The Vienna Experience: Day Number 5

The entrance to the UN buildings

Today was the day we visited the United Nations! i was very excited to see what it was like as I had been to the one in New York. After a short subway ride, we arrived at the UN buildings. The security there was surprisingly laid back and let everyone go through even though most of us beeped at the metal detector. Unfortunately, the tour we were signed up for, a human rights tour, was not available or something so we were given the standard UN tour. While it was somewhat interesting, most of it did not apply to what we were learning in the class. There was one room on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was pertinent and it was informative. Also, there were many works of art throughout the UN which I thought were beautiful. After our tour ended, we were supposed to meet with the Director of UN GIFT which stands for United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking. We were only able to meet with their intern, Sophia, but it was still very informative. She lead us through a presentation of what human trafficking is and what UN GIFT's role was in it. They are basically there to provide expertise and are an alliance of six major organizations. They provide training in the private sector to attempt to make business owners more aware of where their product is coming from and work through a few other different areas. The issue I saw was that although it seemed like UN GIFT was a huge factor in the fight against human trafficking, they did not have much authority. This is just what i took from the presentation and I am not 100% sure that this is the case but from what it looked like to me, the NGO's are the only ones who really have been making a difference.

View of the Flags from an inside plaza of the UN buildings

Blowing in the Wind

The UN peace bell. I believe it is made from
melted down coins of every nation in the UN

A piece of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

A piece of Artwork found in the UN

Another piece of Art in the UN I found Interesting. It is called "From Darkness to Light"

A human trafficking display in the UN

The UN visit basically took all day so we were planning on going to see free music at a Catholic church that night but when we got there, there was a "suggested" donation of 15 euros and they would not allow us to stay unless we each paid that much. So we wandered around Vienna a bit and went to another Christmas market and then went back to Stephanushaus to sleep.