Taking on Geneva, One Speaker at a Time!

This past monday, the entire JSBP crew, kids and strollers included, took off on an adventure to Geneva, Switzerland! With plans to locate chocolate and learn how to yodel, we boarded EasyJet and away we went. The point of this trip was to be our "fancy" field studies excursion where we would visit UNEP and UNHCR to actually be able to see what was happening and where it was happening after reading so much about it in class. On Tuesday morning we headed off to UNEP where we had the chance to speak with lots of different representatives from the UNEP, from all different ranks within the organization. From what I understand, the most high ranking lady we spoke to, Angela Cropper has held the position as the #2 person in the program, and currently works as a special advisor to the executive of the program. She was a great speaker and her presentation was excellent because she opened the floor up to us and let us direct the discussion with our questions instead of just lecturing. She answered questions from us regarding many different topics. She gave us a quick idea of the basic purpose of the UNEP and what it works to do. Cropper explained that the UNEP works as a starting point and that it was created to bring all the countries together and create a universal dialogue in hopes of preventing another war. She talked a lot about the importance of developing countries economies more so they can integrate economical variables, social objectives and ecological objectives. She believes once this is done we will see more success and cooperation in and between countries. The most interesting thing I thought Cropper said was  something along the lines of that governments would rather keep people out than in. I thought this was interesting because this may be a universal idea in many places, as I have heard other people in not only Hungary say it but all the way in America. The government does not want to have protests, or hear complaints or have suggestions on how they make their decisions; they just want to keep people out of their ears and keep them happy enough. Once people get in and get involved, it becomes a lot more work for the government to incorporate everyone's thoughts and ideas and see if there is a way to find a successful route where everyone feels they have achieved what they want. Cropper also touched on the entire 'Greening of the Economy' idea which is one topic being worked on for the conference in 2012.

We heard from another speaker named Barbara Ruis, who is a lawyer (legal officer) and also an environmental specialist, and talked about the idea of a carbon footprint and what not only the UNEP can do to work on greening the economy but what she herself can do. She shared some personal experiences which I thought made a lot of sense and were easy to understand because she put them into real life terms.

A speaker named Mika (?) who has worked for UNEP for 11 years and 3 years as the regional coordinator for chemical conventions talked about what I found to be the most interesting and new information I had heard. She explained how everyone needs to become more aware of the fact of how dangerous hazardous waste is to humans health and that if we don't take action, the consequences down the road could be awful. She used a personal example about how all the toxins we are exposed to take an impact on our body without us even knowing, and when she gave birth 5 months ago to a boy, she passed on these same chemicals to him. Kind of makes you stop and think for a second about how it continues to be passed on without even knowing its there to begin with. Mika also used the old cell phone example and how people just toss them away without realize all the chemicals inside of them that are dangerous and need to be disposed of properly. She explained how Africa and Asia actually re-use old television parts instead of just wasting them, but the problem is they burn them and all the chemicals get released into the environment. The bottom line is that although it is important to be disposing of these chemicals and hazardous materials to keep them from being dangerous, they must be done in a way so that the people and environment are not harmed.

The last speaker had a few minutes with us and she was able to share a website that I think will be very helpful for our class and papers, and even give us a greater understanding of many topics. It lets you search treaties and many other things about countries and their involvement and even offers contact information so you can find out more. www.infomea.org 

Now if we're being honest, I felt a little frustrated at the second part of the day. I was so excited to go to UNHCR and learn about refugees and everything about the program because I do not know much about it at all. I thought it'd be extremely interesting to get to explore that part of the UN and the work they do. Unfortunately, the man, Mr. Semih Bulbul was not the "best" speaker we could have had so it was hard to follow along with what he was saying. Mr. Semih holds the position of the Senior Desk Officer of the Iraq Support Unit. He is working on helping all these refugees that have suffered because of the war. We learned what a refugee is, and how they become one and all the solutions that are offered by the UNHCR. The beginning of the presentation moved sort of slow, but once we got to the focus of the Iraq unit it was much more interesting. Some of the statistics that he showed just blew my mind. I guess I never was really aware of how many people become refugees and seeing the actual figures of that really took me off guard. One thing I loved seeing was that America was on the top of the list for taking these people into our country. I know that is something up for great debate because of its direct effects on America and its citizens, I was happy to see America receiving credit and a good name. It made me proud. The one other idea that I really liked from Mr. Semih was when he said that protection is not just physical. Again, taking this into a psychological perspective, sometimes protection that is not physical is more important. If one lacks a healthy peace of mind and a calm, safe well-bring they will have a hard time no matter what physical situation they are in. Not that you need to be happy all the time, but at least being content allows one to be better off. Protecting that peace of mind is very important and I think that the UNHCR seems to bring a lot of that back to people after what they have lost. Sometimes just seeing people trying to help, gives you the comfort and a push to keep going. I really respect the UNHCR a lot for what they are doing. I was very impressed and felt great to know that people are working every day to help those in need.

All in all, I thought it was a great trip. Although I may mention in a separate post some of the other details of the trip, I was so glad to have my eyes opened to what was actually going on inside these organizations we read about. Having it brought to life and seeing it in action was really cool.

Thanks for organizing!

Have a great hiatus fools, come back to me alive!

Here we are on the UNEP agenda!! SO FAMOUS!

This is inside the UNHCR Visitor's center. This a display of some tools  that the UNHCR would bring to help rescue the refugees. There were stoves, bags of water, blankets and tents, etc. There were also piles of sticks weighing different amounts, showing how much each refugee much collect depending on what sort of supplies they have. They were really heavy and showed how hard it could be to do this everyday, but it is a necessity that it must be done.

Beginning of the presentation at UNHCR- a quote that I loved "1 refugee without hope is too many." Exactly what I was mentioning in my blog- protecting the peace of mind and someone's well-being can be more important than their physical protection. If they don't have hope of continuing on, they will not. 

Barbara Ruis at a conference! (google.com)

Angela Cropper (google.com)

UNHCR building!