The United Nations (UN) in Pakistan successfully hosted a family-oriented event at the Pakistan National Council of the Arts (PNCA) to commemorate the 79th anniversary of the ratification of the UN Charter on October 24, 1945 and to highlight the world body’s operations in times of both peace and conflict in Pakistan.
The event saw enthusiastic participation of the UN agencies, their representatives briefing the public about the work and achievements of their respective agencies—WFP, UNFPA, FAO, IFAD, UNESCO, UNAid, UNWOMEN, IOM, ,UNHabitat, OCHA, UNIDO, ILO and more.
The focus of the public attention, however, was the ‘UN Career Booth’ which remained crowded throughout the day.
UN Resident Coordinator Mohamed Yahya, ILO’s Country Director GeirTonstol, heads and deputy heads of other UN agencies were also actively engaged in guiding and informing the visitors about the UN work, its past, presence and future plans.
This is amazing. People have turned up in such a large number showing keen interest in our works, said Mohamed Yahya while talking to Pakistan Observer.
“We had an overwhelming response; we were not expecting such a large crowd,” he said.
The UN Day festival started at 3pm, and remained active later than 8 p.m. and among the most of the visitors included young students, girls and families.
UNIDO Representative, Nadia Aftab, UNHCR Representative, Philippa Candler, UN Women Deputy Representative, Jacqui VipunjitKetunuti, UNDP Deputy Resident Representative, Van Nguyen, UNESCO-Islamabad Head of Education Zafar Hayat Malik, UNAids community-led response adviser for Pakistan and Afghanistan, SaniaTaimur and other UN officials were busy interacting with the visitors presenting them printed material, brochures and pamphlets giving quite a different picture of the UN operations from what is usually shown on TV screens.
Through these interactions we try to raise awareness among the people how they can co-exist and respect each other rights, said one of them.
ILO’s CD GeirTonstol said, “We work together with the government, employers’ organizations as well as workers organizations and support decent work in different sectors of the economy.” The ILO has signed a decent work country programme with Pakistan to ensure that labour standards are ratified and implemented, he said. Apart from awareness and guidance sessions, there were plenty of opportunities to entertain the visitors.
There was music—Shae Gill performed on the eastern and western beats and mesmerized the audience with his vocal magic.
There was fun and there was food too, though proper attention was not given to hygiene and disposal of waste, yet the event was a great success and would be remembered for the days to come.
