Dr. Judy KURIANSKY (Dr.  Judy): Welcome to the Light Millennium TV series of UN NGO profiles.  Today I have with me two extremely distinguished men who know a great deal about the United Nations, with over a quarter of a century of working there. Juan Carlos Brandt is chief of the section of nongovernmental organizations in the Department of Public Information. And Richard Jordan is chairman of the upcoming UN/DPI-NGO Annual 60th Conference that will be held September 5^th to 7th, 2007 at the United Nations headquarters in New York.  Richard is also a representative of one of the NGOs to the UN.  Welcome, and nice to have you both with us. We sit here in front of a poster that is quite beautiful and related to the conference you both care about. Tell us about it.

JC BRANDT: The poster is the official visual identity for the upcoming DPI/NGO conference.  It was only last week presented to the NGO community at the United Nations to great acclaim by the NGOs. It was created by an in-house team at the United Nations and is meant to represent both the optimistic side and the negative side of the topic that we have chosen for our conference this year which, as the poster clearly indicates, is Climate Change.

Dr. Judy: As the poster shows, the word "Climate" is on top, and down below is the word "Change" written upside-down. There are also images in the letters. The poster also says, "Climate Change: How It Impacts Us All." Richard, what is the symbolism of the image, how does climate change impact us all, and how was it chosen to be the subject this year?

R. Jordan: Well, not only is the word "Change" upside-down but it is also backwards.  And the images show all the negative consequences of the actions of human beings accumulated over a long period of time, whether they are intense weather-related events or natural disasters, such as Lake Baikal drying up and now becoming almost nothing, as well as incredible forest fires, tornadoes, and intense hurricanes. All of this we have seen just in the last few years.  These very intense events impact not only every single person but also other species, such as the monarch butterflies who stop on Long Island at some point in their migration. So not only are humans sometimes forced to migrate due to environmental consequences, but other species.  This is the "Us All" in the conference title; the "Us" is every living being, the human-earth community. The theme was chosen by a large number of representatives of non-governmental organizations -- who are associated by the Department of Public Information -- in the fall of last year. Now we are fleshing out the conference in terms of speakers, midday workshops, and "plenaries", and for three days in September we will be discussing and educating ourselves on what climate change really means for everyone.

Dr. Judy: We all know -- here in Queens and elsewhere -- that we have had less snow over the years.  We used to be up to our waists in snow, and now during some seasons some people don't even wear boots. And we also know about the importance of the environment because former Vice President Al Gore has even won an Academy Award for his film about the subject. So, Juan Carlos, how will the conference on climate change that the NGOs are going to do impact people watching the program  -- and reading this interview -- right now? How will it matter to them?

JC Brandt : I think that conferences of this kind are meant to be a call to action, a call to awareness. A call for all of us, not only those nongovernmental organization representatives that attend, but everyone who's watching the TV program and reading this interview, and everyone who plays a role in this particular event, to be a bit more sensitized to the tremendous impact of this climate warming, and climate change phenomenon that is taking place all over the world. There's not one single part of this earth and every continent that is not affected by the situation. People, as a result of that, have in large quantities started to think about "What is it that I can do? How can I make a contribution?" because obviously no one wants to see this happening without at least trying to do something about it. So, one of the reasons that this, I suspect, was chosen as the theme for this year's conference is precisely "What can we do to make sure that we put a stop to this, or that we at least try in our daily lives, in our every-day routine? How can we make sure that our children and our children's children one day will be able to see things in the flesh?" I took my son recently to the Bronx Zoo for him to experience the animals in that sort of setting, but I want to be able to take him some day to a place where animals run wild. Like Richard said, I want to be able to show him butterflies; I want to be able to show him a glacier. Those are things that if we don't do something, we aren't going to be able to show to our children with the exception of photographs or video.

Dr. Judy: I  love this idea of  keeping older people involved in their community through  the ways you describe. My mom is 83 years old, and she was just called and asked if she would volunteer to teach the traffic safety course because she got a perfect score on the exam - using techniques like studying from flas cards -- and now they want her to teach it.. Interestingly, traffic safety is a topic that the United Nations has addressed and a past head of the secretariat has talked about. This leads me to asking you, Juan Carlos: you have spent a quarter of your life  devoted to United Nations' issues.  Why have you chosen that as your career? You were also a spokesperson for the Secretary Generals, a big job. Why does it matter to you?

Left to rigth: Juan Carlos BRANDT & Richard JORDAN
Co-Chairs of the Planning Committee of the UN/DPI-NGO 60th Annual Conference,
during the LMTV/UNNGO Profiles video-taping at Queens Public TV on May 29, 2007.

JC Brandt: Let me put it this way, if I were to be given this opportunity all over again, and if I would go back in time twenty-four years ago, I would do it all over again. Because I simply cannot see anything that would be more fulfilling, more rewarding, more satisfying than working for an organization that has as its goals what the United Nations does. Every day I go to work and I know that up to a point my small contribution is going to make a little bit of a difference and if that is the case I will feel good at the end of the day. And that is exactly the same feeling that most of my colleagues throughout the world, in peace-keeping operations, in humanitarian activities, at the different UN offices all over the world, feel when they are working every day knowing that in whatever area they are involved, they are making a difference.  That's what this is all about. It's not the only exclusive area of action by the United Nations; it's all of us. Remember, the United Nations preamble starts with the words "We the peoples." The charter of the United Nations, is not "We the governments," it's "We the peoples." So, the more we put into this, the more we participate, the more we believe that together we can make the difference, the more action and the more results in the positive sense we will get, and that's what this conference is all about.

Dr. Judy:  I know that you, Juan Carlos, have a very global view because you were born in Venezuela, you spent a lot of time in Australia when you were working for the UN, and you're now here in New York. Richard, you have a global view, too, but you also have your eye on civic issues locally here in New York. And you care very much about the people in the streets of the city. I know that if you had a choice between a rich person and a poor person to be your best friend, it would be the homeless person that you'd pick.  Why is that?

R. Jordan: Well, I have worked with the homeless for the last twenty years through my church, St. George's, which has the longest homeless shelter in New York. And I have gotten to know people and to understand that the homeless are the most cosmopolitan of all of us because they simply every day, have to have a strategy for their survival. We in New York do not yet have to have a strategy for our survival. If a storm surge came up the East River or the Hudson River, we too would have to be thinking: "How are we going to survive from day to day?" I have learned so much from homeless people whom I have known in New York City and gotten to know as friends, that I really respect them for their resilience. In UN terms, it's called flexibility. They really have to be flexible because you really don't know what the next day is going to bring. Is there going to be a sudden storm, do you have to take shelter, where do you take shelter, how do you get your meals? If you don't want to live in a shelter, where do you live? These are very important issues and I have learned through being a native New Yorker and growing up here in Flushing that any of us can be, because of climate change, literally a refugee displaced. So it's something that I am very passionate and dedicated to, helping the homeless and listening to who they are.

Dr. Judy: I'm a fellow Flushing resident myself,  who also went to Bayside High School. I noticed something I'm sure everyone would be interested to see: this is a page of one of the local papers, a local Chinese newspaper, and here indeed is the conference reported  in Chinese,  with the big globe in the back. This shows how climate change is a global issue but also a local issue. I know Juan Carlos you just said that you if you had your life to do all over to do again, you would make the same choices and you would still work at the UN. For the suture, what's your dream?

JC Carlos: My dream is that events like this will be so successful in calling attention to the problems that we are trying to tackle and solve. My dream is that people will recognize that this is a world that does not recognize borders anymore. And that we have to understand that we live in world where everything affects us all at the same time, no matter where we are. If there is an oil spill on the coast of Europe, that oil spill is going to have catastrophic consequences on the coast of Brazil on the other side. If we have some sort of degradation problem in the Coral Sea in the Great Barrier Reef near Australia, that's something that is not just happening there, it's happening all over the world because of the warming that is occurring in the waters. If an island disappears as a result of the rising levels of the ocean, that is something that is going to have tremendous consequences. And that's just the environment. If we have a disease like we've seen with SARS, like we have seen with other diseases, like we have seen with AIDS, that's not just one topic that one single country can tackle: we need the cooperation and the joint effort of all countries, of all peoples. And that's the type of work that the United Nations does.

Dr. Judy: Perhaps Richard, you could help in that dream, because your dream when you were young was to become the Pope.

JC Brandt: I did not know that, that's new!

Dr. Judy: So all Richard would  have to do is to make a few divinations here and make Juan Carlos' dream come true!

R. Jordan: Dreams change over the course of time...

Dr. Judy: You're blushing.

R. Jordan: Well, because it was not only the Pope; I wanted to be the Archbishop of Canterbury. I wanted to be everybody including the Secretary General of the United Nations.

Dr. Judy: Oh, now it's out.

JC Carlos: You're getting close.

Richard Jordan: "Your consumption is too big."

R. Jordan: I'm getting close but not quite. I wanted to be Groucho Marx also! I like  the idea that Juan Carlos just shared, that every neighborhood is my neighborhood. On my first trip to India, I was in a small room with a  very small wastebasket and I was ready to throw in a film wrapper. As my hand was ready to throw this in—because I'm a New York sports guy, I love to practice basketball hoops anywhere—I said "Gee, that's a small wastebasket.” And all of a sudden my conscience said, "Your consumption is too big." Oh, that was a revelation. In a small village, just a film wrapper can be something that makes a major impact. So every single action that I take affects someone somewhere else in the world.

Dr. Judy: Richard, you are also a cook -- one of your favorite activities. What can you actually do when you're cooking that will change the environment for the better and is related to what the conference is going to be about that is related to climate change. Everybody has to cook, so what specific action can you take about that?

R. Jordan: Well when I was a kitchen assistant at the New York Restaurant School, I felt like Julia Child because everything that we did was thrown on floor -- it was kind of like being Julia. But the ingredients are so important to making a good stew or whatever. Sometimes you can prepare something in a matter of minutes and sometimes it takes a day. To make porridge, you need to keep the porridge on the stove overnight. It's not something that "It is not something you throw in the microwave for two minutes and it is done."" If you don't want to use instant oatmeal, you really must take care and you must prepare correctly. So, what I'm doing in this time before this conference is what the whole planning committee of about eighty people is doing: really educating themselves on the issues of climate change. None of us are specialists in this area. We have a topic that we must prepare well so that others can learn as we are learning. And then can go out and do the practice, make the meal.

Dr. Judy: Juan Carlos, you care so much about children and grandchildren -as you mentioned earlier in going to the zoo. What would you say to parents and  grandparents  about  telling their children and grandchildren about climate change, about what they should do to help the environment? What would be your advice?

JC Carlos: Well, you have to really put to work whatever you learn about those little steps that are going to make a difference. You mentioned the bulbs. Bulbs -- and the use of the right bulbs -- are going to definitely make a tremendous difference. The use of cars that have the high-bred technology whereby you can reduce the consumption of fossil tech. Walking -- I mean try to walk a little bit more -- it does you good, and it's something that is amazing how much of a difference that can make. All kinds of water reduction are little measures. Show your children that it is not really necessary to take a fifteen minute or half-hour shower  if you can take a five-minute shower -- you'll be as clean as the one that took the half-hour shower. Don't let the faucet run for more time than is needed, and so on and so forth. We all know about these little things.

Dr. Judy: But doing them is what you are saying; listen to it right now and take the advice.

JC Brandt: Absolutely.

Dr. Judy: You both have been devoting yourselves at the UN for a quarter of a century, contributing so much to the environment and to the peoples – duly noted, as the UN charter says, "We the peoples." What's your philosophy of life,  Juan Carlos?  What would you say in a sentence is your philosophy of life given what you care about and what you’ve done in your life?

JC Carlos: I would say that the most important thing that you have to have, or the most important thing that you should practice, is to think in terms of adding, plus, always plus, no minus, but plus. I think that you will discover that in life, like everything else, it makes a big difference if you can give of yourself and if you can go out of your way to make a difference by giving. And that is, I think, the motto and most important element of being an NGO, because you are giving. You are giving of your time, you are giving of your energy, you are giving of your effort. And that indeed is the best thing you can do in your life to make a difference

Dr. Judy: That's really beautiful. Richard, what is your philosophy of life?

R, Jordan: "Move the ball forward." I said I was a New York sports guy. It's like European football, which we call soccer in America. Soccer, football, is a beautiful sport because it creates movement in empty space, and it doesn't matter who passes the ball to whom; what is important is the beauty of game and the dedication and not going backwards but moving forward. So the idea at the United Nations always is to move the agenda forward, be creative, be positive, make an impact in the lives of people in their daily work.

Dr. Judy:  There is a website that people can go to, to learn more about the DPI/NGO conference and climate change. Tell us about where to find it and what they would find there.

JC Brandt: The conference is going to have, like we always do, its own website, where people can find out about the different proceedings.  It is at  http://www.undpingoconference.org. The best way for people to  find  this type of information is to go online to the United Nations' website at www.un.org.  Then  you can go into the NGO section, and that will take you in turn to all the necessary information  required for getting acquainted with a topic. We will give you in that website other options, and if you want to learn more about what is it that you can do, and if you want to learn more about the different facets of climate change, do so.

Dr. Judy: Thank you both for your years of dedication, your intelligence as well as your humor. And thank you all for being with us on this edition of the Light Millennium TV/ UN-NGO profiles.

* * * * *

A Brief Biography of Juan Carlos BRANDT: Source: http://www.unadr.org/cila2006/conferencistasver.php?id=8 Mr. Juan Carlos Brandt, a national of Venezuela, is the Chief of the Non Governmental Organizations’ Section (NGOs) in the Department of Public Information. In this capacity, since April 2006, Mr. Brandt oversees the relationship between approximate 1500 representatives of Civil Society and the Organization’s information Department. Prior to this, Mr. Brandt was the Director of the United Nations Information Centre in Australia and the South Pacific. Based in Sydney, Mr Brandt was appointed in early 1998 by Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the UN, and assumed his duties in October of the same year. UNIC Australia is also responsible for Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Mr. Brandt joined the United Nations in 1984 as Information Officer in the United Nations Information Centre in Washington, D.C. In 1988, he became Associate Spokesman in the Office of the Spokesman for then Secretary- General of the United Nations, Javier Pérez de Cuéllar. In January 1992 and for the next five years, he served in the same capacity under former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and, most recently, since January 1997, under Secretary-General Kofi Annan as Senior Associate Spokesman and Deputy Spokesman. In 1989, Mr. Brandt was appointed Spokesman for the President of the Forty-Third session of the General Assembly, Mr. Dante Caputo (Argentina). Before joining the United Nations, Mr. Brandt worked for five years as Director of the Venezuelan Government Tourist and Information Centre for the United States and Canada in New York, and as Press Counsellor for the Permanent Mission of Venezuela to the United Nations. Prior to that position he worked in his country’s communications and advertising industry, both in the private and public sectors. Mr. Brandt attended the La Salle School, in Caracas, and the San Jose Salesian Institute in Los Teques, also in Venezuela. He graduated from the Catholic University in Caracas, where he earned a degree in Mass Communications and Journalism. Born in England on 26 November 1952, Mr. Brandt is married and has six children.Source: www.un.org.au

*Dr. Judy KURIANSKY is a clinical psychologist at Columbia University Teachers College, and a representative to United Nations for two international NGO:s the International Association of Applied Psychology and the World Council of Psychotherapy.

LMTV/UNNGO Profiles - Interviews from the 2006: http://lightmillennium.org/unngo_profiles/list.html

** Annelle Sheline is the Youth Representative of the Light Millennium to the Department of Public Information of the United Nations for Summer 2007.

The television program is produced, directed, and edited by Bircan ÜNVER for the Light Millennium TV Series, August 2007. Bircan is member of the Planning and Media Committees of the UN/DPI-NGO Annual 60th Conference.


Disclousure: This interview might be quoted or reproduced by given its full credits and related hyper link's as follow> "UN NGO Profile 7: Juan Carlos BRANDT & Richard JORDAN, originally e-published in the Light Millennium> http://www.lightmillennium.org/unngo_profiles/brandt_jordan.html


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