ROMANIA


In preparation for a launch during April 3-10, 2009, a number of key partnerships are in development, namely, the book published by Curtea Veche Publishers, with translations by Julian Semillan and Diana Nicolae, edited by Carmen Firan, with the play by Ariel Dorfman by the same distinguished translation team, a forum with Bucharest University and Aspen Romania, and the Exhibition on display in April-May at the University. Saatchi and Saatchi will generously provide PR.

2008 Gala
Come Celebrate The Life and Legacy of Robert F. Kennedy and the dedication of the RFK bridge

For more information, please click the link below
http://nmedia.ibb.ubs.com/809034NMM/email.html

SPEAK TRUTH UPDATES
Updates

Speak Truth this September 30 is part of a conference at St. Peter’s College, New Jersey, where the play was performed by the student body, and the exhibition is being shown (open to the public 12-6 Tuesday-Friday) at 125 Glenwood Avenue, Jersey City, New Jersey until November 3. For further information, please contact: WEBLINK

We are pleased to announce the premiere in Vermont at St. Michael’s College, Colchester, with the exhibition slated to open November 11, 2008 through January 10, 2009, viewing from 12-6 daily, a student performance of the Ariel Dorfman play at 7 PM.

Join Mrs. Robert F. Kennedy, Kerry Kennedy, Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, Senator and Mrs. Edward M. Kennedy, and family, at the wonderful November 19th Anniversary GALA, at Chelsea Piers, New York, featuring special guests Governor David A. Paterson, Senator Hilary Rodham Clinton, Governor Jon S. Corzine, and special performances by Alec Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Andrea Bocelli, Jennifer Hudson, Debra Winger, Sam Waterston!

November marks a month-long celebration of the life and legacy of Robert F. Kennedy and the DEDICATION of the RFK BRIDGE www.rfkmemorial/bridge.

The celebration starts with a BRIDGE dedication hosted by Governor Paterson at 10 am November 19th at Astoria Park, Queens, with 100-foot banners unfurled from the Queen’s span, an allee of banners on the bridge ramps, bunting on the toll booths, all the electronic signage flashing RFK BRIDGE and many signs in NY State changed that a.m. to read RFK BRIDGE, ending with a motorcade of 25 period convertibles and buses across the 3 spans of the RFK bridge to Robert F. Kennedy High School on East 88th Street in Manhattan. There the Governor will officially launch the RFK history curriculum developed in conjunction with the NY Teacher’s Union (NYSUT) and the Board of Regents, which will be distributed to every 4th, 8th, and 11th grader in the state www.nysut.org/rfk
Unveiled in the month of November to mark the occasion will be:

-Tickertape notices throughout New York State
-2 100-foot banners seen by a quarter-million commuters each day
-7 90-foot billboards
-360 digital subway entrance posters
-3000 subway station posters
-4000 subway cards
-6000 bus stop posters
-15 million Metro cards with RFK’s logo and message
-30-second public service announcements for all NYC taxis for the month
-3 short films about the RFK Center, Speak Truth to Power, and RFK himself
-The gala that night, where honorees include Clive Davis, Afsaneh Beschloss, and Archbishop Tutu
-An exhibition on RFK at the Transit Museum of New York for one year from November 2008-November 2009 will be seen by 300,000 schoolchildren
-Programming on the History Channel, FOX, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN

DECEMBER 2008


SPEAK TRUTH IN MEXICO CITY December 6, 2008 -January 2009
Sponsored by Emilio Alvarez Icaza Longoria,
Mexico City's Human Rights Commissioner, with the opening led by Mexico City's Ombudsman, Emilio Alvarez Icaza Longoria, Mexico City's Head of Government, Marcelo Ebrard Casaubon, and local Congressmen, we will launch in Mexico City an immense exhibition of 50 giant-sized (1.80 x 1.20 meters) portraits of the Speak Truth defenders along Mexico City's Main Plaza or Zócalo, with the participation of Mexico City's Congress, Government, Human Rights Commission and private sponsors. The exhibition will be inaugurated within the framework of the X Anniversary of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders adopted by the UN next December 6, 2008.

SPEAK TRUTH IN PARIS, FRANCE

As the centerpiece of the official program of the Nobel Peace Prize summit meeting, hosted at the Hotel de Ville by the Mayor of Paris, the Speak Truth exhibition will make its French debut. The Summit is dedicated to the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration, and Kerry Kennedy will speak on the 11th in the afternoon on the issue of Women and Leadership in the same panel with Ingrid Betancourt, Shirin Ebadi, Mary Corrigan Maguire and Betty Williams. Other Nobels attending include Mohammed Yunus, Dalai Lama, Oscar Arias Sanchez, Lech Walesa, and presidents of other countries as part of the European Union Summit.



UPCOMING IN 2009

February/March at Michigan State University

February/March 2009 at five universities in Pittsburgh, including Carlow College, Carnegie Mellon, and University of Pittsburgh,

February 22-25 ACCU conference in Washington, DC for their 650-person multicultural conference

April-May at St. Mary’s College, Calgary

September-October in Derry, New Hampshire

SOUTH AFRICA 2008 into 2009

Speak Truth To Power, launched under the auspices of 17 partner organizations including Constitution Hill (site of South Africa’s Supreme Court), the Mandela Foundation, Friends of the South African Court, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation, the Institute for Transitional Justice, the Universities of Witwatersrand and University of Cape Town was a huge success. Held August 11 and 13 in Cape Town and Johannesburg respectively, major support came from the Ford and Mott Foundations, the Wendy Appelbaum Foundation, the Vincent and Anne Mai Foundation, Philanthropic Collaborative, Irish AID, and the Foundation for Human Rights, South Africa. Defenders Guillaume Ngefa Atondoko, Samuel Kofi Woods, Koigi Wa Wamwere, along with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, joined panelists Denis Goldberg, Dean Hugh Corder, Vice chancellor Dr. Max Price in Cape Town. At Wits University, hosted by Dean Angelo Pantazis, the defenders and Kerry Kennedy were joined by Tamsanqa Sitole, Dr. Jackie Dugard, and Professor Marius Pieterse. The book is available in a new small-format quality paperback edition though New Africa Books (David Philip Publishers imprint). Ten thousand copies of the education curriculum are available through Constitution Hill, The Mandela Foundation, the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, The Red Museum for People’s Struggle, and the other partner organizations. The photography exhibition now resides permanently at Constitution Hill and we are hoping it will subsequently travel to Durban, Port Elizabeth and, funding permitting, elsewhere in South Africa.

The year 2009 will focus on further outreach of the project to enable us to reprint the education curriculum and tour the exhibition. Witwatersrand Faculty of Law will now perform the play and teach the education curriculum to all incoming law classes, and Street Law will use it in their programs to 2,000 (including in prisons) in Johannesburg, and up to 5,000 in other cities. READ will use the curriculum in their programs as well, and SAHISA is partnering to evaluate the curriculum for expanded use in private schools.

LIBERIA


March 2009 is the opening date set for the launch of Speak Truth in West Africa, working with the Sister Mary Laurene of the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission of Liberia (JPC) for the event. We are planning to hold the exhibition at the City Hall in Monrovia, the forum, and the play at the University. We hope to have a variety of Liberian NGOs joining in, including former RFK 1998 laureate Gibson Kamau Kuria, 1999 laureate Archbishop Michael Francis or his spokesperson, Monsignor Andrew Karnley, the Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of Monrovia, and, of course, Defender Sam Kofi Woods, Minister of Labor in Liberia and defenders Koigi wa Wamwere of Kenya and Guillaume Ngefa Atondoko of the DRC, now working in Cite d’Ivoire.

NAMIBIA


UNHCR has tendered an invitation to bring Speak Truth to Namibia, to the biggest refugee camp in the country, with 300,000 people, sometime in 2009.

ITALY: EDUCATION / TEACH TRUTH TO POWER


The RFK Foundation of Europe is moving the new European educational curriculum into the schools for distribution in 4 regions: Milano, Lombardia, Lazio, and Calabria to start with, with teacher training sessions for the curriculum and a teachers’ guide authored by Karen Robinson, former national education director of Amnesty International USA, and Nan Richardson of Speak Truth.

ITALY: EXHIBITIONS


LUGANO/MILANO The Speak Truth Italian exhibition will be in Lugano, Switzerland as art of the Trasguardi Festival on Human Rights in September-October, and in November-December will move to Milano. ROME: The exciting Speak Truth poster initiative with the Italian State Railway puts a series of posters of defenders in the Rome main train station for Christmas 2008.