Note to Correspondents

EVENTS AT UN HEADQUARTERS WILL SEEK TO RAISE AWARENESS ABOUT POVERTY;

INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR POVERTY ERADICATION TO BE OBSERVED 17 OCTOBER

A series of events at the United Nations will commemorate the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, 17 October.

At an 11 a.m. press conference in room S-226, Under-Secretary-General Shashi Tharoor will mark the Day and announce how many people around the world took part in the global awareness-raising “Stand Up Against Poverty” drive organized by the Millennium Campaign.  As part of the Global Call to Action against Poverty month of worldwide mobilization around the International Day, people from around the world were invited to stand up against poverty and be counted.  The press conference will also feature an activist from Guatemala, Lorena Tepeu Sop.

The annual ceremony in the United Nations Garden, from 1:15 p.m. to 2:45 p.m., will include performances by singer/songwriter John Francis and the drumming group Owusu & the Garifuna Family.  The event will feature General Assembly President Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa and Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown; Under-Secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs José Antonio Ocampo; the Permanent Representatives of France, Jean-Marc de La Sablière, and of Burkina Faso, Michel Kafando; and the Director General of the International Movement ATD Fourth World, Eugen Brand.  Tepeu Sop, Nan O’Brien of Ireland, Bernie Kenny of Appalachia, and Obie Williams and Wanda Monserrat of New York, will bear witness on behalf of people and families living in extreme poverty.

Invited guests will attend a reception at 3 p.m. at the Church Centre (second floor) following the commemoration, offered by the NGO Subcommittee for the Eradication of Poverty.

From 4.15 p.m. to 5.45 p.m., a panel discussion at the Church Centre, on “Speaking up against poverty: Hearing the Voices of the Poorest”, will discuss how to use the International Day as a tool in the fight against poverty.  The panellists are Canadian human rights activist Josephine Grey; Damien Peelo, national coordinator of the Irish Traveller Movement and Eugene Brand, Director General of International Movement ATD Fourth World.  Joan Burke, Chair of the NGO Committee for Social Development, will moderate.

The observance of the Day is organized by the Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the International Movement ATD Fourth World.

Contact at the Department of Public Information, Franck Kuwonu, tel. 212 963 8264, e-mail kuwonu@un.org, or Edoardo Bellando, tel. 212 963 8275, e-mail bellando@un.org.

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For information media • not an official record