Champions for Humanity April 25, 2016 at the United Nations
As I walked into the lobby of the New York Headquarters of the United Nations Building on Monday, an overhead announcement said, “The Security Council is now in session.” I felt a bit like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, thinking, “How did I get here? We are certainly not in Kansas anymore!”
I, Lisa Niver from We Said Go Travel, had been personally invited to participate in a meeting at UN OCHA (United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs). After years of working as a travel writer, on camera host and teacher, I felt like I won the Oscar of Travel Blogging by the honor of being included in this momentous conversation about the need for change in how humanitarian assistance is given around our planet.
Our group of twenty “Champions for Humanity” are tasked with assisting the UN OCHA to get the word out about the new website and the upcoming first ever World Humanitarian Summit. Sadly, “people are forced to make impossible choices every day.” On the website, learn about the issues facing 60 million people who have been forced from their homes. Many of the refugees are displaced for SEVENTEEN YEARS. It is not a six day, six week or even six month move from their homes. Some children spend their entire school years in temporary camps. There are 88 people who are forced from their homes and are fleeing conflict every three minutes.
To raise awareness and promote a paradigm shift in the way humanitarian aid is given, on May 23-24 the first World Humanitarian Summit will be held in Istanbul. Tweet your world leader that they must attend this summit. Right now, during Passover, it is a time to remember when the Jews were slaves in Egypt and act as if each and every one of us had to find freedom. Go to the website and send one tweet. It can make a difference.
How would you choose after crisis and natural disaster? Can you imagine having to flee your home to escape civil war, leaving behind what you know and love? If airstrikes were imminent, what do you choose to save and what do you leave behind?
In direct response to global crises and for the World Humanitarian Summit, the United Nations Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon developed an Agenda for Humanity that outlines five core responsibilities that the international community must shoulder if we ever expect to end our shared humanitarian crises. These five mandates offer a framework for Summit attendees, leadership and the public at large to take collective action:
Prevent and End Conflict: an end to human suffering requires political solutions, unity of purpose and sustained leadership and investment in peaceful societies.
Respect Rules of War: even wars have limits – minimizing human suffering and protecting civilians requires strengthening compliance with international law.
Leave No One Behind: honouring our commitment to leave no one behind requires teaching everyone in situations of conflict, disasters, vulnerability and risk.
Working Differently to End Need: meeting the basic needs of all vulnerable people requires a new way of working hand-in-hand with local systems and partners, anticipating and transcending the humanitarian-development divide.
Invest in Humanity: accepting and acting upon our shared responsibilities for humanity requires political, institutional and financial investment.
Lisa Ellen Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries and six continents. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she worked on cruise ships for seven years and backpacked for three years in Asia. She is the founder of the website WeSaidGoTravel which is read in 235 countries and was named #3 on Rise Global’s top 1,000 Travel Blogs. Niver is a speaker at the Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Dallas Travel and Adventure Shows for 2023. Her podcast, “Make Your Own Map,” has been watched in more than 11 countries on 4 continents. Niver is represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary, Inc. Look for her memoir in Fall 2023 from Post Hill Press/Simon and Schuster.
You can find Lisa Niver talking travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, Satellite Media Tours, The Jet Set TV and Orbitz travel webisodes as well as her YouTube channel, where her WeSaidGoTravel videos have nearly 2 million views.
With more than 150,000 followers across social media, she has hosted Facebook Live for USA Today 10best, is verified on Twitter and listed on IMDb, and is the Social Media Manager for the Los Angeles Press Club.
As a journalist, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors and been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. She has been a judge for the Gracie Awards for the Alliance of Women in Media, and has run 15 travel competitions on her website, publishing over 2,500 writers and photographers from 75 countries.
For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist twenty times.
Niver has published more than 2000 articles, in more than three dozen magazines and journals
including National Geographic, Wired, Teen Vogue, HuffPost Personal, POPSUGAR, Ms. Magazine, Luxury Magazine, Smithsonian, Sierra Club, Saturday Evening Post, AARP, AAA Explorer Magazine, American Airways, Delta Sky, enRoute (Air Canada), Hemispheres, Jewish Journal, Myanmar Times, BuzzFeed, Robb Report, Scuba Diver Life, Ski Utah, Trivago, Undomesticated, USA Today, TODAY, Wharton Magazine, and Yahoo.
https://bit.ly/m/lisaniver
Awards
National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards
2021 Winner: Book Critic: Ms. Magazine “Untamed: Brave Means Living From the Inside Out”
2019 Winner: Soft News Feature for Film/TV: KTLA TV “Oscars Countdown to Gold with Lisa Niver”
2019 Finalist for: Soft News, Business/Music/Tech/Art
Southern California Journalism Awards
2022 Finalist: Book Criticism
2021 Winner: Technology Reporting
2021 Finalist: Book Criticism
2020 Winner: Print Magazine Feature: Hemispheres Magazine, “Painter by the Numbers, Rembrandt”
2020 Finalist: Online Journalist of the Year, Activism Journalism, Educational Reporting, Broadcast Lifestyle Feature
2019 Finalist: Broadcast Television Lifestyle Segment for “Ogden Ski Getaway”
2018 Finalist: Science/Technology Reporting, Travel Reporting, Personality Profile
2017 Winner: Print Column “A Journey to Freedom over Three Passovers”
Social Media Presence
YouTube Channel: We Said Go Travel (1.7 million views)
Short form video:TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts
Twitter: lisaniver (90,000 followers)
Instagram: lisaniver (24,000 followers)
Pinterest: We Said Go Travel (20,000 followers and over 70,000 monthly views)
Facebook: lisa.niver (5,000 followers); We Said Go Travel (3,000 followers)
LinkedIn: lisaellenniver (9000 contacts)
One response to “One Tweet Can Make a Difference: #ShareHumanity”
One response to “One Tweet Can Make a Difference: #ShareHumanity”