At the UN Task Force conference call on Friday, May 20, 2016, Sonia Smuts hit ‘send’ on our UN ECOSCO (UN Economic and Social Council) application. We now have an ISSTD homepage on the UN website. Vivian Pender spent a great deal of time sharing with us how to use our time and energy at the UN. Vivian has been representing APA at the UN for 20 years and was awarded the ISSTD President’s Award of Distinction at the San Francisco annual conference for her work with this Task Force. All UN applications will be reviewed starting in June, and Vivian has told us that ours looks “terrific”! We are the kind of solid, professional organization that they want to work with. When approved, we will be able to get five Grounds Passes, to be given to people who will represent ISSTD in meetings. We will also be able to get two additional passes, one for our President, and one for our Executive Director, for a total of seven Ground Passes. In addition, we will have nine temporary passes that are good for three months each. Members of our New York City Component group will be some of the people who will attend UN meeting in that city. Karen Hopenwasser is working with that group and with Vivian to help us learn what we need to learn and pick appropriate meetings to attend. We are also able to obtain passes to send people to represent ISSTD to meetings in Geneva and Vienna, so any ISSTD members in those cities who would like to learn more about this opportunity should let us know. Affiliating with the UN will give us the opportunity to meet and collaborate with 4,000 NGO’s (Non-Government Organizations) and have access to UN activities worldwide. This will enable our members to join forces with others associated with the UN, helping understand and work with traumatized people around the world. This is a very exciting opportunity for ISSTD, and for everyone involved – so get yourself involved!