Day 3: UN Ambassadors

June 29, 2009

This morning we visited the PCUSA UN office and toured the UN building. Once we arrived late to the PCUSA office and Jessica, "the Virgil to our Dante," introduced us to Gonzoloo who has been doing work abroad with the United Nations. He spoke to us about the refugees and gave a lot of statistics. After that, Jessica told us about the 8 goals of the UN. They are planning to achieve all of them by 2015. They are:
1) Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2) Achieve universal primary education
3) Promote gender equality and empower women
4) Reduce child mortality
5) Improve maternal health
6) Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7) Ensure environmental sustainability
8) Develop a Global Partnership for development
After a short video of hardships in wartime Africa, we headed out for lunch then met back at the building to cross the street for our tour. We got to see several gifts from member countries including an ivory sculpture that was given by China and took a total of 14 elephant tusks to carve. :-( We also got to see the General Assembly meeting room.

At the end, we met with Donald Lee who is an aconomist who talked to us about slum dwellings. From there, we went to our service project in Brooklyn.
Hannah Rothrock

After our exciting and intriguing trop to the United Nations, we made a pit-stop in Brooklyn. While we were in Brooklyn, we went to visit kids at the Fannie Barnes Residence where we played games and did tie-dying. There were about 10 kids there, and they were great. All of us (DCPC youth) mixed and mingled very well. Ridge and Holly made new best friends with the little kids. Games included "Never have I ever" and musical chairs. Everybody had a ball! Based on fun, the games had no comparison to the tie-dying though. We gave them directions, split them up, and they had the time of their lives while we had the time of ours. Afterwards we drug our tired but fulfilled souls back to bed to crash hard.
George Lyles