News

Utah students advocate for mountain women and girls at CSW67

24.03.2023

"Empowering rural women in mountains is crucial to eradicating hunger and poverty," said Rosalaura Romeo, Interim Coordinator of the Mountain Partnership Secretariat, during the 67th session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67). In alignment with this goal, the Permanent Mission of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Utah International Mountain Forum at Utah Valley University (UVU) co-hosted a side event titled "Advocating for mountain women and girls' education globally through student engaged learning" on 8 March 2023 in the framework of the Mountain Partnership (MP).

The event featured the inclusive co-curricular student engaged learning (SEL) model, developed in 2011 at UVU in partnership with academic institutions from the Kyrgyz Republic under the MP's auspices.

The SEL model encourages both traditional and non-traditional students to implement United Nations (UN) activities through extracurricular activities, working together to solve real-world problems with the guidance of faculty. It is an educational tool that can be used by any academic institution worldwide to advocate for mountain women and girls. At the same time, its inclusivity ensures that the model is student-driven and makes students full-fledged contributors to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Leading up to the event, UVU students studied various aspects of sustainable mountain development in the state of Utah, United States of America; the Kyrgyz Republic; and other mountain nations worldwide. They created the event agenda, prepared statements and managed all of the logistics and fundraising for the trip through service projects and other sources.

Alitha Thompson, the first woman President of the Utah International Mountain Forum, a coalition of student clubs at UVU, moderated the event, which featured a panel of speakers representing Andorra, Austria, the Kyrgyz Republic and Uzbekistan, along with representatives from the Mountain Partnership Secretariat, UVU, Osh Technological University, and Kunming Institute of Biology. The panel discussed the need for women and girls in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programmes, the challenges facing different mountain regions, and how the SEL education model can support the empowerment of mountain women and communities.

The Permanent Representative of the Kyrgyz Republic to the United Nations (UN), Aida Kasymalieva, emphasized the importance of similar initiatives focused on education and the self-development of mountain women and girls within the framework of the Five Years of Action for the Development of Mountain Regions 2023-2027, as proclaimed in the UN General Assembly's triennial resolution on sustainable mountain development in 2022.

Collaborating with Rotary International

Prior to the 8 March side event, the UIMF held a parallel event, "Empowering mountain women through Inclusive Student-Engaged Learning Educational Initiative", on 6 March.

Twenty-eight UIMF members, including 24 members of the UVU Rotaract Club, spoke in person and virtually at the event, which was co-sponsored by the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences (RANS), a Mountain Partnership member and a non-governmental organization in general consultative status under the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). Rotaract Clubs are an initiative of Rotary International (RI), a global network with ECOSOC general consultative status. One of the UVU Rotaract Club's goals for the CSW67 was to gain co-sponsorship from RI for the Club's future UN activities.

A joint written statement of RANS and Utah China Friendship Improvement Sharing Hands Development And Commerce, another Mountain Partnership member and a non-governmental organization with ECOSOC special consultative status, was distributed as an official CSW67 document (E/CN.6/2023/NGO/45) on 29 November 2022. It highlighted the SEL model to advocate for both mountain women and sustainable mountain development in the State of Utah, at the UN and globally.

The students' participation in the CSW67 contributed to the UVU Political Science Globalization and Sustainable Development class as a capstone project. Ahead of the CSW67, the students studied different aspects of sustainable mountain development and compared this information with other mountain nations worldwide. The students then combined their research and created the agenda of the visit, prepared statements and promotional materials, and were responsible for all of the event logistics. They raised the funds for the trip through service projects with the Orem-Lindon Rotary Club as well as different sources at UVU.

News by Tristin Juarez-Smith, President of the UVU Rotaract