International Programme Director Hilary Ratcliffe brings us a SoroptiVoice Blog on an official UN side event at the Commission on the Status of Women 58 (CSW58) in New York on 12th March. Hosted by by World Association of Girl Guides and Girls Scouts (WAGGGs) with the United Nations Millennium Campaign, the event was called ‘The World We Want for Girls: from MDGs to Post 2015’ and explored what building blocks are needed to achieve the perfect world for girls, and for everyone. 

"WAGGGS presented us with a survey they have carried out with
their members about what girls actually want for the Post 2015 Agenda. They
introduced an extremely good panel including Maria Fare from the UN Millennium Campaign who discussed a global survey
on a better world, being carried out by the UN, to try and bridge the gap between
what people want and what the UN want. The survey asked for 6 top priorities and at the
top was education.

We had a presentation from Emmeline Verzosa who presented policies
from the Philippines working towards gender parity. She talked about their Magna
Carta for women.

Naetee Braun who is the Chief of Communications and Advocacy for UN women talked about the Post 2015 Agenda and how UN women is focusing on
3 big asks:

• Tackling violence against women and girls
• Resources and opportunities
• Women voice and leadership

Beatrice Omweri, a girl guide from Kenya, then spoke movingly about
her childhood. She talked about how she had to spend many hours fetching water which meant she
had little sleep and then had to go to school so tired that she couldn’t work
and she couldn’t study. She wept as she told us how hard it was for her and how she
has been enabled to be a leader through her membership of WAGGGS – a lesson to us
all.

Gerardo Porteny, a young man from Mexico, told us of his dream that
blue and pink when joined together make purple and how that is the world he
wants to see.

As always in a WAGGGS workshop we had to join in!

A tower of building blocks were put
together which when assembled correctly on one side said ‘the world we want’ and
when turned around they said: ‘At the bottom a standalone goal on gender;
gender mainstreaming;  data revolution
and girls are central’".