Loretto Peace Committee recognizes work of the Irish Ambassador to the U.N., Geraldine Byrne Nason

[The positive changes in Ireland] took the perseverance, the ingenuity and the firm passion and commitment of women on the ground — and we come back to where we started out … grassroots civil society activism is the bedrock of anything my country has achieved, for sure.

Geraldine Byrne Nason

On Friday, Aug. 12 2022, the Loretto Peace Committee presented Irish Ambassador to the United Nations, Geraldine Byrne Nason, with the Sadako Award.  Working in collaboration with Loretto at the UN, the Peace Committee celebrated the Ambassador’s exemplary service as Chair of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women (2018-2020), her efforts to champion the education of adolescent girls globally and her fine work bringing the voices of women and girls to the U.N. Security Council (2020-2022). 

As Ambassador Byrne Nason departs her post early to step in as the new Irish Ambassador to the United States in Washington, D.C., she shared some of her thoughts on the current global context, where she emphasized the importance of women being in the room, at the table and actively contributing to solutions.

One of her last acts before leaving New York was to craft this article – The Afghanistan We Long to See: A Place Where the Rights of Women and Girls Are Restored – where she speaks out clearly and strongly against the Taliban’s unconscionable policy of denying Afghan girls their fundamental right to an education. Loretto’s U.N. Representative, Beth Blissman, will present the Ambassador with the fruits of the Sadako Award (a certificate of appreciation, several strings of peace cranes and a silver peace crane pendant) in Washington, D.C., later this fall.

The event was reported in the Global Sisters Report here (scroll down).