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UNICEF celebrates 50 years of collaborating with entertainment community

UNICEF celebrates 50 years of collaborating with entertainment community

UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has celebrated 50 years of its pioneering collaboration with the worldwide entertainment industry and of “harnessing the power of celebrity to further worldwide issues and causes” with a star-studded gala in Los Angeles.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has celebrated 50 years of its pioneering collaboration with the worldwide entertainment industry and of “harnessing the power of celebrity to further worldwide issues and causes” with a star-studded gala in Los Angeles.

A chance encounter in 1953 between Hollywood star Danny Kaye and UNICEF’s first executive director, Maurice Pate, aboard an airplane led to a new partnership between celebrities and international organizations that has become widespread, UNICEF said.

“It’s hard to believe that half a century has passed since Danny Kaye ventured out on behalf of UNICEF, with his heart, his humour, his name and his fame as his only weapons, to help make the world a better world for children,” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the gala last night.

“On the day Danny Kaye became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, a new kind of star was born. The kind that shines its light on the hardship and injustices suffered by the children of this world. The kind that confronts us and melts away our indifference. The kind that forces us to admit that we can and must do something to help.”

“We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to Danny Kaye for his original inspirational work,” UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said. “Every celebrity for every cause can trace the roots of their good will to Kaye.”

The event, whose honorary co-chair was Halle Berry and whose moderator was Whoopi Goldberg, both goodwill ambassadors, benefited the Audrey Hepburn All Children in School Fund to help UNICEF ensure that 120 million children in developing countries have access to a quality basic education.

The event also paid tribute to George Harrison of the Beatles, who, together with Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar, staged the first mega-concert for a cause, helping postwar Bangladesh, in 1971.

“George Harrison’s work to mobilize awareness and raise funds for the people of Bangladesh will be remembered not only for the millions of lives it helped heal, but also because it paved the way for countless later initiatives by other artists,” Mr. Annan said.

Veteran UNICEF goodwill ambassadors Sir Peter Ustinov, Sir Roger Moore, Harry Belafonte, Vanessa Redgrave and Nana Mouskouri, each with more than a decade of service to UNICEF and children, were honored as “Goodwill Laureates.”

Jessica Lange, who recently visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), presented the Humanitarianism through the Arts Award to the NBC television show “ER,” for broadcasting stories on distant and neglected crises in such countries as the DRC, Nigeria and Croatia.

The Danny Kaye Humanitarian Award went to United States television personality Katie Couric of NBC’s Today Show, “who has consistently used her celebrity to inform her audience about important issues and challenges faced by children.”

UNICEF presented Mattel with the Corporate Philanthropy Award, “which honours a company that has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to philanthropic activity benefiting children.”

Also attending the event were UNICEF celebrity supporters Shankar, Judy Collins, Shakira, Angélique Kidjo, Ricky Martin, Laurence Fishburne, Marcus Samuelsson, Téa Leoni, Alyssa Milano, Johann Olav Koss, Summer Sanders, George Weah, Billy Preston and the family members of Danny Kaye, Audrey Hepburn and George Harrison.