Monthly Archives: November 2010

Good Shepherd Sister Noelene White doesn’t hesitate when asked why she works as a chaplain at the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) in Kings Cross.

“Why wouldn’t Good Shepherd be here?” she asked.

“Being Good Shepherd means being with the most vulnerable people, often the most difficult to like people, and the ones on the outer. Injecting drug users are people who are disadvantaged, vulnerable and also unpopular because as we know they can behave badly and be so antisocial. They are definitely not the people we invite into our homes.”  Read more http://catholicreligiousaustralia.com/en/937

Are you keeping up to date on UN WOMEN?

Last week, Michele Bachelet, the new director of UN Women held a meetingwith representatives of the GEAR Campaign (Gender Equality Architecture Reform). The purpose was to discussideas on how civil society could be effectively involved in thework of UN Women and the development of its decision makingstructure. Jan Peterson, Chair of the Huairou Commission, joined 6 other global leaders of GEAR to participate in the meeting. http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Update-on-UN-Women–Meeting-with-Michelle-Bachelet.html?soid=1101426922527&aid=OFXrlF_n-nA

The Hairou Commission- Forging strategic partnerships toadvance the capacities of grassroots women worldwide to strengthenand create sustainable communities

UN elects Executive Board of new agency for women’s empowerment

November 10,2010  Another historic day for women!  Today, the United Nations elected the executive Board of the new agency for women’s empowernment.   The 41 board members were selected on the following basis: 10 from Africa, 10 from Asia, 4 from Eastern Europe, 6 from Latin America and the Caribbean, 5 from Western Europe and 6 from contributing countries.

Elected from the African Group were Angola, Cape Verde, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Ethiopia, Lesotho, Libya, Nigeria and Tanzania.

Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Japan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Republic of Korea and Timor-Leste were elected from among the Asian States.

Estonia, Hungary, Russia and Ukraine were elected from among the Eastern European States, while Denmark, France, Italy, Luxembourg and Sweden were elected from the Western European and Other States.

In addition, the Council elected Argentina, Brazil, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada and Peru from the group of Latin American and Caribbean States.

The Council also elected Mexico, Norway, Saudi Arabia, Spain, United Kingdom and United States from among the “contributing countries,” for three-year terms beginning today.  (Bold print indicates where Good Shepherd has a presence)

“The new agency was established on 2 July by a unanimous vote of the General Assembly to oversee all of the world body’s programmes aimed at promoting women’s rights and their full participation in global affairs. One of its goals will be to support the Commission on the Status of Women and other inter-governmental bodies in devising policies.  Read more at   http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=36718&Cr=un+women&Cr1=

Launch of the Human Development Report 2010

Yesterday, November 4th the Human Development Report 2010 was launched. ‘ “People are the real wealth of a nation”  With these words the 1990 Human Development Report (HDR) began a forceful case for a new approach to thinking about development.  That the objective of development should be to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy long, healthy and creative lives may appear self-evident today.  But that has not always been the case.  A  central objective for the HDR for the past 20 years has been to emphasize that development is primarily and fundamentally about people.’   These are the opening words of introduction .  You can access the full report and Summary at http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2010/chapters/   Read the BCC report “Significant Progress” http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-11694599 and CNN report Great Gains and Some Slides at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/world/05nations.html?adxnnl=1&ref=world&adxnnlx=1288958418-mkqOK31dhfb8yl6SpbVSNQ