Dominican Swimmer Marcos Diaz Meets His Biggest Challenge: Raising Awareness for UN Millennium Development Goals at GFDD’s Dominican Get-together in the Big Apple

Ultra distance open water swimmer, Marcos Diaz, told a crowd on Thursday night at the Dominican Get Together in the Big Apple, an initiative of GFDD and FUNGLODE, that in his long distance swims, “the trip is more important than the goal.” This philosophy generally guides the Dominican swimmer’s attitude about all of his long-distance, in some cases, world record- breaking swims. There is one exception, however: the United Nation’s
Millennium Development Goals. This time, he is after the goal.

“I am passionate about making people around the world, especially young people, aware of the Millennium Development Goals. People cannot demand action from their governments to achieve them if they don’t know what the goals are,”
said Marcos, referring to eight goals set by world leaders in 2000 in which they committed their nations to a global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and set a series of time-bound targets.

“We are coming close to the target date, 2015,” said Marcos, “so now I am working outside of the water to raise awareness among people around the world, some of whom don’t know how they will eat tomorrow. Those people have personally asked
me to spread the word and that is what I am doing.”

In a short video, Marcos showed the fascinated gathering at Hunter College the route of his summer 2010 Swim across the Continents campaign. “There were moments when we didn’t know how we would continue to finance our trip but as we met people who looked at us as their voice, in some cases their only voice, to the outside world, we knew we had to continue to the
end.”

Indeed, Marcos continued to swim from continent to continent in four crossings, the last one being the cold and inhospitable waters of the Bering Straits between the Diomede Islands, “shortest of the crossings, but most difficult.”

His final, symbolic swim in the campaign was from the Statue of Liberty to the headquarters of the UN where he delivered a book filled with the names of the people who supported the project
to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. The book was also given to all world leaders, Marcos explained, to let them know the world is watching and hoping they will meet their commitment to fulfill the Millennium Goals.

This, however, might be Marcos’s major challenge to date. Bonian Golmohammadi, Secretary General of
the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA) said that while some of the goals have been met, there is still a lot of work to be done.

“Contributions of people like Marcos is inspiring and shows that when people, especially young people, begin to act as global citizens, they can be very creative and effective. What we need now is the political will of the governments to get in sync with the will of the people.”

Mr.
Golmohammadi, along with Marcos, was introduced as part of the program by Natasha Despotovic, Executive Director of the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD).

Hector Pichardo, Hunter College student of International Studies, totally agreed that when “governments take an active role, things get done. Look at what happened in the DR when the government took aim at domestic violence….things have improved immensely in that
area.”

Hector added that the GFDD event was fascinating and that he is proud as a Dominican that the “Swim across the Continents” campaign has been one of the most successful in promoting the Millennium Development Goals.

Julia Diegel, Development Intern at WFUNA, thought the GFDD presentation was “wonderful” and agreed that education and spreading the word among young people is essential. “It
is great to see someone so passionate… mobilizing the youth is important if we want to achieve these important goals.”

There is no shortage of passion in Marcos Diaz.

“Perseverance has always been our secret weapon,” said Marcos, who consistently speaks in the
plural to include his dedicated team and his swimming trainer, Augusta Garcia, who has been with Marcos since he began swimming at the age of six in Santo Domingo, under doctors’ orders to strengthen his lungs and combat Marcos’s childhood asthma affliction.

“We are not going to stop as long as we can help bring about global changes and until we come closer to achieving the Millennium Development Goals. We have crossed the bridge and there is
no going back. This might be my biggest challenge yet.”

To see more about Marcos Diaz and some of the amazing videos of his “Swim across the Continents” campaign, go to: http://iswimwithmarcos.com/

About the MDG’s
The eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – which range from halving extreme
poverty to halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education, all by the target date of 2015 – form a blueprint agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest.

About DGTs.
Dominican Get-togethers in the Big
Apple is part of GFDD’s mission to promote the understanding and appreciation of the Dominican culture, values and heritage, and to create opportunities for discussions of contemporary issues relevant to the Dominican society in the homeland and abroad, GFDD reaches out to the Dominican community living the New York Metro Area and to all those interested in the Dominican culture by organizing ongoing events.

Links:
www.dominicangettogethers.org
http://www.un.org/millenniumgoals/