Follow-up Meeting: Day 1

Visiting NGOs' Headquarters!

Today, we had an appointment with 4 NGOs to visit and have further discussion at their facilities. In the morning, we went to Radisson Hotel in San Jose to attend the meeting as invited by an NGO. It was also an anniversary celebration of this NGO, where the presentation was mainly about the work of this NGO in the past years. Unfortunately, we could not stay until the meeting was over because we also had an appointment to meet with another NGO in the morning. Therefore, in order to save time we decided to have a quick breakfast at the hotel and took a van to meet with another NGO at their headquarter.

We soon arrived at the National Children's Hospital, which was also the headquarter of Central del Movimiento de Trabajadores Costarricenses (CMTC). They focused their work on improving children's education, health, and well-beings by providing children's hospital and fundamental education. Even though CMTC based in Costa Rica, it also provided help in other Central American Countries. CMTC found the affiliation with the NGO/DPI interesting so they let us help them filled-in the application form. After we finished our discussion with CMTC, their staff offered us a ride to another NGO's facility near by and we accepted that offer.

In the afternoon, we arrived at Credimujer's headquarter safely. This NGO offered opportunities of easy access to the credit and the training to the women and men micro-entrepreneurs in order to strengthen their commercial and productive activities, improve their quality of life, and be able to join the economic and social development of the country. Credimujer found the association with the United Nations useful for them in terms of reliability so they decided to affiliate with the NGO/DPI.

After that, we visited ACICAFOC, the last NGO of the day at their headquarter in San Jose, which was a little bit far from the location of the previous NGO. ACICAFOC stands for "Asociación Coordinadora Indígena y Campesina de Agroforestería Comunitaria Centroamericana" meant that Central American Indigenous and Peasant Coordination Association for Community Agroforestry. It was a community-based, non political and dynamic organization characterized by flexibility to the fast changes experienced by Central American rural communities. Their mission was to work with the communities in order to increase their competition, and the correct use and management of natural and cultural resources.

During the meeting, they seemed interested in affiliation with the NGO/DPI as they had already affiliated with ECOSOC. However, they alone could not decide whether to affiliate with the NGO/DPI or not because ACICAFOC was well-structured and decision-making could only do during their annual General Assembly where 7 Broad of Directors who represented 7 member countries gathered together. Therefore, they would deliver their decision to us after they had discussed during their General Assembly on June 22nd and 23rd, 2007.

However, we realized that we had not eaten anything since morning and now our stomachs were craving for food. Finally, we stopped by a seafood restaurant for dinner and went to a huge souvenir store to buy some local handicrafts for the people back home.

By Sudarat Adirek

A Breakfast Meeting at the Barcelo San Jose Palacio Hotel

June 8th, 2007

Early morning, all of us met at the Barcelo San Jose Palacio Hotel to make sure everything was in place before the first participant arrived. Prof. Lee practiced her speech in Spanish and did the final check-up of everything in general. Fabiola reviewed her presentation and tried to match them with the Power point presentation created by Sudarat. Sudarat linked her laptop with the visual aid equipments provided by Global College and made sure both visual and sound were alright and ready to present. Cindy and Abdul helped Clarice and Brenda set up the front desk and arranged the documents and leaflets around the meeting room for the participants to take what they saw useful. Clarice and Brenda stationed at the front desk so they prepared the sign-up sheet and the list of prospective participants.

We encountered some problems such as the hotel did not put up the sign showing where a breakfast meeting took place, the deficient amount of light in the meeting room, and how we could figured out who was who so that we could take them to the appropriate tables. By all means, we had all the problems taking care of. First, we had the hotel put up the sign just in time of the arrival of the NGOs. Then we tried to turn the maximum light on but still not sufficient so we decided to open the curtains around the meeting room to get the sunlight from the outside. And to make sure who was who, we let each of them signed-up at the front desk and had the members took them to the tables where they belonged.

At 8 o'clock, the participants arrived one after another. We had them signed-up at the front desk with Clarice and Brenda and gave them a package of information necessary to complete the application process. Cindy and Abdul were the receptionists stationed at the entrance greeting the participants. Sudarat was a receptionist responsible for taking the participants to their tables. We let the participants socialized and enjoyed their breakfast while waiting for the rest to arrive.

Soon, the UN Resident Coordinator, Sr. Jose Manuel Hermida, opened the meeting. Followed by the speech from Prof. Lee explaining who we are and why we are here. Then Sarah gave a speech on behalf of Global College's staff explaining what they are doing and serving Costa Rica. After that, Fabiola represented all of us to give the formal Power point presentation to the NGOs about the benefits that an association with DPI at UN headquarters would bring and the complete guidance to fill-up the application form, followed by a question and answer period. During the meeting, many NGOs expressed an interest and raised questions about the application process. Some NGOs invited us to meet the following week either at their facilities or at the Global College for further discussion.

When the meeting was over, we had breakfast together to discuss about the meeting and estimate our success, in which we believed that it would bring a good number of NGOs to be affiliated with the NGO/DPI. Finally, we all felt relieved and satisfied with the outcome of the meeting that we put so much effort in.

By Sudarat Adirek