Latest news with #Syme
Scoop
28-05-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
‘We Are Women Like You': UN Honours Peacekeepers For Work In Gender Empowerment
28 May 2025 There, alongside civilian gender units, Ms. Syme met a group of local community members – both men and women. Partway through, she realised something was different. 'The women were not talking,' she told UN News. 'They were very quiet.' Then she remembered that local cultural norms dictated women do not speak in public. 'We are women like you. We want to be able to help, but we don't know how we can help you,' she told them in a separate meeting. 'Can you please tell us what your problem is so we can see how we can help?' It is for this sort of work founded in community trust building and a relentless belief in the importance of gender perspectives and empowerment in peacekeeping, that the UN will honour two exceptional women peacekeepers on Thursday as part of International Peacekeepers' Day. Ms. Syme is this year's winner of the UN Military Gender Advocate of 2024 Award. '[Ms. Syme's] dedication has not only improved the effectiveness of UNISFA's operations but also ensured that the mission is more reflective of and responsive to the communities it serves,' said Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix. The other honouree is Chief Superintendent Zainab Mbalu Gbla of Sierra Leone who has been named Woman Police Officer of the year for her work with UNISFA. 'Chief Superintendent Gbla embodies the work of the United Nations to improve lives and shape futures,' said Mr. Lacroix. Gender and peacekeeping The UN Woman Police Officer of the Year Award was established in 2011 and the UN Military Gender Advocate of the Year Award was first presented five years later. Both awards recognize peacekeepers whose work has substantially advanced the integration of gender perspectives and empowerment into peacekeeping. In 2000, the Security Council passed a resolution which affirmed the essential role women play in peacebuilding, peacekeeping and humanitarian responses. Since then, the United Nations has worked to fully integrate gender perspectives into peacekeeping. According to Ms. Syme, applying gender perspectives should be a 'daily task' for all peacekeepers. 'We need to understand the gender dynamics within our area of operation, otherwise, we might not be able to have the right intervention, we might not be able to carry out the right activities,' she said. Intergenerational legacy Ms. Gbla experienced the impact of peacekeeping herself as a civilian in Sierra Leone in the wake of a war that ravaged her country. 'I saw people coming from different parts of the world just to bring peace to my country… That's why I told myself that one day I'd love to be a peacekeeper – to help other people, to return the favour,' Ms. Gbla told UN News. As a UNISFA gender officer, not only did she create a school programme and female mentorship network where none had existed before, she also worked diligently to ensure that learning was fun, incorporating performing arts and visual aids. '[The women of Abyei] are ready to work, they are ready to do things for themselves if peace allows them. The children are ready to go to school, if peace allows them,' she said. A health campaign in Abyei Ms. Syme's meeting with the women of Sector North was the beginning of an enormously successful health campaign in the region which discussed harmful practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation, the two issues which the community women had identified. The campaign engaged both men and women, and Ms. Syme said that she was deeply impressed and moved by the response of the male leaders who, through the campaign, realized the harm that practices of child marriage and female genital mutilation had caused. '[The leaders] promised that they are going to revise these cultural practices so that going forward, they will not do it again,' Ms. Syme said. This campaign happened in June 2024 and has driven Ms. Syme's work since then, work which includes training over 1,500 UNISFA officials in gender-responsive peacekeeping. 'It has motivated me,' Ms. Syme said. 'It has motivated me a lot.' The future of peacekeeping through gender Both Ms. Syme and Ms. Gbla will receive their awards on International Peacekeeping Day. This year, Member States and UN officials will be asked to consider the future of peacekeeping. For both Ms. Syme and Ms. Gbla, the future of peacekeeping and security cannot be disentangled from gender perspectives and empowerment. 'If you don't know the gender dynamics of the area, if you don't know who is in charge, if you don't know what will benefit who…you may think you are providing security, but you are not really providing security,' Ms. Syme said. Ms. Gbla, in discussing her award, paid homage to all the women who wear a UN uniform, underlining their tireless work in the pursuit of peace. 'Each of us [women] faces unique challenges in our respective missions, yet our collective goal remains the same – to foster peace and protect the vulnerable."
The Guardian
25-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Something to believe in, even if it's deeply silly': why 15,000 people signed up to a letter-writing project
When you think of your mailbox, what comes to mind? Fliers that head straight to the trash, tax forms and bank statements, the dreaded jury duty notice. Maybe a magazine or two, if you're lucky. Most likely, it's been a long time since you've been excited to get snail mail. But after nearly five years of being a habitual letter writer, Rachel Syme has found that there's so much to savor that can only come through a mailbox. The joy of receiving a written recipe, or sending delicately pressed flowers to a friend; of luxuriating in the scandalous office drama of a pen pal from across the country, or writing a poetic screed about a nemesis. Syme learned that letters aren't just a medium of communication, but also a form of art. After sharing letter-writing tips in newsletters and online for years, Syme packed all of her advice into a book, Syme's Letter Writer: A Guide to Modern Correspondence, released in January. The book is loosely inspired by a Victorian-era how-to guide written by Sarah Annie Frost-Shields, a housewife who published several volumes on etiquette. Syme came across Frost's manual in 2020, as she was researching the history of letter writing. While Syme's version leaves out such dubious tips as 'cold water refreshes and invigorates but does not cleanse', she does offer readers advice on what to collect to put in letters (think pre-wrapped tea bags and Polaroids; but sending 'glitter bombs' is close to sin) and how to sharpen their language when writing about the weather (instead of describing summer as 'hot' or 'humid', how about 'sultry' or 'torrid'?). Much of her advice encourages a certain kind of noticing that only happens offline. It's the satisfaction of picking out the perfect stationery, spritzing a letter with a touch of perfume and finding the perfect way to describe a cloudy day. (Syme favors handwritten notes, though typewriters work in a pinch.) Letters give correspondents 'the opportunity to tour through your curiosity and tastes every time you sit at your desk', Syme writes. 'It also gives you the chance to believe in something, even if it feels deeply silly.' For Syme, life as a habitual letter writer started in the early days of the pandemic in 2020, when she put out a pen pal request on her social media accounts. Hundreds responded, an impossible number of correspondents to manage. So Syme became a pen pal fairy godmother of sorts, matching pen pals around the world with each other using Elfster, a website designed to coordinate Secret Santa exchanges. More than 15,000 people would ultimately sign up for the project, eventually called Penpalooza. At the peak of her letter writing, Syme said she was getting 10 to 15 letters a day. Over the years, she's filled at least 20 shoe boxes with them. While it's natural for many pen pal relationships to fade away over time, Syme said she'd heard many stories of pen pals she set up maintaining their correspondence for years. She herself has two ride-or-die pen pals. 'There's an unwritten rule of a letter, which is that whatever happens in this letter stays in the letter,' Syme said. 'Letters give you that kind of permission. There's an intimacy to it.' It's also one of the few things in the age of the internet that feels like it exists outside of time. You can take your time with a letter. The rush to read or reply is removed. The letter is there, waiting for you when you're ready. 'You're just getting to know one another, you're just writing about what you're thinking and what you're feeling. It's so low stakes that in so many ways, I find it to be the most freeing way of talking to anybody else,' Syme said. 'You're writing with a goal of a deeper connection with another person. I don't know that many mediums that have that goal any more.' To understand the depth achieved in letters, Syme explored the relationship between several writers and their closest correspondents. Julia Child was pen pals with the book editor Avis DeVoto for most of her adult life, where they shared their dreams and fears, gossip, delicious musings on cooking – and even their thoughts on sex. After reading Peyton Place, a novel about women experiencing their sexual awakenings during the second world war, Childs wrote to Devoto: 'Before marriage I was wildly interested in sex, but since joining up with my old goat, it has taken its proper position in my life. 'Those women, stroked in the right places until they quiver like old Stradivarii!' she said about the book. 'Quite enjoyed it, though feeling an underlying abyss of trash.' The writer James Joyce wrote excited love letters to his wife, Nora Barnacle, who he once called 'my dirty little fuckbird' in a letter. Jane Austen often sent sharp-tongued letters to her elder sister Cassandra while she was in a period of frustration over her writing. 'I am forced to be abusive out of want for a subject, having nothing really to say,' she wrote at the time. Even though Syme, a staff writer at the New Yorker, is busier now than during the pandemic's lockdown, she prioritizes her letters. She brings them to read on the subway, and will start writing a letter if she's waiting for a friend at a bar. And she has made a ritual out of responding to her correspondences, making a kettle of tea, putting on some music and lighting candles. 'I've never gotten a letter and have been like, 'Ugh, another one.' Never once,' Syme said. 'I just get excited to hear from people. I'm an extrovert, I love to connect with people. It's all I ever wanted when I was a little kid growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, staring out of my window at tumbleweeds going by. That's not an exaggeration. I just dreamed of having so many people that I could communicate with and write to.' For those who want to try letter writing, you can start with friends and family. Many organizations also connect people with strangers to start correspondences with. Letters to Strangers matches up pen pals with the aim of promoting mental wellbeing. The World Needs More Love Letters allows people to nominate someone in their life that could use kind letters. Some organizations match people with a pen pal from a specific population, like incarcerated individuals or elderly people, who are at risk of isolation or loneliness. Prisoner Correspondence Project and the Black and Pink are geared toward supporting the queer incarcerated community. Syme warns in her book that at first, letter writing can seem 'a little bit silly, a little bit anachronistic, and a little bit melodramatic. 'But also know that your letter, no matter its legibility or coherence, will be met with absolute excitement,' Syme writes. 'Whatever you put in the mail, even if it does not rise to the great epistolary heights that you someday hope to emulate, it is still a surprise on its way to enliven someone's dreary mailbox.'
The Independent
11-03-2025
- Business
- The Independent
Economic benefits of Man Utd's potential new stadium ‘unparalleled in scale'
Manchester United's potential 100,000 seater stadium will bring unparalleled economic benefits, experts say. The stadium and wider regeneration project have the potential to add an extra £7.3 billion each year to the UK economy, with the possibility of creating more than 17,000 homes and 92,000 jobs, the football club said. Oxford Economics, which was commissioned by the club to investigate the economic feasibility of the project, previously said a new stadium could bring in an extra 1.8 million visitors to the city per year. Dr Tony Syme, macroeconomic expert at the University of Salford's Business School, told the PA news agency: 'In terms of the economic impacts, the project would have to be so large to achieve this, I can't think of anything on this scale in the north of England.' He went on: 'It should mean enormous opportunities, it would be a much larger social, leisure, sporting centre around Trafford, so enormous possibilities in terms of employment and jobs.' Dr Syme said there may be 'major disruption' to residents who live nearby, but that the possibilities outweigh this. A start date for the work has not been confirmed, but architect Norman Foster said that once work is under way it could be built within five years. Manchester United's co-owner, billionaire Ineos chief Sir Jim Ratcliffe, previously estimated a new stadium would cost about £2 billion. A report by Oxford Economics last year said that Trafford Wharfside and the area containing the current stadium and the site for a potential new ground are 'largely industrial', with a considerable amount of car parking and derelict land. It found that Manchester United's potential investment and associated masterplan for the surrounding area could provide a 'catalyst' for regeneration there. Oxford Economics said that a new stadium could 'catapult Trafford from among the worst performing local authorities in the country to among its best performers'. It said that the Stadium District and Trafford Wharfside Masterplan has the potential to deliver more than 17,000 more homes, which are expected to accommodate more than 42,000 additional residents. The report found that there is an opportunity to support the delivery of both the stadium and regeneration of Trafford Wharfside by upgrading the railway line in Trafford. Dr Syme said the new stadium would be 'much bigger' than the regeneration work delivered in East Manchester by the owners of Manchester City since 2008. Lord Sebastian Coe, chairman of the Old Trafford Regeneration Task Force, said it was the biggest and most exciting urban regeneration project in the UK since the 2012 London Olympics. Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, said: 'Our common goal on the Task Force has been to try to unlock the full power of the club for the benefit of its supporters and for Greater Manchester as a whole, creating thousands of new homes and jobs. 'If we get this right, the regeneration impact could be bigger and better than London 2012. Manchester United could, and indeed should, have the best football stadium in the world.' Aaron Robertson, another lecturer at the University of Salford's Business School, said the impact would extend 'far beyond construction' and could 'shape communities, support workers and influence the entire built environment sector'. Tottenham Hotspur unveiled a new stadium in 2019, prompting a boost to the local economy. An in-depth analysis of Spurs' socio-economic impact from the 2021-22 season by professional services company EY found the club contributes about £900 million of gross output to London's economy, generating an additional £478 million of growth value added (GVA) in London. A total of £296 million of this GVA is for the borough of Haringey specifically, which is a vast increase on the £120 million GVA per annum being generated in 2015 when the club called 36,284-seater White Hart Lane its home.
