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I am a Sacred Heart alumna (Poitiers) and OMAEC’s delegate to UNOG (United Nations Office in Geneva) and am repeating here the substance of a paper put before OMAEC’s Executive Council at their meeting in Paris on January 23rd, 1999. After listening to debates at OMAEC’s Triennial Congress (Lisbon 1998) and studying Alain de Montecler’s admirable synthesis of the Member Organisations’ reports to this World Organisation, I remain convinced that what matters for OMAEC now is not so much to make sure that "words and deeds" correspond (Human Rights 50th Anniversary slogan taken up by the Jesuit Alumni World Congress), as to carry the weight of their deeds to the Legislator, the United Nations, on a world level, to participate more fully in action that concerns us all.
Accredited NGOs assemble formally as the Conference on Non-Governmental Organisations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations, with the acronym CONGO, and work committee-wise for impact on UN level (land mines, etc); the same system of NGO groupings and committees is carried on in the individual instances. OMAEC’s outgoing President, Michel Lesueur, has obtained our entrance to CONGO, OMAEC’s Delegate has played a leading part at UNESCO’s Head Office (Paris), I am trying to get us onto the NGO groups for UNICEF (Head Office, Geneva) to work on child misuse and abuse - work, sale, prostitution, children in armed conflict, etc. Accredited NGOs have the right to register delegates to attend meetings of the UN and NGO instances concerning them, independently of location; viz, UNICEF meets in Geneva and New York, CONGO meets mainly in New York. My question to OMAEC’s Executive Council this January was: "Are there no alumni of our member organisations resident in New York and prepared to represent us there?" I repeat the same question to our own Sacred Heart alumnae/i and President today. (All our work is voluntary - it is essential to be living in the place where one may be going to meetings that last for even weeks on end). This paper has described a situation and is closing with a down-to-earth proposal - all in the hope that the near future may bring in a proposal with a name to it, for the attention of OMAEC’s newly elected President, Dr Antonio Pires. It also carries gratitude to Trish for the opportunity to come home to Mother Barat’s people with one’s worries of the moment, to send greetings and good wishes to all the rest of us wherever we may happen to be. Nancy Dargel (nee Artus) Is there anyone out there who is personally interested and able to represent OMAEC at the meetings of UNICEF and CONGO in New York? If so, please contact me. I shall also put this to the April AASH Meeting in Washington. Trish Burns • President • AMASC |
On the basis of
action for over thirty years as the Holy See’s accredited
spokesman for Catholic alumni organisations world-wide, OMAEC
claims consultative status with ECOSOC (the United Nations’
Economic and Social Council), reporting body for the nine
functional Commissions (including the Commision for Human
Rights), as well as the specialised Agencies such as FAO, ILO,
WHO, UNESCO and programs and bodies such as UNICEF.