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You are invited to respond to the President at: president@ifcw.org
INTERNATIONAL FORUM FOR CHILD WELFARE
San José, Costa Rica, November 2, 2004
Dear Friends and Colleagues:
I was planning to write this letter immediately
upon my return from WordlForum 2004, which - as all of you know
- took place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 27/30.
However, I had to attend the XIX Panamerican Children's
Congress, hosted by the Government of Mexico and the Organization
of American States in Mexico City. I just got back from this event.
WorldForum 2004
Let me first give you some personal impressions
regarding this year's WorldForum:
As has been in the past, the personal meeting with
old and a new friends, and the exchange of information about activities
in the field of child welfare constitute the most important aspects
of this event. It generated much interest on the part of Argentine
child welfare workers, both from the government and the private
sector, so that the plenary sessions as well as the workshops were
well attended. However, the number of IFCW members that attended
was less what was expected.
As in previous years, we had requests from IFCW
members from developing nations for financial support to be able
to pay for the costs of participation, but unfortunately we were
not able to accommodate these requests due to lack of funding for
this purpose. IFCW members' participation, or rather, the lack of
participation, motivated the need to cancel the Executive Institute
as only 6 members indicated their willingness to participate. Translation
services, expert fees, lunch and coffee breaks made its cost-benefit
equation to be unfavorable.
This situation was really very discouraging and
makes me feel guilty. So, I ask all of you to give me your feedback
on this matter so that this situation is not - ever - repeated.
United Nations .
There are two important activities that will take
place at the UN New York Headquarters within the next few months:
• The fifth session of the Ad Hoc Committee
on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on Protection
and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities
will take place in January 2005 in Conference Room 4 of the UN Secretariat
Building. The opening and closing dates, as well as other relevant
information, will be posted in due time at the following address:
www.un.org/esa/socdev/enable
.
• The Commission of the Status of Women
will hold its forty-ninth session at UN headquarters February 28/March
11, 2005. This session will be devoted to a review of the implementation
of the Beijing Platform for Action and to current challenges and
strategies for the advancement and empowerment of women and girls.
If you are interested in participating in any of
these activities, we will be happy to obtain for you the required
registration (on a first come, first served basis). Please contact
me ( feilat@racsa.co.cr )
or Elba Montalvo ( emontalvo@chcfinc.org
) before December 10, 2004.
Executive Committee.
The annual meeting of the General Assembly took
place in Buenos Aires on September 28. It took note of the resignation,
for personal reasons, of the Treasurer, Mr. Ian Calder and elected
Ms. Sharon Osborne to finish the term that is being served by Ian.
The Assembly recognized and thanked Ian for his work not only as
Treasurer but also during his more than 27 years working for the
welfare of children as head of Barnardos New Zealand. The tenure
of two members-at-large, Ms. Elba Montalvo and Mr. Bruce Rivers
was to end on December of 2004 and, therefore, these positions were
also up for election. The General Assembly decided to re-elect both
Elba and Bruce for a second two-year term. Congratulations to Sharon,
Elba and Bruce. I am glad to have them as fellow members of the
EC.
Payment of Dues
Again I have to insist with those of you that have
not yet paid your 2004 dues. Please help us by making your payment
immediately. Also, if you paid your dues directly to the bank, kindly
send me copy of your bank receipt as we have no way in which to
identify these payments and therefore your organization might appear
as not having paid, when the contrary is true.
WorldForum 2005
Thanks to the sponsorship of the Estonian Union
for Child Welfare, WorldForum 2005 will take place in Tallinn, capital
of Estonia, September 19/23, 2005. For IFCW this venue marks a long-standing
wish: to meet again in Europe. Please mark these dates in your calendar
and make plans to participate in this very important event.
Sincerely,
Rolando Quiros
PRESIDENT
____________________________________________________________________________________________
IFCW * P.O. Box 393-2010 * San José,
Costa Rica.
Tel: 506 228
6601 * Fax: 506 261 9238 * e-mail : feilat@racsa.co.cr
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