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
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