Keith Swift is taking part in a five week UN fellowship to acquaint young journalists from the developing world with the various functions of the United Nations. The trip will take him to New York, Atlanta and Washington DC. Log on for regular blogs.
There are about 10 million people in New York, and 10 thousand traverse the United Nations building daily. But for the next six weeks, at least in my world, it will be all about Iraq, Djibouti, Brunei, Romania, and Belize. Yes Belize and about 6 other journalists from 'developing' countries who have been chosen to participate in the Reham al?Farra Memorial Fellowship. (The fellowship I learnt is the namesake of a UN employee, a young journalist killed in Iraq last August just 4 hours after she arrived in Baghdad).
But back to New York. I arrived on Monday night and had great expectations and admittedly some apprehension because after all for six weeks I am at the United Nation which has a massive presence in mid?town Manhattan with a 39?story tower commanding three blocks of office space. This week that sense of insitutional gravitas will be justified as the 90 leaders of the 191 United Nations member countries will address the 59th General Assembly.
Week one can be likened to orientation on the first day of college. We got the tour of the UN Headquarters; we got safety tips from an NYC Detective, and, an overview of the big apple from New York & Company (The name 'Big apple' came from a journalist). So we have been shown the ropes, so the speak, at the UN with briefings from the president of the correspondents association and the spokeswoman for the General Assembly.
Always looking between the lines I/We got some night into the hundred pound and 60-year-old gorilla that the UN has become. And on the eve of it 60th birthday the undersecretary Shasi Throor conceded to me that yes, the UN will need to do some soul searching. Interesting. Yes. Revealing? Maybe.
Where does Belize fit into this? I am still looking. The week ahead plans to be interesting. Belize's self-professed friend Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian wants to address journalists resident here at the UN on Wednesday September 15th but the UN doesn't want this 'so-called' President on their airwave. Interesting? Definitely. And next week US President George Bush will take the podium.
5 more weeks lie ahead. This fellowship is more than a junket for 11 journalists to NYC it is supposed to demystify the UN for journalists like yours truly to create a broader understanding in our home country of the work the UN does through the media. So far I have learnt a lot, asked a lot, and I am sure a lot awaits me.