Skip to main content

CSW Reflections from an Advocacy Rooky

It is Sunday evening in New York - the first week of CSW has come to a close, and many NGO prepresentatives from around the world have gone back home. Including Mark-Pieter van den Heuvel from WO=MEN member Rutgers WPF, who shares here with us how he looks back now on that first week:

I really need to write down my thoughts and reflections, cause I’m afraid I will loose it if I don’t start to download and share it soon. To free some space on my hard drive and to inform you on what’s going on inside of me.

The danger of a conference like CSW is in both focussing and in not focussing your attention and time. Let me try to explain.

If you DO focus for example on attending side events, but you don’t follow up with advocating key influencers and decision makers, change ain’t gonna happen. On the other hand, if you DO focus on tackling the opposition or your own delegation you might end up frustrated by the dirty politics, the way the UN system works and the seemingly unwillingness from the delegation to listen to you. And quite frankly, you don’t want to listen to yourself either, because you sound sour and miss the passion and moving stories from the side events you didn’t go to.

But the other side of the coin is not a rose garden either. If you DON’T focus, you will either get lost in the side events circus, or you collapse from exhaustion in trying to keep up with everything and running from Church Centre to DHL Auditorium or from Salvation Army to Armenian Convention Centre and back to General Assembly.

The challenge is in striking the right balance in getting yourself inspired, engaged and informed, through listening to all the women & a few men from all over the world. Coming from grass roots levels working with marginalized people to increase their access, knowledge and agency in the field of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, to experts with 50 years of experience in working for UN Agencies or being Heads of States. And then from this state of being inspired, engaged and informed, you can optimally engage yourself into hard core advocacy, lobbying your government delegation & permanent missions with thematic fact sheets, moving personal stories and detailed language input suggestions.

But unfortunately, we don’t live in an advocacy paradise. And advocates are also just humans. With rights, Human Rights, not women’s rights. Why make this distinction all the time? But let’s not go there now, that’s another discussion topic altogether.

To conclude, I’d just like to quote the words spoken by Marcio from Brazil, a man growing up in a setting of domestic violence, who’s slowly coming to terms with his past and is choosing to redefine stereotypical notions of masculinity – Because he wants to be a caring father for his son and a caring, responsible and loving husband to his wife:

The rain doesn’t come all at once. Ping, Ping, Ping. But drop after drop it will move into a strong river.*

Step by step, this Advocacy Rooky will learn how to become a powerful advocate for gender equality and human rights.

Mark-Pieter van den Heuvel, Advocacy Officer ASK & MenCare+, Rutgers WPF



 * See the short film clip @http://vimeo.com/75783707 or a version with Marcio’s detailed story @http://vimeo.com/54610333

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

CSW Revitalisation conversations in the region

  Photo: Facilitation team (Liliane Nkunzimana, Lopa Banerjee, Nadia van der Linde, Ivy Koek) What do you think about when you hear countries are committed to 'revitalize' the UN Commission on the  Status of Women (CSW)? "Oh, is it dying?" is one of the responses I've gotten, as if the CSW is holding on to its last straws at the moment, in desparate need of resuscitation. The challenges ahead for the current multilateral system, as well as for many of our national governments, are huge. In order to give gender equality and the rights of all women and girls a bit more of a boost, UN Women has been encouraging countries to commit to a process to 'revitalize' the CSW. And now that this has indeed been taken on board by governments from around the world in the recent Pact for the Future, the conversation is moving to: So what does that mean? During the NGO Forum in Geneva that took place just prior to the UNECE Beijing+30 Regional Review in October 2024 I co-f...
Post a Comment
Read more

Aandachtspunten voor de CSW delegatie en onze democratie

Hieronder lees je de presentatie met aandachtspunten voor de Nederlandse CSW delegatie gegeven door Britt Myren, Atria, tijdens de CSW69 NGO briefing op de Nederlandse ambassade (Permanente Vertegenwoordiging) in New York. De bijeenkomst werd zeer goed bijgewoond met 40+ deelnemers uit het Nederlands maatschappelijk middenveld - we pasten niet meer aan de tafel en er ontstond een tweede ring - en met een welkomstwoord en dialoog met het hoofd van de delegatie, staatssecretaris Mariëlle Paul. 11 maart 2025 “Let us be clear, gender equality is not just a goal, it is the foundation of a just and sustainable world.”    Deze woorden gebruikte de Ambassadeur van Canada en ECOSOC president gisteren bij de opening ceremonie van de CSW, de VN Commissie voor de Status van Vrouwen . Als maatschappelijk middenveld herkennen wij deze boodschap en benadrukken het belang van ons functioneren in een sterke democratie. Dit belang kan niet onderschat worden, net zo min als het belang van de jui...
Post a Comment
Read more

Access Denied Campaign

Following many concerns and calls for support received from activists who were not able to come to New York, WO=MEN – jointly with members and partners - took the initiative to launch a campaign to call attention to the exclusion of defenders from meaningfully participating in the CSW: ACCESS DENIED! “Without the active participation of women and the incorporation of women’s perspective at all levels of decision-making, the goals of equality, development and peace cannot be achieved.” - Beijing Platform for Action The ACCESS DENIED campaign seeks to address the stark contrast between Beijing’s call for participation of women back in 1995 already and the reality of exclusion faced by many activists who had wished to be here at this 30 year anniversary of Beijing. Particularly activists from the global South , black and brown women, women with disabilities, youth, trans and gender non-binary people, sex workers and undocumented migrants face exclusion. Denied access due to visa obstacle...
Post a Comment
Read more