Jaime Nolan serves as delegate at Commission on the Status of Women meeting

Friday, March 18, 2016
A view of flags outside the UN

Jaime Nolan, associate vice president for community, equity and diversity, is spending this week at the UN's headquarters in New York as a delegate to the Commission on the Status of Women.

What would it be like to serve as a delegate to the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW)? Jaime Nolan, associate vice president for community, equity and diversity, is finding out this week.

“On Monday morning, I waited in line for two hours in bone-chilling rain to get my UN badge but was warmed by the amazing women with whom I shared the experience,” Nolan says.

A speaker at the UN's Commission on the Status of Women
Nolan shared this photo from the CSW's Monday events.

Nolan, who is also teaching a women’s studies class this semester, learned late last fall she had been invited to serve as a delegate to the CSW’s 60th annual session from March 14 to 25 and represent the Earth Child Institute and the program Women, War and What They Fed the Children. 

The Earth Child Institute’s mission is to "engage with and empower children and young people today who comprise close to half the global population toward a sustainable tomorrow,” and Women, War and What They Fed the Children was created in recognition of women globally who live — or have lived — in the midst of war and its aftermath.

Attendees in line at the UN's Commission on the Status of Women meeting in New York
Nolan praised the work of those attending the event.

“We are working with women from various countries, collecting their stories and sharing them with other women,” Nolan explains.

Waiting in that long line outside the UN’s headquarters in New York on Monday, “I became friends with a young woman from Liberia, Brenda Brewer Moore, who is the executive director and co-founder of the Kids Educational Engagement Project,” Nolan explains, adding, “I also met a woman from Rwanda, Odette Mukazi, who represents the NGO COMESA, which works to develop entrepreneurial skills for women who are trying to heal from the aftermath of war.”

When Monday’s events began, Nolan attended a UN session on the gender pay gap as a global sustainability issue presented by a panel including representatives from the UK, Australia, Germany and France.

“Next year," Nolan adds, "we hope to bring young women from UNH to participate in CSW 2017."