The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945 after the Second World War by 51 countries committed to maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations and promoting social progress, better living standards and human rights.
IAGG is a nongovernmental organization (NGO) with respect to the United Nations with consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) since 1978. It is a member of the Conference of Nongovernmental Organizations in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations (CONGO) since 1985. In 2009, IAGG was established with the ECOSOC Special Consultative Status allowing our organization to make oral and written statements.
IAGG REPRESENTATIVES AT THE UN WERE RESHUFFLED
Under the new administration of the IAGG (President Prof. Heung Bong Cha) taken office during June 25 2013 – July 25 2017, two representatives at the UN Headquarters and European Missions (Geneva and Vienna) were newly appointed and six were reappointed. All the IAGG representatives at the UN are as follows:
Representatives at the UN Headquarters (New York)
Sung-Jae
Choi
Secretary General of IAGG (Coordinator)
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Professor CHOI graduated from Seoul National University, South Korea (BA in Social Work), from Washington University in St. Louis, USA (MSW in Social Work), from Case Western Reserve University, USA (PhD in Social Welfare). Since 1986, he had been Professor of Social Welfare at Seoul National University until February of 2012 and since then has been Professor Emeritus at Seoul National University and Chair Professor at Hanyang University in Seoul. He has served as President of the Korean Gerontological Society, President of the Korean Academy of Social Welfare and Chair of IAGG-Asia/Oceania Region of IAGG during 2001-2005. He also has worked with many governmental committees and NGOs in Korea. He was appointed as Advisor to Minister of Health and Welfare, Member of Ministerial Committee for Long-Term Care Policy, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Korean Government (Jan, 2011 – Oct. 2012) and lastly appointed as Senior Secretary to the President in Employment and Welfare Affairs of the Korean Government (Fe. 2013- Aug. 2013). He served as Chair of Social Welfare Committee of the Citizen’s Coalition of Economic Justice and Christian Ethical Practice Movement. He has also served as editorial board member of Asia Pacific Journal of Social Work and Geriatrics and Gerontology International.
Martha
BIAL
Professor at Fordham University
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Martha Bial is a Faculty Research Scholar in the Ravazzin Center on Aging at Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service in New York. Since 2007 she has been a representative of IAGG to the United Nations. She is also a member of the UN NGO Committee on Ageing and currently serves on its executive committee. She presented at two DPI /NGO international conferences: on the Impact of Armed Conflicts on Older Adults (2009, Mexico City) and on Intergenerational Volunteer Opportunities in the Movement for a Sustainable Environment (Bonn, 2011).
She has also served as the director of Fordham’s Japanese and American Institute in Gerontology, which has brought social workers and social welfare students to America to lecture, do research, and learn about American social services for older adults. Under the aegis of the Institute, American social workers have visited Japan and Korea to learn about social services there.
Dr. Bial participates in many projects with the Department of Senior Programs and Services in Westchester County, New York. Her research interests include uses of oral history in work with older adults, substance abuse in aging, long-term care and caregiving. She teaches social policy and social work practice with older adults to Masters’ Degree social work candidates. She has worked in direct social work practice and administration as well.
Laura
MACHADO
Executive Director of InterAge in Gerontology
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Laura Machado former IAGG Coordinator for the UN affairs (2005-2013), currently holds the position of IAGG representative at the UN working for strengthening the rights of Older Persons globally.
She is also Executive Director of InterAge Consulting in Gerontology; a specialist organization in gerontological research, policy and development of social projects. She holds a Masters degree in clinical psychology and a certificate of gerontologist done trough examination by the Brazilian Geriatrics and Gerontology Society. Her private practice includes psychotherapy with older persons and counselling for families coping with mental illness.
A key focus of her work is Human Rights. In 2010 President Lula presented her with Brazil`s highest Human Rights Award for her contribution to the agenda in the country. For eight years (1997/2009) she was the Latin American Regional Representative for the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA).
From 1997 to 2000, Laura was Vice-President of the Brazilian Society of Gerontology and Geriatrics` (SBGG) Department of Gerontology. From 2000 to 2002, she was Chair of the SBGG`s International Relations Committee. From 1996 to 2006, she was Director of the Candido Mendes University`s Institute of Gerontology where she developed training and research programs on ageing.
In 2002 she was a key member of the Brazilian delegation to the United Nations` World Assembly on Ageing in Madrid, and since then she has been working for strengthening the rights of Older Persons specially in Brazil and Latin America.
Laura is consultant for public agencies, private organizations and NGOs worldwide in ageing-related issues including member of the board of trustees of HelpAge International since 2012.
Hans
STOHRER
Professor at Cornell University
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Hans Stöhrer, MD, is an international health care consultant on issues of ageing and global health. Since 2010, he is Representative to the United Nations of IAGG. He is a physician, Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Geriatric Medicine, and Hospice and Palliative Medicine by the American Board of Internal Medicine, and appointed Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University in New York. He has served as Secretary-Treasurer, and Vice President, of the New York Metropolitan Area Geriatrics Society, the regional branch of the American Geriatrics Society. Beloved by his patients, he has practiced medicine for over 10 years, caring for older persons and adults across the full spectrum of practice settings in New York City hospitals.
Dr.Stöhrer completed his medical fellowship in Geriatric Medicine and internship and residency in Primary Care Internal Medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He received his Doctor of Medicine degree at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, Rochester, New York, and his Bachelor of Arts degree Cum Laude in History and Science at Harvard University. He holds a Certificate in Bioethics and Medical Humanities from the Division of Bioethics of Albert Einstein College of Medicine and New York University, New York.
Juanita CARRILLO
Former Social Worker at the New York City
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Juanita Carrillo, LMSW, PhD, is a retired social work administrator who was employed by the New York City Human Resources Administration for many years. She led multi-disciplinary teams of professionals who provided social and medical evaluation and services to elderly and disabled Medicaid-eligible individuals and she retired as the borough-wide Regional Administrator for Home Care Services in the Bronx, New York.
After retirement and receipt of her PhD in Social Work (with a concentration in Gerontology), Dr. Carrillo served as Fordham University’s Planning Consortium Coordinator, with subsequent administrative responsibility for professional field instruction of the students in Fordham’s Practicum Partnership Program (the John A. Hartford Foundation funded program that aimed to train 1,000 Masters level social workers to provide services for the elderly). She agreed to serve as a representative at the United Nations where, in 2006, she was elected as a Director on the Executive Committee of NGOs associated with the UN’s Department of Public Information. She is a member of the NGO Committee for Social Development, in addition to the committees that focus on ageing and intergenerational issues.
Dr. Carrillo has the honor of being listed in the 24th edition of Who’s Who of American Women.
Representatives at the UN European Missions (Geneva and Vienna)
Alain
Franco
Geneva & Vienna Coordinator
Former Secretary General of IAGG
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Alain Franco is professor of Internal medicine and Geriatrics, teaching geriatrics, gerontology and gerontechnology at Nice-Sophia Antipolis University Hospital, Nice, France. From 2000 to 2002, he served as President of the French Society for Geriatrics and Gerontology. He is since 2008 the President of the International Society for Gerontechnology, ISG, based in The Netherlands. He is the immediate past Secretary General and past Vice-President of the IAGG. At the European level he is member of the European Initiative Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing Steering Group, and AALJP Advisory Board.
Michel
Oris
Professor at the University of Geneva
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Michel Oris, PhD in History of the University of Liège, is professor at the Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences of the University of Geneva since March 2000. Codirector of the NCCR LIVES (Overcoming Vulnerability. Life Course Perspectives), director of the Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Gerontology and Vulnerability and of the Institute of Socioeconomics, president of the Society for Historical Demography and of the International Association of French-speaking Demographers, his research interests are related to the living conditions of the elderly, the interactions between individual life trajectories and the social structures, between vulnerabilities and the life course.
Thomas Frühwald
Board Member of the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society
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Thomas Frühwald, MD is native of former Czechoslovakia, and after having graduated in the United States and in Austria, he obtains his medical degree at the University of Vienna Medical School. He has postgraduate diplomas in geriatrics, medical ethics and palliative care.
He begins his career as staff physician then deputy chief of medicine in a geriatric hospital of Vienna. He then becomes resident („Chef de Clinique“) at the Department of Geriatric Medicine of the University Hospital of Geneva, Switzerland.
Since 2000 he is deputy chief of medicine at the “Geriatriezentrum am Wienerwald”, Center of Geriatrics and subsequently in 2003 of the Department of Geriatric Acute Care of the Hietzing Hospital, both in Vienna.
Thomas Früwald becomes Lecturer in Geriatric Medicine at the Academy of Occupational Therapy in Vienna and at the Institute of Ethics and Law in Medicine (University of Vienna) and was twice Visiting Professor at the University of California, Davis in the Department of Ethics as well as Geriatrics.
His research interest and publications concern various general topics of geriatrics: nutrition, geriatric palliative care, geriatric assessment, outcome evaluation, benchmarking.
He is member of the advisory group of experts on Geriatric Medicine to the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health, Board member of the Austrian Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology, Full Board member of the European Union Geriatric Medicine Society, Member of the Geriatric Medicine Section of the European Association of Medical Specialties (UEMS) and Member of the American, German and Swiss Societies of Geriatrics, of the Austrian and Swiss Societies of Palliative Medicine.
