The UN Charter was signed here in San Francisco on June 26, 1945 at the Veterans Building across the street from City Hall. That gives San Francisco good standing to start a new global movement for all of the goals of the UN, very much including both nuclear and general disarmament.
In the previous four “Order out of Chaos” podcast episodes, a four part plan that San Francisco can implement was developed. Here is that plan again:
First, San Francisco City Council passes a resolution adopting all the goals of the UN for local implementation and/or support. Then, City Hall initiates the outreach to build a global network of cities that are considering adopting all the goals of the UN. Third, pass the baton to the United Nations to bring in the TPNW nations to help fund the global cities network. That’s the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, currently signed by 92 nations. Fourth, find or build an online forum designed to bring together supporters of the UN Goals at the city level, nationally, and globally. Voices of Humanity comes to mind! We need that sense of solidarity at the global level that VoH is designed for.
So how do we do it? We build a coalition. We build a government/civic/business/academic San Francisco coalition. Easier said than done, but not impossible. The coalition will develop its own leadership. Here at Voices of Humanity, we very much hope to be the communications medium for the coalition, but be assured that we are not expecting to call the shots. Not that we won't be adding our thoughts to the process.
Our small San Francisco non-profit, Collective Communication, Inc, has two important assets that we can use to build the needed coalition. The Voices of Humanity online forum with its many innovative features designed to bring people together is one. The other is our draft resolution for consideration by the City Council with the title “Bringing the Goals of the UN Home to San Francisco”. See sfungoals.org and click the Draft Resolution button in the upper left corner.
A previous attempt to build the coalition collapsed with the onset of the pandemic plus a failure to gain interest from the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. We thought the Commission would be delighted to help bring together supporters of all the goals of the UN. After all, gender equality is one of those goals, and the new connections that would be made could be very useful. But it soon became clear that the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women was trapped in its silo. Here’s their slogan: “We ensure women and girls equal economic, social, political and educational opportunities in San Francisco.” Only San Francisco and only issues related to women and girls. Totally understandable. Everyone knows that focus is needed to accomplish anything. And this is going to be our difficulty in creating the coalition regardless of which UN goal a particular nonprofit is focused on. They are just so focused that they don’t have time even to consider taking a larger perspective.
On the positive side, though, our previous attempt did get through to several San Francisco Supervisors. This time we will begin by gaining the support of the Board of Supervisors. Until we actually have the coalition built we cannot expect the Board to pass the resolution, but we can win supervisorial support for the resolution and we can use that support in our outreach to potential coalition members.
We plan to build a largely women's A-team to do the outreach needed to build the San Francisco civic/academic/business/government coalition that will 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, minorities.
The process of building the A-team will include outreach to San Francisco nonprofits, which muddies the plan to look first to the Board of Supervisors. We are going to need good advice, and for that we are looking to taprootplus.org. The Taproot Foundation, headquartered here in San Francisco, connects expert volunteers with nonprofits like ours that need help and advice.
It is not going to be easy, but the four step plan outlined at the beginning of this podcast is a no-brainer. Of course we should include nuclear disarmament with the SDGs. Of course the cities of the world agree. Of course the cities of the world should form a network to support ALL the goals of the UN. Of course San Francisco is the perfect candidate to get the network started. Of course the TPNW nations will be onboard with funding that network. And of course there must be an online forum to bring all the cities together to trade advice.
The next Order out of Chaos podcast will be about a “Plants and Animals” project to create a collective voice for each of the species. Plants and Animals. P and A. PandA! The idea of creating collective voices for different communities by voting on messages opens up amazing new possibilities.
#The_UN_Goals #un_goals #together
