“I think I must be in the wrong place,” said UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan as he opened a two-day meeting of the UN’s goodwill ambassadors and messengers of peace on Tuesday. “I seem to have wandered into a combination of the Oscars, the Olympics, the Grammies and the Pulitzers.”
He was addressing 48 celebrities, including Angelina Jolie, former Spice Girls Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell, and former 007 actor Roger Moore, who had gathered at the UN’s New York headquarters to share experiences about their role in supporting key UN causes. “It fills me with bewilderment and awe to enter a room filled with such talent and fame that is being used to help make the world a better place,” said the Secretary-General.
Angelina, who works with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, spoke of how she learned the meaning of bravery when she met a three-year-old girl who had been mutilated by rebels in Sierra Leone during the country’s civil war. “I don’t know really the difference I’ve made. I know how it’s changed my life,” she said, adding: “I think if you go out once, it will completely change your life.”
Other well-known names on the roster include Luciano Pavarotti – appointed to assist in peace efforts in troubled regions – and Harry Belafonte, who works on behalf of the United Nations’ Children’s fund (UNICEF). Noting that the US is the only country in the world not to have ratified the children’s rights convention, Harry said: “Perhaps it’s not that we are not doing a good enough job, but that we underestimate the will of our adversaries.”
This year’s get together, entitled Celebrity Advocacy For The New Millennium, is the second time the organisation had called together its representatives from the worlds of cinema, the arts and music.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
