Young womens caucus statement 2010

Young Women’s Caucus Statement

Hi,

This is the outcome of four intense and productive meetings of the young women’s caucus. A great statement on some of the priority issues of the young women’s caucus. Feel free to use it and distribute it widely and wisely!

Photos from Young Women’s Caucus

If you are interested in photos from the Young Women’s Caucus, please visit this link!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ywlf2007

Young Women’s Caucus on International Youth Year (3 March)

Here some information related to the topic of the day, International Youth Year

Website for the Year: http://social.un.org/youthyear/  

Link to consultation on low-cost activities: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&ref=mf&gid=294853750812  

Facebook page for the International Year where everyone can post their activities: http://www.facebook.com/pages/United-Nations-International-Year-of-Youth/398805690289

Watch out for the caucus recommendations and the first draft of our oral intervention which will be posted soon on this blog!

Guest Speakers for Young Women’s Caucus at CSW 2010

Hi everyone,

Just to let you know that we have some exciting guest speakers who will address the Young Women’s Caucus at CSW 2010.

March 3

Guest speaker: Anke Green, UN Programme on Youth: International Year on Youth

March 5

Guest Speaker: Margot Baruch, Program Coordinator Center for Women’s Global Leadership: GEAR Campaign Update

March 8

Guest speaker: Urjasi Rudra, UNIFEM: Say No to Violence Campaign

Don’t forget

Date: 1,3,5,8,10 March
Time: 5-7pm
Venue: UN Youth Section, Two UN Plaza, DC2-Level 13

Help make young women and girls visible at CSW 54. Wear soemthing green to the young women’s caucus.

For more information, please email: sarah.davies@worldywca.org or bernadette@wagggsworld.org

• CSW 2010: What do young women of the YWCA think?
• WAGGGS delegation at CSW – including daily updates

Young Women’s Caucus at CSW 2010

Calling all young women and CSW youth delegates at the CSW 54!

Be part of the voice of young women and girls at the CSW 54.

Young Women’s Caucus ( Moderated by World YWCA and the World Association Girls Guides and Girl Scouts)

Date: 1,3,5,8,10 March
Time: 5-7pm
Venue: UN Youth Section, Two UN Plaza, DC2-Level 13

Help make young women and girls visible at CSW 54. Wear soemthing green to the young women’s caucus.

For more information, please email: sarah.davies@worldywca.org or bernadette@wagggsworld.org

• CSW 2010: World YWCA ready to review the Beijing Platform for Action
• CSW 2010: A Look Back at Beijing

Fund for urban youth now available

UN-Habitat has just launched a fund for urban based youth-led organisations in developing countries working to improve the living conditions of their communities.

The Opportunities Fund for Urban Youth-Led Development will provide grants between USD 5,000 and 25, 000 to organisations led by young people, 15 – 32 years old.

The fund is committed to support innovative youth-led projects in areas such as employment, education, environment, health and safety.

This is a really great opportunity for young women living in cities and towns.  A lot of times, development is concentrated on young women and girls living in rural areas. Although this work is paramount, young women ad  girls in urban areas — especially poor urban areas, is also important.

At CSW we talked about aliviating the burden of care on young women and for any of you implementing actions out of CSW — this is a fund you can apply to for support.

The deadline for the first round of applications is June 1, 2009.  Good luck!

For more information visit www.unhabitat.org/opfund

Finally – the final agreed conclusions

The final session of CSW was riveting. The negotiations and lobbying was intense right to the last minute. The session would break every ten minutes and representatives from member states would hurdle in groups on the floor of Conference Room 2 making their case for language to be added or removed.

But by 6:00 pm, when the session was to end, member states were at an impasse. The Moderator announced that there would be no final document as consensus had not been reached. A collective gasp of dismay sounded in the balcony, where NGO observers sat, but a few people clapped in delight and exchanged high-fives. The group that cheered sat not far from me and I leaned over to the woman closest to me and asked her why they were celebrating. “We are not happy with the document,” she explained, “it refers to reproductive rights…”

But representatives from member states were determined to produce a document and begun to rally behind the document that had been so hotly debated in the last few days. Representative after representatives spoke—reiterating the importance this document had for women and society. They spoke about the importance of care and the impact HIV has on women, the effects of gender inequality on unpaid work and how, in a time of global financial crisis, this document played an important role in ensuring women’s unpaid work begins to find a place in national discourse and eventually in national policy.

Shortly before 8:00 pm consensus was finally reached and the final agreed conclusions of the 53rd session of CSW was adopted to much applause.

Good news is that the three main recommendations the Youth Caucus made are included in some form in the doc: ensure education for women and girls, prevent violence against women, and use media to reduce negative gender stereotypes. The only specific mention of young women is for young mothers – a good thing! Though it would have been better to have more mention of young women in the doc. Young men are mention in regards to their role in preventing HIV.

Mention of ‘Youth organisations’ didn’t make it. Nonetheless. I think we had a good impact and we did get visibility at this CSW.

Join the googlegroup Young Voices at CSW to keep in touch and find ways to promote the outcomes of CSW in our organisations, networks and movements.

Kaburo

The anti-Youth Org Caucus poster

Did you see this? It was circulated at CSW Friday March 6. The poster has no contact information so we are unable to respond to the group. It is a bit frustrating when people do not air their views during the caucus but choose to do campaigns like this instead. The Youth Org Caucus should be a safe space for young people to share their views and concerns.

If you have comments, we are happy to hear from you. Email or post your comments/suggestions/feedback: youngvoicescsw [at] gmail [dot] com.

Well, for those who do not oppose the youth caucus, we will meet in the cafeteria at 3pm on march 10 to review progress on influencing agreed conclusions.

Final recommendations for Agreed Conclusions

Hi everyone, here are the final recommendations for Agreed Conclusions. Please print, review and pass around. Any questions – do get in touch with us.