At the start of the 3 days visit of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon to Ireland, the Irish Committee for the UN #EndPoverty Day welcomed #UNSG with this letter:
The Irish Committee for UN Day for the Eradication of Poverty wishes you a fruitful stay in Ireland
Dear Mr Secretary-General,
On behalf of families and communities experiencing poverty in Ireland, and on behalf of the community and voluntary organisations comprising the Irish 17 October Committee, we wish you a pleasant and successful stay in our Country.
As a small gesture of our welcome to you, please find with this letter the 2015 Calendar promoting the United Nations International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. We know that you regularly and strongly support the observance of this UN day and this gift is an expression of our gratitude.
We believe this calendar holds a special significance. In your recent pronouncements, you have underlined the importance of 2015 as a pivotal year globally. This year, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty commemorated on Saturday, 17th October will take place in a very special context, just after the adoption of the new Sustainable Development Goals and one month before the Climate Summit.
For these historic challenges, we wish you every success in your commitment to place human dignity, social justice and participation in society without shame at the core of this global momentum.
Our Committee would also like to draw your attention to the fact that Dublin, as over 50 other significant places around the world, has a 17 October Human Rights and Poverty Stone. This Stone was created by the Irish sculptor Stuart McGrath and inaugurated close to the Famine Memorial on the banks of the River Liffey by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Councillor Emer Costello, on 17 October 2008.
Your stay in Dublin may enable you to discover this very special Stone, symbolically connecting the past sufferings of poverty stricken Ireland with the global hopes of a sustainable world, free of hunger, poverty, humiliation and discrimination.
Yours faithfully, The Irish 17 October Committee
About UN Secretary General visit to Ireland visit: UN SG urges Ireland to lead on climate change: “One cannot be a leader on hunger, without also being a leader on climate change.”