Kerry Kennedy Cuomo has been working in the field of
international human rights since 1981. Currently working as a radio
correspondent interviewing human rights leaders for Voice of
America, Ms. Kennedy Cuomo has lectured about human rights
throughout the United States, and has led human rights delegations
to many locations around the world. She stands as living proof of
the message she promotes through her lectures: no matter how
daunting a problem may seem, one person can make a
difference.
Until last year, Kennedy Cuomo served as
Executive Director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, a non-profit
organization which addresses the problems of social justice in the
spirit of her late father. While working as Executive Director, she
supervised three programs; the National Juvenile Justice Project,
which helps cities create more effective and less costly programs
for dealing with young offenders; the RFK Journalism and Book
Awards, known as the "Poor Peoples' Pulitzers," which recognize
those authors and journalists who prod our conscience and expose the
problems of the dispossessed; and the RFK Center for Human Rights,
which she founded in 1988.
Kennedy Cuomo founded The RFK
Center for Human Rights to ensure the protection of rights codified
under the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. The Center provided an
ongoing base of support to leading human rights activists around the
world. The activists established priorities, and the Center
responded with assistance. The Center uncovered and publicized human
rights abuses; urged Congress and the administration to highlight
human rights in foreign relations; supplied activists at risk with
the human and political support they needed to advance their work;
and created other programs to advance respect for human
rights.
Kennedy Cuomo has led human rights delegations to
Czechoslovakia (1991); El Salvador (1989, 1992); Gaza (1994);
Guatemala (1992); Haiti (1991); Hungary (1987, 1991); Israel (1994);
Japan (1993, 1994); Kenya (1989, 1993); Malawi (1993); Mexico
(1994); N. Ireland (1988, 1989, 1994); Philippines (1992); Poland
(1987, 1991); South Africa (1993, 1994); South Korea (1988, 1990,
1992); Venezuela (1989); and the World Conference on Human Rights in
Vienna, Austria, in 1993.
Her articles have been published in
The Boston Globe, The Chicago Sun-Times, the New
York Times, TV Guide and the Yale Journal of
International Law. As a special correspondent for the
environmental magazine television program, Network Earth, she
reported on human rights and the environment.
She is co-chair
of the Amnesty International Leadership Council, and is a judge for
the Reebok Human Rights Award. She serves on the boards of many
foundations and committees, including: the African American
Institute, the Campaign for Human Development, the Lawyers'
Committee for Human Rights, the Nat'l. Center for Learning
Disabilities, and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial. She is also on the
Advisory Committee for the Nat'l. Coalition to Abolish the Death
Penalty and the Democracy for China Fund, and is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations. She is a member of the Massachusetts
and D.C. bars, and the American, Massachusetts and D.C. Bar
Associations.
Kennedy Cuomo is a graduate of Brown University
and Boston College Law School. She and her husband, Andrew Cuomo,
are the parents of twin girls, Cara and Mariah.