The United Nations Staff Recreation Council Society of Writers United Nations Headquarters, New York

The UNSRC Soci­ety of Writ­ers is a mem­ber of the Unit­ed Nations Staff Recre­ation Coun­cil, gov­erned by and respon­si­ble to the laws of the Con­sti­tu­tion of the UN Staff Recre­ation Coun­cil, the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al and Gen­er­al Assem­bly.

Mem­ber­ship in the Soci­ety is open to serv­ing and retired Unit­ed Nations staff mem­bers and their rel­a­tives as well as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions and the diplo­mat­ic com­mu­ni­ty. Our mem­bers include both estab­lished and emerg­ing writ­ers who are involved in a range of lit­er­ary arts which include poet­ry, jour­nal­ism, fic­tion and non-fic­tion. We try to cre­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties for work to be shared and encour­aged in pri­vate set­tings and pub­lic forums like local libraries, radio and UN pro­grams.

The Soci­ety of Writ­ers seeks to pro­mote the writ­ten word as a pow­er­ful and artis­tic tool in fur­ther­ing the uni­ver­sal goals of the Unit­ed Nations. We focus on work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly with UN agen­cies as well as lit­er­ary orga­ni­za­tions with­in New York City and world­wide to cre­ate unique pro­grams and pub­li­ca­tions which fur­ther the uni­ver­sal vision of world one­ness through the artis­tic medi­um of lan­guage.

 

EXECUTIVE BOARD

Pres­i­dent: Ms. Bhik­shu­ni Weis­brot
Vice-Pres­i­dent: Ms. Nao­mi Far­rell
Sec­re­tary: Ms. Tina Skevin
Trea­sur­er: Ms. Antana Locs

 

LEGACY

Over the years, the Soci­ety of Writ­ers has cre­at­ed an oppor­tu­ni­ty for the UN com­mu­ni­ty to meet and exchange ideas with both emerg­ing and estab­lished writ­ers. Our mem­bers and friends through­out the diplo­mat­ic com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ue to take an active part in pro­gram­ming and shar­ing the progress of their own work. We owe a dept of grat­i­tude to our found­ing Pres­i­dent Hans Jan­itschek and for­mer Pres­i­dent Cather­ine Vijaya Clax­ton who con­tin­ue to inspire our work.

Below is a small selec­tion of mem­o­rable past events.

To see cap­tions, hov­er over image or click to start slideshow.

**Below is a par­tial list of recip­i­ents of the Award of Excel­lence. The Award was offered until 2007.

Actors:  Vanes­sa Red­grave, Jason Robards

Edu­ca­tors:  William Banks

Film­mak­ers:  Bara­ka, Kei­th Beauchamp

Jour­nal­ists:  Richard Bern­stein, Hans Dic­hand, Ranan Lurie, Ian Williams

Play­wrights:  Arthur Miller, George Plimp­ton

Pho­tog­ra­phers:  Susumu Sato, John Mor­ris, Bruno Zehn­der. Car­ol Beck­with and Angela Fish­er

Sculp­tors:  Edwina Sandys, Peruko Coopacat­ty

Vision­ar­ies:  Edward de Bono, Pres­i­dent Mikhail Gor­bachev, Oscar Icha­zo, John McConnell, Mau­rice Strong

Writ­ers: Sri Chin­moy, Bet­ty Friedan, Eri­ca Jong, Nor­man Mail­er,  Mani Sankar Mukher­jee, Michael Platzer, Glo­ria Steinem