Event for UN Conference on Youth

(July 16, 2011) The Holy See will sponsor a side event during this month’s United Nations High-level Meeting on Youth. The event, entitled “Youth Protecting and Promoting Human Dignity,” will take place on Monday, July 25th afternoon. in the auditorium of the Church of Holy Family, located at 315 East 47th Street, New York. The event will feature five young speakers who will discuss how they and their organizations protect and promote human dignity. Leah Darrow, former America’s Next Top Model contestant, will speak about her own experience discovering the virtue of modesty and the value of chastity in a western culture that idolizes appearances and pleasure. Kristan Hawkins, the Executive Director of Students for Life of America, will speak about her work promoting a culture of life on college campuses around the United States. Jeffrey Azize and Michael Campo, actor and actor/producer respectively of the critically-acclaimed documentary “The Human Experience,” will speak about their experiences traveling the world, and how they learned from others – homeless in New York City, abandoned children in Peru, and lepers of rural Ghana- what it means to be human.
Meghan Knighton, a development officer at the Catholic Near East Welfare Association, will speak about CNEWA’s work highlighting the work of upholding human dignity that CNEWA undertakes, including providing emergency shelter and medical care, micro-credit programs, and charitable service of the sick and disabled. At 5:30 p.m. on the evening of Sunday, July 24th Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, Vatican’s Permanent Observer at the United Nations in New York, will offer Mass in the Church of the Holy Family. A special website dedicated to the UN High Level Meeting on Youth provides further information.