A great day at the UNHCR annual consultations with NGOs!

Today was the first day of the UNHCR annual consultations with NGOs that will last the whole week. As intern of the UN Liaison Office of the General-Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (http://un.adventist.org/), I could not miss it! So there I go to the plenary session...

We were welcomed by Wendy Chamberlin (Deputy High Commissioner) and Nicholas Coussidis (coordinator of the UNHCR's NGO Liaison Unit). And we were briefed by Ed Schenkenberg (from International Council of Voluntary Agencies).

We then had a very inspirational speech from Gil Loescher, Emeritus Professor of Political Science and International Relations of Notre Dame University, who was nearly killed in the bombing at the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad in August 2003 (read the account at www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article-2-1624.jsp). At a moment of the speech he said something that made the entire assembly hold its breath, more or less like this: ...it was with them (speaking about refugees) that I learnt how to survive and live under difficult conditions which, ultimately, has been very useful for my own recovery (he made his speech in his wheel chair)...

After Loescher's speech we split up to assist different regional sessions: I went to the one on Africa (of course!) with the UNHCR African Bureau. Everybody could participate at the discussions about the refugees' and internal displaced persons (IDPs) situation in Africa, particularly in Chad-Sudan, Burundi-Rwanda, Uganda, Togo... and propose recommendations to be elaborated by the "drafting committee", who will then pass them on to the next week's Executive Committee of the UNHCR.

At the end of the afternoon we were invited to a reception at the Restaurant Vieux Bois, just beside the Palais des Nations (where the consultations are taking place). It was there that I could speak to some NGOs' representatives, particularly from Sub-Saharan Africa. I spoke about my own experience working with IDPs and resettlers with ADRA (http://www.adra.org) in Angola and asked about the specific situations in their countries. I could also ask them if they were aware of the seventh-day Adventist church's and ADRA's involvement on the relief and developmental efforts in their countries... unfortunately not.

At a certain point, a woman, that I didn't know, looking at my identity card, asked me for whom I worked for... I told her that I worked for the "General-Conference of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church", which is a very long thing to say, particularly if you repeat it times and times over... at the end of the day I guess it must sound more or less like this: sevth-ay-ventis-urch!!! But, most surprisingly, she got it at first. (Normally, I'm gently asked to repeat it at least once!). And, even more surprising, she said: I'm an Adventist myself! That was really funny. She works for an international NGO working with refugees. But it was not the last good surprise...

It was then that I saw Antonio Guterres, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees that had just shown up... A little later I approached him, congratulating him on his recent nomination. He seemed quite glad to be able to speak in Portuguese, so we spoke for a little while. I had the opportunity of telling him for whom I worked for... and, finally, we took a photo together.

The day was over. The job was done. I could return "chez moi", back to the campus.