 Postcard sent to Senator Mary Robinson Niamh Ni Charra, NUIG Archivist working on the Mary Robinson archive has reached an important milestone in her work. In a blog post on her progress to date, Niamh outlines some of the challenges she has faced, and the gems that are emerging in this significant and extensive archive.
Read more about Niamh's progress here.
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On the 10th of December each year we celebrate the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948. This year, Human Rights Day calls on everyone to take a stand for human rights. The Mary Robinson Centre honours 10 women who have stood up for human rights with a short video that highlights quotes which show their vision for making the world a better place. As Mary Robinson has often quoted, in 1958, on the tenth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Eleanor Roosevelt said, “Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home.” We can all take small steps to stand up for human rights and reaffirm our common humanity. Thank you to all who have fought so hard for human rights. For more information: Human Rights Day We've given a bit more information about these inspiring women below, with links so you can find out more about them and the incredible things they've achieved.
Zainab Salbi - is a humanitarian, author, and media personality that has dedicated herself to women’s rights and freedom. At the age of 23, she founded Women for Women International, a grassroots humanitarian and development organization dedicated to serving women survivors of wars rebuild their lives. Malala Yousafzai - shot by the Taliban for going to school. Malala is a global advocate for the millions of girls being denied education because of social, economic, legal and political factors. In 2013, Malala co-founded the Malala Fund to empower and educate girls and was a Nobel Peace Prize recipient in 2014. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - a Nigerian novelist whose work has been translated into more than 30 languages, Chimamanda has used her global platform to stand up for the rights of women and refugees. She is famous for her TED Talks, particularly "We Should All Be Feminists." Monica McWilliams - is a professor in the Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University and serves on a three-person panel which makes recommendations on the disbandment of paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland. During the Northern Ireland peace process, Ms. Williams co-founded the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition political party; she is a signatory of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and chaired the Implementation Committee on Human Rights. Coretta Scott King - was an author, activist, civil rights leader, and the wife of Martin Luther King, Jr. from 1953 until his death in 1968. Coretta Scott King helped lead the African-American Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. Eleanor Roosevelt - was an American politician, diplomat, and activist. She was longest-serving First Lady of the United States, pushed the US to join the United Nations and became it's first delegate. She served as the first chair of the UN Commission on Human Rights, and oversaw the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. No list of human rights advocates would be complete without her. Mary Robinson - first female President of Ireland, former barrister advocating human rights and women’s equality in the Irish and European Courts, former UN High Commissioner of Human Rights and founding member of The Elders. Mary has a long career of global advocacy for human rights. Aung San Suu Kyi - is a noted prisoner of conscience and advocate of nonviolent resistance, she was awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize. Since being released by the Burmese military and she has been a State Counsellor and Leader of the National League for Democracy in Burma. Mairead Corrigan Maguire - is a peace activist from Northern Ireland. She co-founded the Women for Peace, which later became the Community for Peace People, an organisation dedicated to encouraging a peaceful resolution of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Maguire was awarded the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize. Graça Machel - one of the world’s leading women’s and children's rights activists who has campaigned tirelessly to champion equality for women and children. Machel is the former freedom fighter, Mozambique's first Education Minister, the Founder of The Graça Machel Trust, a founding member of The Elders and the widow of the late Nelson Mandela.  Mary Robinson served as President of Ireland from 1990 to 1997, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, from 1997 to 2002. She first rose to prominence as an academic, barrister, campaigner and member of the Irish Senate (1969–1989) and was inaugurated as the seventh, and first female, President of Ireland on the 3rd of December 1990. At her inauguration, President Robinson declared that she would cultivate a role which represented all the people of Ireland and that the Presidential Office would be open and inclusive. She followed through with this promise, creating a platform for the marginalised, reaching out to the global Irish diaspora, and connecting people so that nobody was left behind in Ireland. Robinson's work before, during and since her presidency has undoubtably been inspired by a lifelong desire to ensure Human Rights for all. The devastation that followed two world wars left European political leaders facing almost insurmountable challenges. In their efforts to restore peace and tackle economic regeneration, they successfully worked together, building structures which would rescue citizens from the destruction of the past, formulated plans to provide security and stability going forward and enshrining a set of basic inalienable rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In her TED Talk (which you can view below), Mary Robinson describes 1945 as "an extraordinary year." Mary Robinson has described the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as an "international Magna Carta for all mankind." Throughout her life, she has lived by its mantra, that “all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” The desire to ensure that no one is left behind is central to all of Robinson's work towards furthering human rights and justice. Last year, when she took part in the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, Mary Robinson spoke of the extraordinary tasks achieved back then, and of how capable we are as people in finding solutions to world problems. After her Presidency, Mary Robinson went on to become the High Commissioner for Human Rights and has held several UN roles since. In her work around the globe focussed on promoting human rights and sustainable development, it became apparent to her that the greatest threat to human rights was climate change and its enormous impact on some of the most marginalised people on the planet. She regularly met people who, as a result of climate pattern changes, suffered from long periods of drought and flash flooding. Buildings destroyed and food shortages from poor harvests. Robinson heard repeatedly: ‘oh, but things are so much worse now.’ Basic rights to food and shelter were deprived as a result of climate change. Robinson could see that those who had had no contribution to the causes of climate change, were in fact the most affected by it. She realised, that she had to address this moral argument, a question of climate justice, to ensure that the world's poorest and most vulnerable people do not get left behind. When she considers the future life of her grandchildren, and the world they will share with nine billion people in the year 2050, Mary Robinson hopes that they will look back on the year 2015 - the year the Sustainable Development Goals were launched and the Paris Climate Agreement reached - and consider it ‘a remarkable year’. She likes to imagine that they will look back on it gratefully, for the decisions which were made which will alter the route of environmental catastrophe. The history books of the future will recount two important summits which have taken place that year. The first one, in New York, in September, where the agreement on Sustainable Development Goals was reached and would provide help for countries to live sustainably in tune with Mother Earth. The second, COP21 in Paris, where an agreement was reached between all parties which would put into place steps to prevent the Earth’s temperature from rising above 1.5 degrees Celsius. Reflecting on the events of 2016, Robinson acknowledges that political and economic uncertainty around the globe presents challenges that are undoubtably daunting. However, the need for action to tackle global challenges has never been greater and in her recent statement for The Elders, she talks of finding inpiration at the recent COP22 talks in Marakech, Morocco, and the need for all of us to work together for a better world where human rights, peace, justice and security are enjoyed by all. We as a people are capable of coming together to solve problems, insurmountable tasks. We are all in this together… we all want the same thing - a world that in 2050 will be a safer world, a much more equal world. Where nobody is left behind. The Board of the Victoria House Foundation met in Ballina, Co. Mayo on Saturday 26 November 2016. The Board and its project partners Mayo County Council and NUI Galway reiterated their commitment to the vision to use Mary Robinson’s legacy at a location in Ballina to inspire and foster personal leadership in the service of promoting human rights, gender equality and women’s leadership.
For the Victoria House Foundation, the core of this vision continues to be the tremendous gift of Mary Robinson’s archive to the West of Ireland, most particularly for its scholarly value, and the opportunity to create academic and tourism activity. To achieve that, and as part of an ongoing review of the project by the stakeholders, Mary Robinson confirmed that her archive will be gifted to NUI Galway with Mayo County Council having full access to any part of the collection which is required to support the mission of the centre in Ballina. Storage of the archive in Galway will obviate the need to duplicate expensive archival facilities in Ballina. Developing the centre around Mary’s childhood home remains the preferred option of the Victoria House Foundation and other options will also be explored as part of the current review of the project, to be concluded in Q1 2017, and the Board will provide a fuller update on the outcomes of the review at that time. At the meeting of the Victoria House Foundation, the Board was informed that the Revenue Commissioners had confirmed its valuation of the Archive at €4.65 million, with its valuer reporting that it was “of the utmost importance both nationally and internationally to an Irish and world audience of scholars and academics”. Under Section 1003 of the Taxes Consolidation Act 1997, the market value is the lesser of the value placed by the donor and the value placed by the Revenue Commissioners. In this case the value obtained by Mayo County Council and accepted by Mary Robinson was the lower figure of €2.5 million, and this figure was taken for the purposes of calculating the potential tax credit of €2 million. Taking account of Capital Gains Tax that may have arisen on the donation of the archive to the State, the net credit that could have arisen is estimated at €1.2 million. Mary Robinson reiterated at the meeting of the Board that she does not intend to avail of any tax credit that might be available to her under Section 1003. Dr Jim Browne, President of NUI Galway, said the university was honoured to accept the archive. “It is a tremendous gift to the West of Ireland. NUI Galway, which has on its own campus recently built state-of-the-art archival facilities with an established team of experienced archivists and librarians, is privileged to receive such a wonderful gift. It will benefit our students and researchers for years to come, and indeed will offer a fabulous resource to scholars of human rights, gender equality and women's leadership all over the world. We will ensure that the University will protect and facilitate best use of this unique and very valuable resource.’ Mr Peter Hynes, Chief Executive of Mayo County Council, said he looked forward to a phased development of the centre with NUI Galway. “This renewed commitment by the Foundation and its partners will bring tremendous benefits to Ballina, to Mayo and to the West. I look forward to Mayo County Council providing a leadership role in developing this extremely important project into the future.”  Today, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women is the start of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence Campaign which runs until the 10th of December, International Human Rights Day. This campaign is a time to galvanize action to end violence against women and girls around the world. In 2016, the emphasis of the campaign is the need for sustainable financing for efforts to end violence against women and girls towards the fulfilment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and specifically Goal 5: Gender Equality. One of the major challenges to efforts to prevent and end violence against women and girls is the substantial funding shortfall globally. Resources for initiatives to prevent and end violence against women and girls are severely lacking. Frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goals, which includes a specific target on ending violence against women and girls, offer huge promise, but must be adequately funded in order to bring real and significant changes in the lives of women and girls. At The Mary Robinson Centre International Symposium in July, one of our plenary sessions focussed on Goal 5: Mobilising Resources to Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls. This panel featured talks from GERALDINE FRASER-MOLEKETI, Gender Envoy for the African Development Bank; HEATHER GRADY, Vice President, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors and NOELEEN HEYZER, formerly Head of UNIFEM and Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific (ESCAP) and was Chaired by MARY ROBINSON. You can watch the full plenary session below. More information about the 16 Days of Activism Campaign can be found on the UN Women, WHO and Women's Aid Ireland websites.  On the 20th of October, The Mary Robinson Centre’s Visiting Scholar Salomé Ntububa from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), spoke to approximately 90 Transition Year students at the Jesus and Mary Secondary School. Gortnor Abbey in Crossmolina, Co Mayo. As part of our ongoing Bringing Human Rights to Life Schools’ Programme, Salomé’s presentation gave an overview of the 20-year conflict in the DRC, highlighted key targets in the new UN Sustainable Development Goals applicable to promoting sustainable peace in the country and gave specific examples of Irish Aid funded emergency and development projects that are having a real impact on improving the lives of those affected by conflict. It was a unique experience for young people in Mayo to hear directly from a very senior humanitarian worker from the region with both professional and personal experience of the war. Reflecting afterwards, students commented that they had learned so much about a conflict they had not understood before today. “It was so eye opening to hear what kids have to go through every day, that many of them can’t even go to school.” The TY students said they wanted to help, but they also wanted to know where money would go and what sort of projects it would support. “We hear so much about Trump in the media all the time, but nothing about this war which is affecting so many and is so important.” Salomé Ntububa is Regional Emergency Manager for Central and West Africa, Christian Aid in the DRC. From South Kivu, Salomé has worked as a humanitarian practitioner for over 17 years, in East and West African countries. Currently, Salomé Ntububa leads Christian Aid’s humanitarian responses in West and Central Africa, including monitoring the political and security situation to anticipate future interventions. As part of her week of activities as The Mary Robinson Centre’s Visiting Scholar from the 17-24 October 2016, Salomé gave several seminars to postgraduate students at NUI Galway, participated in a film screening of War in Eastern Congo and discussion with documentary maker Dearbhla Glynn at the Ballina Library on the 19th of October 2016 and celebrated Congolese culture at Ballyhaunis direct provision centre on the 21st of October. Further details of dates and activities with visiting scholars is available at: http://www.maryrobinsoncentre.ie/visitingscholar.html
Would you like your school to participate in the Bringing Human Rights to Life Programme? We would be delighted to come and talk at your school in November or December. For more information about these events, please contact Natasha Price, Academic Coordinator, at natasha@maryrobinsoncentre.ie or 087 971 3204  Global Sports Charity Active Communities Network, supported by Laureus Sport for Good Foundation and in partnership with The Mary Robinson Centre, launched the All-Ireland strategy in Ballina on the 20th of October
If you were in Ballina on the 20th of October, you would have definitely heard about the Active Communities Network Launch Sport Event and Evening Reception. The event was attended by all-blacks Rugby Legend Sean Fitzpatrick, history making Jockeys Sir AP McCoy and Hayley Turner, Mayo GAA star Aidan O’Shea and many other sports stars, all key supporters of the partnership. The evening was a terrific chance to come together in support of sport, with an address from Mary Robinson, key note speech from Sean Fitzpatrick, a speech on the All-Ireland Strategy by Jim Donnelly and a panel of sports stars including Sean Fitzpatrick, AP McCoy and Aiden O’Shea. All proceeds from the dinner are to be invested in Mayo based sports initiatives for young people. If you missed being able to attend the events on the day, the All Ireland Launch is being covered on Irish TV this evening: Mayo Matters at 7.30pm. The programme will be repeated onThursday, November 3rd at 3pm and Saturday, November 5th at 11am. Sky 191, Freesat 400 and irishtv.ie / irishtv.com Viewers can also watch it live online here: http://www.irishtv.ie/broadcast/  Salomé Ntububa is Regional Emergency Manager for Central and West Africa, Christian Aid in the DRC. From South Kivu, Salomé has worked as a humanitarian practitioner for over 17 years, in East and West African countries. Currently, Salomé Ntububa leads Christian Aid’s humanitarian responses in West and Central Africa, including monitoring the political and security situation to anticipate future interventions. Salomé joined us as The Mary Robinson Centre's Visiting Scholar from the 16th-21st of October 2016. Here she reflects on her experience in her own words. I would like to say thanks a million to The Mary Robinson Centre and all of you who are engaging in the programmes it promotes. Last week (16 to 21 October 2016), spent in both Galway and Mayo, was very empowering for me personally and has helped develop my humanitarian and advocacy work on Women Protection.
Talking to students and researchers at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, Gender ARC and the Centre for Global Women’s Studies at NUI Galway was a great experience which formed a bridge between my field practices on Gender-Human Rights and the academic experience. Together we share a comprehensive perspective to tackle violence and challenge injustice anywhere it is happening, such as in DR Congo. On Wednesday night, the film screening of War in Eastern Congo at the Ballina Library, Co Mayo, supported our communication and raised awareness about what is happening in DRC, the continual massacre, with a focus on the case of Beni. With the filmmaker, Dearbhla Glynn, we explained some challenges around this conflict and how it is important to continue to support women in Congo who have been so resilient and continue to fighting day to day for their livelihood and survival. I really appreciated the talk we had at Gortnor Abbey with youth as part of the ‘Bringing Human Rights to Life’ schools’ programme. Our open discussion was a reminder that as practitioners and scholars we should recognize the need to inform the grassroots and for all of us to seek information about what is happening in the rest of the world in different ways than what is presented on TV. Students clearly valued sharing the experiences of people who are engaged directly in day to day human rights activities. Young people are seeking feedback and accountable information on how support and help in reaching the most marginalized and vulnerable people in society. Citing the US election and press coverage of Trump’s campaign, they observed that it is often not as important to spend time listening to politicians’ debates which have no impact on saving people lives, or on promoting dignity and justice. Students wanted to know how they could be engaged more on supporting fundamental rights actions. Many thanks again for the celebration of the Congolese Culture at Ballyhaunis direct provision centre, which gave us the opportunity to share positive and peaceful lives of champion women actively working in their local communities to promote peace. Women living in this asylum seeker centre were really encouraged by the event and expressed their willingness to continue their participation towards building a better world for all, dispite where they are or what they have been through. This week was also a great opportunity for me and my organisation Christian Aid to thank the Irish people for the support that we are getting from Irish Aid funding and all the different forms of solidarity that we have via different Irish organisations – including the Mary Robinson Centre in – for our humanitarian, development and advocacy programmes in Congo. President Mary Robinson played a considerable role as the Special Envoy for Great Lakes Region of Africa from 2013-2015 and she continues to lobby and provide a huge support on the Peace and Security agenda to end conflict in DR Congo. This conflict has caused millions of deaths, millions of women and girls have been affected by gender based violence and enormous poverty created in such a very resource rich African country. This has been such a full and inspiring week, many thanks indeed Natasha, Susan and Dr. Reilly, wishing all the best and big success for The Mary Robinson Centre and its vision to inspire and foster personal leadership in the service of promoting human rights, gender equality, women's leadership and climate justice.  On Friday the 21st of October, The Mary Robinson Centre, in conjunction with Mayo Intercultural Action (MIA), hosted a celebration of Congolese culture at Ballyhaunis Direct Provision Centre with music, dancing and terrific Congolese food. Our International Visiting Scholar, humanitaritan practitioner Salomé Ntububa, from the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), spoke about about women rebuilding their communities in the DRC. Salomé had given several talks in academic, school and community settings in the West of Ireland earlier in the week, but we felt it was important to connect her inspiring story of hope with the local community most affected by the war in Congo. We are very grateful for the assistance of Kany Kanyeba Kazadi, MIA board member and passionate spokesperson for asylum-seekers and refugees. Kany is a former resident of Ballyhaunis, fluent in four languages and a terrific community activist. She helped at all stages of the event, from planning and internal promotion to translation and making sure everything went off without a hitch on the day itself. We are also grateful for the manager and staff of Ballyhaunis for supporting our work and for the inspiring women who joined us to celebrate - without all of their support this event would not have been possible.
Kany Kazadi, in her own words...The news about the crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo is rarely in Irish media headlines. So far but so close, Mary Robinson Centre created a great opportunity for the West of Ireland to learn about the crisis in Congo, particularly about violence and injustice suffered by women in the Eastern part of Congo.  Mary Robinson spoke today at the UN General Assembly in New York about the vital importance of Sustainable Development Goal 16 to fully realising the 2030 Agenda and the full implementation of all Global Goals. In her keynote speech at the High-level Side Panel Achieving Peaceful, Just and inclusive Societies for Sustainable Development: Converting words into actions, Robinson stressed that the agreements made in 2015 – the Sustainable Development Agenda and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change – have “given the global community the best opportunity yet to avoid climate change, to end poverty and to enable all people to live lives underpinned by dignity and human rights.” President Robinson went on to discuss the linkages between G16, G10 Reduced Inequality and G5 Gender Equality, the importance of promoting human rights, equality and women's participation and leadership, and the central role these three goals have in achieving every one of the other Global Goals. "Gender equality is a crucial part of all Sustainable Development Goals. We cannot achieve peaceful, just and inclusive societies without equality." Citing the poet Seamus Heaney's famous lines, “if you have the words, there’s always a chance that you’ll find the way,” Robinson said that these crucial agreements have given us the words, and now we need to find the way to implement them. "We know that sustainable development is not possible without action on climate change, and climate action is not possible without sustainable development. Critically, neither is possible without the rule of law and access to justice, for all. For me, climate change is fundamentally a question of justice." Mary Robinson, 22 September 2016.  Today's high-level event 'Peaceful, Just, and Inclusive Societies for Sustainable Development: Delivering on the 2030 Agenda' launched the ‘Global Alliance for Reporting Progress on Promoting Peaceful, Just, and Inclusive Societies,' which aims to harness the strengths and resources of members to support reporting on the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 and its interlinkages with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development as a whole. The Permanent Missions of Cabo Verde, Mexico, Norway, Qatar, Sierra Leone and Tunisia to the UN organised the High-Level Launch Event and UN Development Programme will serve as facilitator for the Global Alliance. Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals is ground-breaking in its acknowledgement of the failures previously to reduce poverty due to conflict and insecurity globally. It is perhaps even more ambitious than many of the other Goals, setting out a framework for peaceful societies, justice for all and good governance – to make peace lasting and sustainable. Within the Goal, targets focus on quite disparate but interlinked aims of ending all violence globally, eliminating child trafficking, torture and violence, reducing illicit arms and financial flows, universal birth registration transparency and accountability of institutions and full participation in decision. Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), stated today “The aspirations of sustaining peace and sustaining development are intrinsically linked: we will not have one without the other. This is true not only within a country – in our highly interconnected world, violent conflict in one country has implications for others near and far, as we have seen with the current record numbers of refugees and internally displaced people,” (Clark's full speech can be found here). Goal 16: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels. At The Mary Robinson International Symposium 2016, in July, we focussed on two interlinked targets within Goal 16 – the elimination of all forms of violence and the importance of responsive, participatory and representative participation in decision-making at all levels. Both of these targets have particular relevance for gender equality and connect ending all violence to building a sustainable peace. If you would like to see the panel President Robinson referred to in her speech at the UN today, you can watch it below. The rest of the panels at the two-day International Symposium can be found on our YouTube Channel here. |
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