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Global Citizens recognized

While UNA-Canada is acknowledging outstanding Canadian contributions to the United Nations through its Medal of Honour, Canada's UN/50 Committee is also honouring the work of thousands of Canadians whose commitment to UN ideals have made their communities and our world a better place. In Ottawa on October 31, UN Under-Secretary-General Gillian Martin Sorenson presented ten UN/50 Global Citizens Certificates to acknowledge these contributions.

Among the ten Global Citizens honoured included Dr. Valerie Hume of Ottawa, a driving force behind the creation of the Canadian Committee for UNIFEM, Jacques Lescot of Bucking, Ontario, a veteran of two UN peace-keeping missions, and Edith Matte of St. Tite, Quebec, who spent 19 years working as a community health expert for the World Health Organization in central Africa.

Also honoured were the Girl Guides and Leaders of Quebec, for their work on the UN/50 Peace Packs project, through which care packages were sent to refugee children, as well as the Ouje-Bougoumou Cree Nation of northern Quebec, for their efforts to create a environmentally sound and people-friendly community.

Sorenson, who is also Special Advisor to the Secretary-General for Public Policy and head of the UN/50 Secretariat in New York, acknowledged the recipients' efforts to fulfill the objectives of the UN by improving education, health, habitat, human rights and labour conditions and by promoting peace and the UN itself. "Real differences are made in this world person by person and community by community," she said.

The 10 recipients at the October 31 event were among some 20,000 Canadians who will receive certificates this year as part of the UN/50 Global Citizens Challenge. The Challenge is a national community participation programme, aimed at honouring Canadians who have contributed to the goals and objectives of the United Nations by working directly for the UN or one of its agencies, by working for other international agencies at home or abroad, or by working for UN objectives in their own communities.