The Holy Grail

 

Two weeks ago, my daughter spent a few days in Geneva. She sent me a lot of pictures of which I will share a few here. All of the photos in this post are by Kaefer.

Did she have a vacation there?

Oh no, this was a pure work trip. She and one of the professors in her team had organized an elective for medical students in Public Health at the University of Münster (where she works as a research assistance) and Witten/Herdecke University. In the course of this elective they had planned this trip to Geneva.

She was fascinated by this "Broken Chair" sculpture which stands in the Place des Nations across the street from the Palace of Nations, the home of the United Nations Office at Geneva.

It symbolises the opposition to landmines and cluster bombs and acts as a reminder to politicians and diplomats visiting Geneva. It was designed by Swiss artist Daniel Berset and constructed by carpenter Louis Genève. It is constructed of 5.5 tons of wood and is 12 meters (39 feet) high. The "Broken Chair" is an original idea and project of Paul Vermeulen of Handicap International Switzerland, who commissioned it to be installed on the Place des Nations in October 1996 in order to try to get as many nations to sign the Ottawa Treaty on landmines in December 1997. As of August 2022, 164 countries had ratified or acceded to the treaty.

The United States of America did not sign the Ottawa Treaty.

But the chair wasn't the object of Kaefer's work trip to Geneva. That happened in the buildings in the vicinity of the chair.

First stop: UNHCR, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. For her, the talk about how they do their data collection was especially interesting since data collection is part of her research at the university.

They spent a long day at the United Nations, filled with many talks and discussions.

During breaks she took photos - they don't need any comments from me.

And then they went to the place that Kaefer has dreamed about for a few years.

The World Health Organization. The holy grail not only for epidemiologists like my daughter.

This year the WHO celebrated its 75th anniversary.

The building of the WHO Headquarters, where they spent a very long, very interesting and very exhausting day.

And a very happy young woman! This is for Nicole's Friday Face Off.

When I asked her which of the organizations left the deepest impression on her, I had expected the answer was "WHO". But it wasn't, it was GAIN, The Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, a Swiss-based foundation launched at the United Nations in 2002 to tackle the human suffering caused by malnutrition. Their mission is to "improve the consumption of healthier diets for all, especially the most vulnerable, by improving the availability, affordability, desirability, and sustainability of nutritious and safe foods, and reducing the consumption of unhealthy and unsafe foods". You can read more about GAIN here.  

Despite the packed days, she still had time to enjoy the sunrise over the lake (she is an early riser like all of us are).

On the day of her return she had booked the night train, so she had the entire day to explore Geneva and the lake.

She liked the colorful shutters on the residential buildings.

A very fascinating bronze sculpture by Eleanor Cardozo.

I'm ending this with a night shot of Lake Geneva. I hope you enjoyed my daughter's trip.