November 15th, 2011: USA for UNHCR Celebrates 60 Years of the UN Refugee Agency
The Plaza, New York City
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, also known as UNHCR or the UN Refugee Agency, is the world’s leading body addressing the protection and care of the world’s displaced. Its existence represents the first time in history that the world has a global response to the needs of otherwise voiceless, powerless people, forced from their homes, countries and livelihoods. It has won two Nobel Peace Prizes for its achievements.
UNHCR is the only institution mandated by the international community to lead and coordinate the world’s response to refugee crises. As such, it alone among all organizations has the authority to negotiate with governments as representative of the world community.
UNHCR emerged in the wake of World War II to help Europeans displaced by that conflict. Created as a temporary agency on December 14, 1950, with subsequent mandate extensions, it became a permanent agency of the United Nations only in 2005.
Today, 43 million people (roughly the combined populations of New York and Texas) who have fled beyond the borders of their countries or who are internally displaced due to violence or persecution fall under the agency’s mandate, all of whom have fled with what they can carry or less. Uprooted by conflict and violence, they have been saved from an uncertain fate. Some have been able to start new lives. Others, remaining under the wing of UNHCR, have been provided a protective presence in areas of conflict, shelter, food and medical care, elementary education. Ultimately, they will have the opportunity for a safe return home or orderly, assisted migration.
This agency, created to deal with the needs of three million people, is now facing a global need more than 10 times greater than originally envisioned. Governmental funding from a handful of major supporters no longer provides UNHCR with the resources, capacity and dexterity to respond as it must. At this stage in its evolution, it is turning to the global community of individuals, foundations and corporations to recognize and respond with financial assistance for its critical work.
On November 15th, 2011 -- as UNHCR starts its seventh decade -- USA for UNHCR commemorated the lifesaving accomplishments of the UN Refugee Agency while honoring three role models for their work with refugees at a gala event in the Plaza Hotel in New York City.
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Juju Chang
ABC News Correspondant, Nightline
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Juju Chang is an Emmy Award-winning correspondent for "20/20" and "Nightline" and the former news anchor for ABC's "Good Morning America." She also hosts "Moms Get Real," a digital show for ABC News NOW aimed at cracking the façade of perfect mommyhood.
Chang has covered breaking news of the devastating earthquake in Haiti and the deadly mine disaster in West Virginia. She received an Emmy Award for team coverage of the California wildfires. She won one of her two Gracies for a "20/20" story on gender equality in the sciences.
Her hourlong "20/20" reports include an in-depth look at the impact on foreign adoptions gone wrong; the struggles of people with Albinism globally, including the plight of Tanzanian albinos; and an intimate portrait of one family dealing with gender transition.
Born in Seoul, South Korea and raised in California, Chang graduated with honors from Stanford University with a BA in political science and communication. At Stanford, she was awarded the Edwin Cotrell Political Science Prize.
Chang is married to Neal Shapiro and has three sons. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a founding board member of the Korean American Community Foundation.
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Farooq Kathwari
Chairman, President and CEO, Ethan Allen Interiors, Inc.
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In addition to overseeing a leading international home furnishings manufacturer and retailer, he also lends his considerable leadership skills to humanitarian efforts, including working for human rights and developing international conflict resolutions. Under Mr. Kathwari's leadership, Ethan Allen has been transformed into a leading interior design company whose vertically integrated business model feeds its success.
Mr. Kathwari is a member of the President's Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; director and former chairman of Refugees International; a director of the International Rescue Committee; director of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University and the Henry L. Stimson Center; chairman of the Kashmir Study Group, an organization he founded in 1996; and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
He is also a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; the Advisory Board of the New York University Center for Dialogues: Islamic World—U.S.—The West; the Advisory Board of the Mahatma Gandhi Center for Global Nonviolence at James Madison University; the Distinguished Advisory Council of the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada; the Western Connecticut State University Foundation board; and the Sound Shore Medical Center board in New Rochelle, NY.
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Jack Leslie
Chairman, Weber Shandwick
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Jack Leslie serves as Chairman of Weber Shandwick, the world’s leading public relations and public affairs firm. A seasoned global communications professional and political operative, Mr. Leslie specializes in helping corporations, public institutions and prominent individuals to drive strategic campaigns.
Mr. Leslie has advised many leading national and international figures of the last two decades. He was a senior aide to U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy as well as a strategist on dozens of campaigns in the United States, Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Mr. Leslie was appointed by President Obama in 2009 to serve as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF). Mr. Leslie is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, member of the Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an Advisory Board member for the Ron Brown Scholar Program, former Chairman of the Board of USA for UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency) and a participant in UNHCR Missions to Afghanistan (1998), Kosovo (1999) and Tanzania (2001). He is a member of the Board of Advisors of the Duke Global Health Institute and a trustee of the Circumnavigators Foundation.
Mr. Leslie is a graduate of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.
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