Kerry Kennedy Cuomo

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.

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