Ellie and I have been making the most of life in Geneva, including swimming in the lake, renting bikes to explore the city, popping to France and a local market to do our weekly shop and the ritual baulking at the cost of a pint compared to the UK.

Thank you for reading, feel free to ask any questions or make comments and do share our blog.

Haifa

Haifa Rashed, Quaker United Nations Office, Geneva.