Are they living their last days. As feared, given its opening statements, the administrative court judge ruled in favor of the Prefectural order giving way to the slaughter of the Bargy ibexes. Helicopters have already been been seen circling over the mountain yesterday. Here below is a free …
Arigatou International has been working hard on improving our relations with the international community. Arigatou International has produced a flyer which details Arigatou International as a whole, and introduces our four initiatives (GNRC, Ethics Education, Prayer and Action, and End Child Poverty).
We would like to encourage our partners and supporters to print and distribute this flyer in order to further Arigatou International’s cause.
The flyer can be downloaded here.
Last month, for the International Day of Peace, I wrote about how crucial it is that we build a world where every child can grow up free from violence, safe and sound. But war and armed conflict are not the only forms of violence destroying the precious lives of our children. In fact, it can be argued that poverty is even more violent than war. It certainly claims a terrible number of lives, but the survivors suffer greatly, as well. There are an estimated 1 billion children living in poverty today. It’s difficult even to imagine what such numbers mean.
Simply put, that’s one out of every two children. Think of it as if it were a single family—one child is well-fed, well-dressed, immunized, healthy with regular medical checkups, and has a good school to go to; the other child is malnourished and wasting away, shoeless and sick from easily preventable diseases, with no access to a doctor, and has to work instead of go to school. What an absurd family that would be! We would question the very sanity of the parents! Yet this is the very picture of children in our world, and we—all of us—are the “parents.”
This year’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty comes on a very special occasion, just after the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the United Nations, the first goal of which is to “end poverty in all its forms everywhere.” I would submit that the highest priority—both ethically and pragmatically—must be on the most pernicious form of poverty: child poverty. First of all, we are morally compelled to come to the aid of those who suffer the most from it, and who on their own have the least capacity to fight it—the most vulnerable, the children. But practically speaking, as well, the shortest path to eradicating poverty in the long term is by starting with today’s children—building structures and empowering families to ensure that they escape the vicious cycle of intergenerational poverty. I understand that there are many complex factors—not least of which is the presence of violent conflict in so many of the places where children are dying from poverty-related causes—but I find it difficult to believe that harm would be done by thinking first of the children in all of our efforts against poverty. I think this child-first orientation will help guide us all to address not just economic and systemic causes of poverty, but the root causes of poverty that lie in the human heart.
This is the conviction behind our End Child Poverty initiative, a multi-faith, child centered, global initiative that mobilizes faith-inspired resources to end child poverty. With End Child Poverty, we aim to create a world free of child poverty, by addressing both the spiritual and structural root causes of poverty—through theological reflection, prayer and action; interfaith advocacy and lobbying; and supporting partnerships and grassroots projects aimed at eradicating child poverty.
As the international community moves forward with its efforts to eradicate poverty, I would like to take this opportunity to call upon all religious people from all faith traditions to acknowledge and fulfill the special role you have to play in keeping the world’s moral focus on protecting children, on ensuring that every child gets to grow up safe and sound. Let us make ending child poverty the top priority that it already is in our holy books, scriptures, teachings and traditions. Let us keep it constantly before our communities, help our people to develop compassionate, engaged hearts, and devote all the resources we have available to achieving that wonderful first goal of the Agenda for Sustainable Development. What a celebration it will be when we have achieved it!
And this is a time to celebrate and be full of hope. On this year’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, let us remember that tremendous, historic progress was made against poverty under the Millennium Development Goals, with some 600 million people lifted out of poverty and, by some estimates, 14,000 more children getting to keep their lives every day. We have proof that great progress is possible when we work together toward a common goal. Let us not falter now, but redouble our efforts to ensure that every child can live free of deprivation and full of hope for a life well lived.
Keishi Miyamoto
October 17, 2015
Geneva, 2 October 2015. A side event on Monitoring and Accountability of goals and targets related to Violence Against Children in the Post 2015 Global Sustainable Development Agenda took place on 29 September on the occasion of the 30th Session of the Human Rights Council.
The event was sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Uruguay to the United Nations, and organized by the Working Group on Children and Violence of Child Rights Connect.
The purpose of the event was to discuss the best ways to ensure that the monitoring of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and targets related to Violence Against Children is anchored in international human rights standards to allow the international community to keep track of progress, ensure proper implementation and hold States and their partners accountable for their commitments. The discussions focused on the role of States and the existing human rights mechanisms in achieving VAC-related SDGs and targets implementation, monitoring and accountability.
The panellists included H.E. Mr. Ricardo González Arenas, Ambassador, Permanent Mission of Uruguay to the United Nations in Geneva; Ms. Renate Winter, Vice-Chairperson, Committee on the Rights of the Child; Ms. Nicolette Moodie, Human Rights Specialist, UNICEF; Ms. Roberta Cecchetti, Senior Advocacy and Policy Advisor, Save the Children; Ms. Joanne Dunn, Senior Adviser Strategic Partnerships, Violence Against Children, World Vision International, and via video message from New York, Ms. Marta Santos Pais, UN Special Representative to the Secretary General on Violence Against Children.
More than 50 participants attended the event, with the participation of several Permanent Missions, NGOs and academic institutions. The discussions included the following: the emphasis on the need for more interaction of States with UN Special Procedures, the suggestion to make the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mid-term reports mandatory, mainstream questions and recommendations related to the targets on Violence Against Children in the UPR, and talks of the possibility to create a Child Rights Unit within the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. Some of the panelists highlighted the need to enhance the quality of recommendations and concluding observations for States, as well as the need for more effective mechanisms to assess proper follow up of actions.
Ms. Marta Santos Pais expressed the importance of including target 16.2 related to “ending abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence and torture against children”, as a distinct dimension of treaty bodies reporting guidelines for states parties.
Speaking about the need for consistency, efficiency and coordination between different reporting processes, H.E. Mr. Gonzalez expressed the importance of coordination at the national level between different review mechanisms, for instance human rights institutions, decision-making bodies, local government authorities, and any other national and local reporting mechanisms.
The participation of civil society and children was also recorded as key in monitoring and accountability processes, particularly allowing children to help in the design of monitoring processes at the national level, allowing their involvement at the governance level.
Overall, the panelists advocated for coordination of the Human Rights mechanisms with the High Level Political Forum, and the importance of cross-pollination of processes at the national, regional and international levels. The need to strengthen national data collection systems and their reliability to ensure disaggregated information was mentioned by most of the panelists, as well as the need for clear indicators to ensure proper monitoring and accountability.
Discussions will continue to take place in Geneva in 2016 with the collaboration of the Permanent Missions. It is expected that the topic and recommendations can be included in next year’s resolution of the Annual Day on the Rights of the Child.
The Working Group on Children and Violence is a member of Child Rights Connect and is co-convened by Arigatou International and World Vision International. It is formed by more than 14 child rights organizations.
From September 29 to October 2 Mountain Wilderness attended the third meeting of the Erasmus + European project aiming at promoting wilderness awareness and adults education. All program partners were present: “Friends of the Czech Republic Earth / Hnutí DUHA“. our Austrian guests from the European Wilderness Society (EWS – …
