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International Bulletin - April 2000

President's Message

International Vice President Margaret Mar, of the Republic of China, has recently been appointed Dean of the College of Foreign Languages of the Chinese Culture University, R.O.C. Congratulations, Margaret!

PPSEAWA has been nominated for a position on the Board of Directors of CONGO, the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations (Accredited to the United Nations through ECOSOC). We were nominated by OMAEC (the acronym of the French name of the World Organization of Former Pupils of Catholic Education), and the nomination was seconded by the International Council of Women. Nomination does not guarantee election. The nomination goes to the Elections Committee, whose task it is to prepare a slate of twenty organizations out of all those nominated. They must pay attention to geographical representation, category of accreditation, size, and type of activity, in order to achieve a balanced representation of membership of CONGO. The slate is presented to the Trienniel General Assembly of CONGO, where it will be accepted - that is, elected - unless 5% of those present object, in which case there will be a secret ballot. That has happened once in the three General Assemblies which I have attended for PPSEAWA. Even if we are not slated, or not elected, just to have been nominated is a great honor.

I believe that we owe this honor to the very fine work now being done by our various U.N. Representatives: Judy Grodin in New York, Clarissa Starey in Geneva, Chaiskran Hiranpruk in Bangkok at ESCAP (and her alternate, Vars Chaitrakulpibuil), Janet Nixon at UNICEF-NY, and Shirley Munyan at UNESCO in Paris. I wish especially to commend Clarissa Starey, who had been appointed to the Elections Committee of CONGO last June. I was obliged to ask for her resignation from that post, as no nominee can have anyone on the committee which makes up the slate. It was a great sacrifice to ask of Clarissa, but she did it promptly and graciously, putting the welfare of PPSEAWA ahead of her own wishes. Our reputation in Geneva is very high, thanks to Clarissa, and we are considerably in her debt. Our thanks to a fine, selfless lady!

I also wish to thank all those women who represented us at various individual UN functions around the world from 1993-1997, and whose activities were reported in the quadrennial report submitted to the UN in 1998 to fulfill the requirement for re-accreditation. Chief among them, of course, is our beloved Past President, Thanpuying Sumalee Chartikavanij, who was the Focal Point of ALL the NGO activity in the Asia-Pacific region for the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, and its associated Forum in Huairou, China, in 1995. It was an enormous task, carried out with grace, efficiency, and style under very trying conditions. She continues her work with the Asia-Pacific NGOs to this day, and all of them, as well as all of PPSEAWA, owe Thanpuying Sumalee heartfelt thanks.

The election to the Board of CON will take place at the General Assembly which will be held in Vienna in November, 2000, just before our own Conference in the Cook Islands. I plan to be in Vienna at that Assembly, and I hope we have good news for PPSEAWA when we meet in Rarotonga.

Last Modified: November 29, 2002