1996 - video - 40 minutes - $ 15
This film follows the preparation of the US delegations to a meeting with the Secretary General of the United Nations . Some of the delegates talk about their lives and about what they expect from this meeting at the UN. Extracts from the meeting in Geneva are shown, as well as the dialogue between the delegates and the General Secretary of the United Nations, Mr. Boutros-Ghali. The film ends back in New York where the delegates discuss what happened and Fourth World volunteers talk about what such a meeting represents.
The delegates speak:
“[…] we count on you to make known our suffering and courage and help us find the means to ensure a real future for our children.”
“[…] the hardest thing in our lives, in our suffering, in our unhappiness, is that everything we go through seems to mean nothing to others. The poverty that overwhelms us is not seen as an unbearable scandal. Our daily efforts, our courage, everything disappears like stones under the sand…”
Mr. Boutros-Ghali responds to the delegates:
“… Extreme poverty is a permanent insult to the most fundamental values of the United Nations Charter… I need you, I need your determination. I want to hear your aspirations. I want to feed off your courage. Consider me as your friend and ally, and consider the UN as your home…”