Seton Hall Chapter Advocates for the UN
After a successful in-district meeting with Senator Bob Menendez’ Office in March, the UNA chapter at Seton Hall University has continued its advocacy work as part of the national UNA-USA campaign by visiting Senator Cory Booker’s office in late April.
After booking and planning the meeting with the office for a few weeks, five Executive Board members of UNA-SHU went to Newark, New Jersey, to discuss UN issues with project specialists of Booker’s office. We met with Bianca, Leslie, and Zach, who are experts in education and healthcare, refugees, and environmental issues, respectively.
Our talking points were divided in five topics: the U.S. relationship to the United Nations and the bills related to the budget cut of the U.S. funding to the UN, the role of American youth at the UN, the refugee issue and the Adopt-a-Future campaign, the efforts to achieve gender equality, and the U.S. threat of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.
After presenting these different points to Booker’s office and mentioning a few events organized by UNA-SHU during the past year, we learned about Cory Booker’s extensive dedication to the United Nations and its Sustainable Development Goals. Senator Booker was present at COP21, in Paris, and strongly opposes the withdraw of the United States from the Paris Agreement, as well as other environmental budget cuts that are currently being considered. He is a loud vocal proponent of combatting climate change.
Regarding the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, we learned that Senator Booker has visited refugee camps and his office constantly holds press conferences and town hall issues to take action on the issue locally. Furthermore, Cory Booker’s office stressed their role in advocating for women’s rights, especially in terms of female healthcare.
The project specialists at Booker’s office promised to take our talking points back to the office and make sure that our voice is being heard as youth. Their office acts as an intermediary between legislators and New Jersey stakeholders, and their willingness and support toward our work at Seton Hall made this in-district advocacy meeting by UNA-SHU extremely successful.
