NEW YORK | The New Yorker magazine Editor David Remnick addressed more than 300 philanthropists, dignitaries and community leaders at the Annual Seeds of Peace Benefit Dinner at the Plaza Hotel on May 26. Christine Baranski, award winning star of stage and screen, hosted the evening.
Remnick, a Pulitzer-Prize winning author whose latest work is The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, said that Seeds of Peace turns “other people—the great scary ‘other’—into human beings, one person at a time.”
“It is about learning to talk across the great gulfs of language, culture and politics.”
The Dinner raised over $1M for Seeds of Peace programs.
Several Seeds of Peace graduates from the conflict regions also spoke memorably on their experience in the Seeds of Peace program and the challenges they face as leaders in their own communities.
Neeta Yousaf, a Seeds graduate from Pakistan, spoke of the micro-finance project that she and several other Seeds graduates have launched, the Society of Women Empowerment Through Microfinance, which loans money to small business ventures run by women in Pakistan.
“Six years ago, before being a part of Seeds of Peace, I would never have been able to do this.”
Another Seeds alumnus, Rami Qubain, described how his experience with Seeds of Peace inspired a passion for global education and led to his current career at the American University of Cairo.
“I work to provide youth with the opportunity to gain a better understanding of the Middle East so that they can develop their own thoughts and make their own judgments,” he said.
Remnick, whose son attended the Seeds of Peace Camp, discussed how the seeds of conflict are “rooted in the rock hard soil of a differing sense of history.”
“Seeds of Peace is not the only organization trying to bridge these gulfs of understanding in history, but it is among the very best I know,” he said.
Seeds of Peace Executive Director Leslie Adelson Lewin captured the overall sentiment of the evening: “Despite the continued violence and mistrust, Seeds of Peace reminds me, and reminds all of us, every day, that there is a different story that can and should be told. One of courageous young leaders—equipped with the skills necessary to advance coexistence, working together to create a very different future.”
One hundred percent of the proceeds from the evening went directly to support scholarships for young people from the Middle East and South Asia to attend the Seeds of Peace Camp in Maine.
About David Remnick
David Remnick is an American journalist, writer, and current editor of the renowned New Yorker magazine. Prior to being named editor in 1998, Remnick had been a staff writer at the magazine for six years, and has written over a hundred pieces for the magazine. Remnick joined The New Yorker after ten years as a reporter with the Washington Post. He has edited several collections of writings from The New Yorker and in 1999, he was named “Editor of the Year” by Advertising Age.
Remnick won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his book Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire. His most recent book, The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama, had a much anticipated release in April 2010.
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