Chasing the Flame
Have you ever heard of Sergio Vieira de Mello? Over the next two years, three high profile media products (book, documentary, feature film) will tell his story. Vieira de Mello was a long time UN diplomat and widely respected human rights advocate. He was killed in a suicide bomb attack in Iraq in 2003. This week marks the 5 year anniversary of his untimely death and the launch of a campaign created in his honor, Chasing the Flame.
…a new campaign designed to educate Americans on Sergio’s life and lessons … and using his story to ignite a dynamic constituency that demands a smarter foreign policy for the United States.
Fueled by the trilogy of media projects, this campaign will educate, connect and activate a new constituency using an advanced online presence and a series of offline initiatives including in-person events and media outreach.
Created by my friends at Cause & Affect, Chasing the Flame got underway this week with the launch of the blog. Samantha Power, Pulitzer-prize winning author of Chasing the Flame: Sergio Vieira de Mello and the Fight to Save the World, introduced the campaign:
We launched this site on the five year anniversary of Sergio’s death because it didn’t seem adequate to light yet another candle, to reminisce about his successes and failures in the field, or to celebrate the remarkable A Team that was killed or wounded with him in Baghdad. This year, five years after the attack, with Russian troops having invaded Georgia, humanitarian workers being targeted in Afghanistan, and so few of the lessons of Sergio’s life heeded in geopolitical circles, it seemed a good moment to try to generate a debate on how dignity and security could best be promoted in foreign policy today.
While alive, Sergio was known as the “go to guy,†and these days the absence of such a go-to person is felt daily. The United States and Europe are speaking with multiple voices on the Russian invasion. Rivalry and differences among China, Russia and the United States have greatly undermined the Security Council and its capacity to meet this and other threats to international peace and security…
If the events of the past few years have piqued your interest in foreign policy, please join Samantha Power and the growing group of scholars, activists, humanitarians and citizens from around the world to discuss how this movement can have the greatest impact possible. Make your voice heard at chasingtheflame.org.
mickikrimmel on August 21st, 2008
Tags: blog, foreign policy, samantha power, sergio vieira de mello
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