Friends of the UN Announces "2011 Tolerance Awardees" at United Nations Youth Assembly Friday January 21,2011

NEW YORK, NY, January 21, 2011

Friends of the UN Announces 2011 Tolerance Awardees:

Honors Dr. Judy Kuriansky with 2011 Lifetime Achievement in Global Peace and Tolerance,

Nejeed Kassam as first Youth Ambassador

H/U/M and FOTUN Launches Tolerance Awareness Campaign, "Wear My Hat" with Awards

U.N. Ceremony streams live on The Huntington Buzz (www.HuntingtonBuzz.tv)

New York, NY 1/21/11 - Dr. Noel Brown, President of Friends of the United Nations (FOTUN) announces that as Friends of the UN grows to become the world's largest and most connected community of global citizens working to support the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and the ideals of the United Nations, the association has named its two new honorees for 2011's Global Peace and Tolerance Awards.

"To help people see that fundamentally all people are the same, though we wear different hats, have different lives and grow up culturally different, then we might begin to realize we can take deeper steps of global engagement towards a more peaceful, tolerant world. Further, we can get things done to overcome dire global circumstances, and achieve these goals together," said Dr. Brown.

The first hat to symbolize the worldwide campaign will be awarded to Nejeed Kassam, as our First-Ever Youth Ambassador, and to Dr. Judy Kuriansky, with the Friends of the UN 2011 Awardee for a Lifetime Achievement in Global Peace and Tolerance. The award ceremony will take place during the Opening of the Friday Session of the 8th Annual Youth Assembly at the United Nations , at UN Headquarters in New York on January 21. The awards will be presented by Joy DiBenedetto, founder of H/U/M a global news source http://www.HUMNEWS.com. H/U/M is seeking its place in the international content universe and is committed to and known as the source for news, information and expertise from the "GEOGRAPHIC GAP" . H/U/M is partnering with both organizations and developing the FOTUN's Youth Tolerance Awareness Campaign, launching at this February's Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Event streams live on The Huntington Buzz (www.HuntingtonBuzz.tv) Click this link (Friday January 21) to watch at 11:00am EST: http://www.huntingtonbuzz.tv/the_latest.php
The Youth Assembly was created and is hosted by the Friendship Ambassadors Foundation (www.faf.org). The Foundation is formally associated with the UN Department of Public Information and an NGO in Operational Relations with UNESCO. Dr. Kuriansky is an internationally acclaimed clinical psychologist, humanitarian, and journalist and Main United Nations NGO representative for the International Association of Applied Psychology and the World Council of Psychotherapy. She and Mr. Kassam, our Youth Ambassador, will work as a team, directly with the global youth delegates in a think tank. They plan to focus on field models in Haiti and Africa that advance the MDGs, as well as the role of youth and the importance of tolerance in these efforts.

"Dr. Judy Kuriansky is the epitome of the global, responsible citizen we want all people on the planet to strive to be. For years she has tirelessly given her talent and time to causes of peace which make the world a better and more tolerant place for many," said Dr. Brown.

In receiving the prestigious honor, Dr. Kuriansky joins such luminaries as Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, the Honorable Mikhail Gorbachev, Melba Moore, Maestro Zubin Metha, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alanis Morissette, Kyai Haji Abdurrahman Wahid and Sergio Vieira de Mello (Posthumous), who signify what being a 'Friend of the UN' means, and becomes an Ambassador for its ideals and goals.

A well-known radio and TV call-in advice host for decades, Dr. Kuriansky is on the adjunct faculty of Columbia University Teachers College and Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Visiting Professor at Beijing Health Science Center, and has done disaster relief worldwide including after the Asian tsunami and earthquakes in Haiti and China. She also serves on the Boards of the Peace Division of the American Psychological Association and U.S. Doctors for Africa.

"My first event with my 'New Hat' of Tolerance as a 'Friends of the UN' Ambassador," says Dr. Kuriansky, "will be to announce a 'call to action' at the upcoming Youth Assembly at the United Nations, inviting young people to join me in becoming a Friend of the UN, to work together to foster mutual understanding and appreciation of diversity." Dr. Kuriansky, whose recent book Beyond Bullets and Bombs about grassroots peace building, chronicles youth efforts towards mutual understanding, tolerance and cooperation. "Youth have an important role to play in promoting and embodying the ideals which the UN charter set out 60 years ago." The United Nations International Year of Youth began in August 2010.

Additionally, in her new role, Dr. Kuriansky will 'Share Her Hat' with Friends of the UN 2011 Youth Ambassador Nejeed Kassam who, at 24, embodies the hope and acceptance that we want to see in the future world.

Dr. Kuriansky says, "Nejeed is an aspiring change-maker devoted to helping other youth to appreciate diversity. At a young age he is the creator and director of the High on Life campaign and the editor of the book High on Life: Stories of Hope, Change, and Leadership. He is the founder of the international NGOs 'End Poverty Now' where he continues to work as the organization's Executive Director, as well as Networks for Change."

Adds Dr. Brown, "Nejeed Kassam IS the change we want to see in the world. As a young person who will inherit the world we are proud to name him as a Youth Friend of the United Nations and believe his own future actions will benefit the whole world, as his current initiatives at such an early age have shown."

As an Ambassador for Friends of the UN, Dr. Kuriansky will wear her Tolerance hat at many events and invite others to 'Wear My Hat' as a symbol of their commitment to tolerance. For example, Dr. Judy will also be joining H/U/M and MadChill TV (www.MadChill.tv) at Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week this coming February at Lincoln Center, Manhattan in conjunction with the Friends of the UN initiative to interface with designers, models and celebs on the importance of international equality as being always 'in style'. "I want to show that tolerance and peace is chic," says Kuriansky, who's Stand Up for Peace Project plays at peace concerts and done seminars about peace and conflict resolution worldwide.

Friends of the United Nations will further its mission on the H/U/M platform with events, content, media campaigns and dialogue conferences related to important issues world peoples must face together, asking individuals, corporations, NGOs and governments alike to become a member and partner in its goals for the future.

"We have only one world in this life, and for now, only one planet on which to live together," says Dr. Brown. "For the foreseeable future, we must find new ways to create, collaborate and move forward - in tolerance and peace - or, I fear we won't."

About Friends of the UN: Founded in 1985, Friends of the United Nations (FOTUN) is an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to increasing awareness of the United Nations' activities through partnerships with educational institutions, corporations, media, international governments and NGOs to bridge the gap between ideas necessary to achieve global progress and collaboration of people worldwide in actual work on issues of peace, human rights, the environment, children and responsible social and economic development. To join Friends of the UN visit http://www.FOTUN.org.

About H/U/M: A global news source http://www.HUMNEWS.com. H/U/M is seeking its place in the international content universe committed to and known as the source for news, information and expertise from the "GEOGRAPHIC GAP ". For more information go to http://www.humnews.com

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