Here is the current draft of our upcoming grant application with the Ploughshares fund. Suggestions welcome!
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The UN Charter was signed on June 26, 1945 at the Veterans Building in San Francisco with a preamble calling for an end to the scourge of war, for human rights, for respect for international law and for social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.
As the home of the UN, San Francisco is the perfect candidate to foster a global network of cities in support of all of the goals of the UN, not just the SDGs but also the original goals of the UN. The cities of the world do not have nuclear weapons themselves, and they are targets if nuclear war occurs, so they do support all of the goals of the UN, very much including nuclear disarmament.
Our Ploughshares grant project is to build a coalition that will in turn persuade City Hall to institute a San Francisco UN Goals Advisory Committee. We have designed and developed the Voices of Humanity online forum for the purpose. This is a big first step towards the global city network that we have in mind.
How do we do it?
We will recruit a largely women's A-team to do the outreach needed to build a SF civic, business, academic and government coalition to underpin the new UN Goals Advisory Committee. The aim will be to find volunteers from each of the eleven San Francisco Supervisor districts, and for each district to have at least one volunteer from a marginalized group such as disabled, lgbtq, minority, etc. The A-team’s outreach to the city Supervisors is key to success.
We will recruit San Francisco technology companies to partner with the City Technology department towards further development of the Voices of Humanity forum. San Francisco is a high tech city, so there are many candidates to approach. The Voices of Humanity forum, though viable for the San Francisco project and for initial global outreach, will need a lot of work on the technical side to handle a full scale global network of cities for all of the UN Goals.
We will find a major partner for future grants looking first amongst the many San Francisco non-profits that support the marginalized groups.
Bronwyn Galloway and Roger Eaton will be a team for the three directions. We will share focus on finding a major partner, Bronwyn will focus more on putting together the A-team, and Roger will focus more on the City Technology department. Bronwyn is President of San Francisco 501(c)(3) non-profit Collective Communication Inc. Roger is Executive Director and designer of Voices of Humanity online forum.
Selling points
See our excellent draft resolution for consideration by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors: Bringing the Goals of the United Nations Home to San Francisco.
The draft resolution linked above includes the following items related to nuclear arms:
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WHEREAS, On January 24, 1946, the UN General Assembly adopted its first resolution, which established a commission of the UN Security Council to make specific proposals “for the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction”; and
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WHEREAS, The UN Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons with 190 signatory states and ratified by the United States on March 5, 1970, includes a commitment "to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control"; and
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WHEREAS, The cities of the world stand for peace and disarmament, unlike many of the nations, particularly the nuclear armed nations; and
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WHEREAS, Nuclear arms are a serious roadblock to the achievement of the SDGs, both directly for their expense and indirectly as a signal that we live in an us-vs-them world where it would seem foolish for nations to adopt the sense of international trust and cooperation that is needed to achieve the SDGs; and
Voices of Humanity (VoH) online forum features add up to a highly innovative framework for a global network of cities in support of the Goals of the United Nations. You may login as Visitor to check the forum out at https://voh.intermix.org. Here is a list of VoH features and a link for details:
Collective voices for groups.
Built in support for gender and age equality.
Built in support for geographic levels from City to State to Nation to Global.
Built in support for marginalized communities.
Apart & Together conversations “Across the Silos”.
Built in support for nonviolent action.
An Iphone/Android app to be implemented by May, 2022.
Bottom up networks to implement intersectionality - to be implemented by May, 2022.
Grant money budget
One part time outreach supervisor - 25 hours a week at $35/hour for total of $45,500 for the year.
One part time programmer - 3 hours a week at $50/hour for a total of $7,800 for the year.
Advertising budget - $5000
Discretionary - $1,700
Total - $60,000
#voh
