Activating Yourself at the UN                 Updates from SI Peace Secretary

All hosts and travellers in Servas are linked in a special way with the UN in the pursuit of peace. For nearly 30 years, ever since Reva King won our accreditation to that body, Servas has been distinguished among the world's millions of NGO's (non-governmental organizations) by its consultative status with the UN. Now, through our continuing link with ECOSOC (the Economic and Social Council) many opportunities arise for Servas to participate in the UN agenda on peace. Each year, Servas is welcome to attend UN worldwide conferences and meetings on issues of peaceful development. In this way, the Servas peacebuilding vision can be promoted in statements, declarations and reports requested by the UN.

The website of the team representing Servas International at the United Nations is http://un.servas.org

Each year, the United Nations invites Servas International to name its representatives to the UN in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Beirut, and Santiago.
For those who have recently moved on, our deep appreciation for their work; to those who continue, and to our new appointees listed below, good luck in your work in peace building for a better world!
For other Servas hosts and travellers - if you have relevant background, time and a willingness to cooperate actively in support of peace,
please contact our Servas International Peace Secretary, Marco Kappenberger.
Please help expand the Servas volunteer team. And, all other Servas hosts and travellers, reading this article, we are asking for your personal support and your involvement.

Why is it important to strengthen the Servas relationship with the UN?
Humankind has entered times of great pain and uncertainty. Many of us - particularly in the affluent world - can barely remember our world before September 11, 2001.Many have suddenly been shocked to find that the prevailing World Order has been more destructive than developmental. It has left out too many. In the face of mounting wealth and harmful waste it has impoverished billions of poor bystanders. Among us in Servas there is a dawning acknowledgement of deep wrongs, a changed understanding of the economy and ecology, and a fear for the way of the world. We are seeing more clearly universal suffering from worldwide pollution and global warming, drought, resource ruin and vast sadness of sprawling, unsustainable cities. Many of us, even in our prosperity, feel fear and vulnerability. It is clear that we are moving massively into an era of uncertainty in all things.

When Servas began, over fifty years ago, the acknowledged world was smaller. Both Servas and the UN have since become global. Servas, with over 15,000 individual hosts and travellers, serves peace with the poignancy of personal insights. The many UN focal points and UN global conferences with civil society harvest creative solutions to world peace. We need each other. With the proactive participation of its members, Servas has the unique opportunity and responsibility to advance peace for humankind.

What is Special About You and Servas in Peace Building?
When hosts receive people, we help bring Servas travellers beyond their public world of trade, exchange, work and colleagues and introduce them to our private worlds in our diverse communities. Sharing the private world of Servas with travellers from the big public world is a personal gift. In our new times, times of fear and uncertainty, Servas hosts are making a most important gift towards building a lasting world peace. By our shared values, perhaps we may comfort each other through our troubled times? Might our legacy of Servas values, borne from that older world, in which both the UN and Servas were originally conceived, still serve as principles to guide us, and our representatives at the UN? Please tell us, reflecting on your own values, what principles do you think should guide Servas in its representation to the UN. We want your input!

What specific timely actions can we in Servas take now?
Each decade, and each year, the UN provides many opportunities for dialogue and action towards peace, setting out a calendar of thematic events. A checklist of the ongoing work of the UN is provided below. As an individual host or traveller or at monthly/ regular Servas member reunions please speak up on one or other of these timely themes. Let's hear your voice!

Would it be helpful to you, for Servas and its Peace Secretaries to adopt a yearly, global theme to guide our host/ traveller and Servas meetings in common dialogue? If so, we would welcome your suggestions.

This year, 10 years after the UN global summit on strategies for sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the world is preparing for Rio+10, to be held in Johannesburg. During the next few months, around the world travellers will be attending several preparatory meetings for discussion and proposals on ways towards saving the world, from an ever more threatening global catastrophe.

Would some Servas hosts or travellers be interested in participating in those meetings or in parallel, non-government organization meetings, and in supporting Servas representation to them? Such an undertaking, personally or privately funded, would be very interesting to Servas International: please let us know.

Five Actions for Peace

1. Reflect on your values, and tell us what you think we should say or do to represent you at the UN. We are Callling for your input, and for your support, to help us represent you substantively to the UN.

2. Personally monitor UN themes and issues, and lend your voice to a global dialogue.

3. In particular, consider both the failures and the promises of sustainable development, especially in the light of the Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. If you can take action through hosting, travelling, or financing representation, either to the world's large set of preparatory meetings, or to sessions in South Africa, please let us know.

4. Donate to Servas for its UN activity. This will help Servas brief the UN and share information on global concerns with the members. At present, much of this Servas activity with the UN is selffunded. While we are trying to improve representation of all Servas travellers and hosts to the United Nations, we are also searching for more funding. We would like to find ways of canvassing Servas globally. We also want to host a global teleconference of Servas representatives to the UN. Please help by donating, by fund-raising, by dedicating your personal energy, time and ideas. If you know of willing donors or sponsors, please contact the Servas International Peace Secretary directly, Marco Kappenberger.

5. Use the following checklist of subjects to which the UN constantly dedicates itself to tell us what issues most concern you and why. Your Servas/UN team will carry your message directly to the UN. We will ensure that your advice reaches the Secretary-General of the UN and relevant bodies. We need and welcome your advice now. Please circle one or two items:
Africa Initiative, Ageing, Agriculture, Atomic Energy, Children, Climate Change, Culture, Decolonialzation, Demining, Development Cooperation, Persons with Disabilities, Disarmament, Drug control & Crime Prevention, Education, Elections, Energy, Environment, Family, Food, Governance, Habitat, Health, Human Rights, Humanitarian Affairs, Indigenous People, Intellectual Property, International, Finance, Labour, International Law, Law of the Sea & Antarctic , Least Developed Countries, Millennium Assembly: The Declaration & the Report, Question of Palestine, Peace & Security, Population, Refugees, Social Development, Outer Space, Statistics, Sustainable Development, Terrorism, Trade & Development, Volunteerism, Women, Youth

6. Often, it is easier to work creatively towards Peace outside the UN, which must occupy itself with its daily, enormous duty to some of 85,000,000 desperately suffering people. For that reason, please consider, acting as an ambassador for Servas values by increaseing local awareness of Servas among other civil society groups in your area that are working towards understanding and world peace. Could you contact some people in such groups talk to them, invite them to join, encourage them to meet Servas hosts as they go on their missions of peace? By your initiative, you will be helping to replace fear with peace in the world.
* Contact your own Servas Peace Secretary in your country or feel free to share your suggestions and message with the Servas International Peace Secretary Marco Kappenberger, Samoa +685 25528
Please contact and support the Servas International Representatives at the UN Call or write in advance of your travel to their home cities . As Servas International News goes to press, they are:
Servas International Representatives at the UN
New York

Violence is not the norm

"Most human interactions do not involve violence, but rather care and nurturing. Love still exceeds the bulklets and the killing. Nonviolence is more of a natural condition than picking up a gun." LouAnn Ha'ahea Guanson, Fellowship of Reconciliation/USA

Mr Gary Sealey , Canada
Honorable David MacDonald, Canada c/o Gary Sealey
Ms Honora Clemens , USA
Mr Marvin Usdin , USA
Mr Gary White , USA
Geneva:
Ms Hilda Burer , Switzerland
Ms Janine Hall, France
Ms Catherine Burer Lehmann , Switzerland
Mr Nguyen thanh Trung , Switzerland
Vienna:
Ms Ilse Heinecke , Austria
Ms Angelika Hofmann , Austria
Ms Anna Elisabeth Steiner , Austria
Mr Hans Martin Steiner, Austria

Some handy UN and other Information Sources: http://www.un.org/partners/ civil_society/agenda.htm Prepare for the RIO+10: http://www. johannesburgsummit.org/ Convenient list of UN focal points: http://www.un.org/MoreInfo/ngolink/ listun.htm

Addis Ababa:
Mr Zeleke Belay Mengistu , Ethiopia
Bangkok:
Mr Theera Poomsanoh , Thailand
Santiago:
Mr Gaston Lux , Chile

Gary Sealey

Hilda Burer in Geneva offers to arrange for Servas travellers to attend meetings of the Commission and Sub- Commission on Human Rights. You can also ask for her reports on the 2002 sessions , which discussed issues such as the effects of globalization, indigenous issues and rights of the child, and adopted 82 resolutions.

The 58th session of the commission is scheduled for March 28th to April 26th. The 54th session of its sub-commission will be during the first three weeks of August. Those interested may write, phone, fax or e-mail 14 days ahead, sending a copy of their letter of introduction.