Issue 64 June 1998
Kim Phuc
Kim Phuc named UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for a Culture of Peace
On November 10, 1997, Kim Phuc (which means "Constant Happiness") was named a Goodwill Ambassador for A Culture of Peace by UNESCO by Director-General Federico Mayor.
After, as a young girl, fleeing naked from the napalm attack on her Vietnamese village, Kim Phuc spent 14 months recovering from her wounds in a Saigon hospital, where she underwent 17 transplants and other operations. Although still having pain from her wounds at the age of 34, she recently gave birth to her second child and lives in Canada with her husband.
The image of Kim Phuc, the child, screaming from pain as she fled from the flames destroying the village that once had been her home, is forever imprinted on the retina of humankind. Today Kim Phuc says: "Yes, I forgive, but I don't forget in order to prevent the same thing from happening again." Thanking God for saving her life and giving her strength and hope, Kim Phuc firmly believes that "peace must be based on love, emotional understanding and forgiveness. If we don't love others as ourselves, if we don't understand enough and if we don't forgive, we can't come together." 
At the nomination ceremony, Mr. Mayor stressed that violence in all its many forms must be stopped – domestic violence, street violence, violence on the screen, violence in the schools, and also structural violence such as poverty, exclusion and the denial of human rights.
"We believe in the possibility of rallying people to the cause of justice and peace, " said Mr. Mayor, and continued, "UNESCO Goodwill Ambassadors, through their public prominence, can bring home to people worldwide the role that each of us can play in helping to bring about the transition from the logic of force and fear to the force of reason and love."
The culture of peace, as envisioned by UNESCO, works to eliminate the root causes of violence by promoting a set of attitudes, values and behaviours that reflect and inspire social inter-action and sharing, based on principles of freedom, justice, democracy, human rights, tolerance and solidarity.
Source: UNESCO NEWS, November 20, 1997.
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Many to Many
a quarterly publication issued by
Operation Peace through Unity
An accredited NGO in association with the UN Dept of Public Information
Anthony Brooke and Gita Brooke, co-founders
Te Rangi, 4 Allison Street, Wanganui 5001, New Zealand
phone/fax: +64-6-345-5714 ~ e-mail: Many to Many
under the aegis of
Operation Peace Through Unity
is a communicating link between
'we, the peoples' of all nations, races, creeds and ideologies offering in the spirit of the preamble of the United Nations Charter an instrument for the furthering of better relationships based on deepening mutual understanding and the aspiration to promote unity and cooperation beyond all differences.