Historic March to take place in New York - all those going to the CSW can be part of the action. See following message from UN Women.
On behalf of UN Women I invite
you to participate in the March for Gender Equality and Women’s Rights on
International Women’s Day, March 8, 2015.
The March for Gender Equality
and Women’s Rights is being organized by UN Women in collaboration with the City
of New York, NGO-CSW, the Working Group on Girls, the Man Up Campaign and the UN
Women for Peace Association.
The march will take place on
International Women’s Day (March 8) and commemorate the 20-year anniversary of
the Fourth World Conference on Women and the adoption of the Beijing Declaration
and Platform for Action. This event will celebrate the achievements women and
girls have made around the world since 1995. It will also be an opportunity to
underscore the need for political commitment to accelerate action to achieve
gender equality by 2030.
We will start at the Dag
Hammarskjold Plaza (47th street and 2nd avenue) at 2:30 pm and end at Times
Square (42nd street and 7th avenue) at 5:00 p.m.
The march will be divided into
three parts:
· Part 1—A lively start at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. The march
will be flagged off by the UN Women Executive Director following a short program
of 30 minutes. Eminent celebrities, a New York indigenous women’s group, and a
girls’ dance troupe are on the programme.
· Part 2—A 1.5-hour march from Dag Hammarskjold to Times
Square. The march will be a celebration that will include singing, marching,
raising slogans, and showing solidarity for gender equality and women’s rights.
At the same time, the march will help point out the existing gaps and barriers
to achieving gender equality.
· Part 3—An evocative closing at Times Square. The 30-minute
program will consist of raising a collective torch to showcase intergenerational
partnership. The program will bring together Ambassador Gertrude Mongella, the
UN Women Executive Director, the First Lady of New York, the UN Secretary
General (TBD) and others. The program will conclude with a
song
In terms of the choreography of
the march, the participants will be divided into 12 blocks representing the 12
critical areas of concern in the Beijing +20 Platform for Action. These 12
blocks will be led by the first block that will represent the overall theme of
Beijing+20 and Planet 50-50: Step It Up for Gender Equality – March for
Gender Equality and Women’s Rights.
The 12 critical areas of
concern are as follows:
1. Women and the environment
2. Women in power and decision-making
3. The girl child
4. Women and the economy
5. Women and poverty
6. Violence against women
7. Human rights of women
8. Education and training of women
9. Institutional mechanisms for the advancement of
women
10. Women and health
11. Women and the media
12. Women and armed conflict
We are preparing 13 banners in
addition to many placards, posters, and signs calling for gender equality and
women’s rights. We also encourage your organizations to bring your messages to
the event and messages and materials for campaigns regarding Beijing+20, gender
equality and women and girls' empowerment
Extensive outreach and
mobilization is underway with an intention to bring between 10,000 and 20,000
people to march for gender equality. The last march of this magnitude for
gender equality in New York City took place in the 1970s.
We invite you to join the
march and to spread the word far and wide using the hashtags #Beijing20 and
#genderequalitymarch. You can also go to @UN_Women for coverage of the march.
Please disseminate the attached flyer widely through your networks and social
media.
We welcome you to focus on any
of the themes or critical areas of concern that are most relevant to your
organization, and we look forward to seeing you at the
march!
Please contact my colleague Ravi
Karkara, Strategic Adviser Partnership to the Deputy Executive Director UN-Women
who is coordinating the march (ravi.karkara@unwomen.org)
We thank you for your
support.
Warm
regards
Lopa
P.S.: We encourage those of you
who are pre-registered for CSW59 by an NGO in consultative status with ECOSOC
and do not have a UN grounds pass yet, to register on-site for CSW prior to
or after the march. NGO registration will be open on Sunday 8 March from
10am-2pm and after the march until 8pm (UNHQ main entrance on First Avenue
between 45th and 46th street). For details, visit http://www.unwomen.org/en/csw/ngo-participation/ngo-advisories
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Lopa Banerjee
Chief, Civil Society Section
UN Women |
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