JOHN KIRBY: Good evening, everybody.
How are you all doing?
Thank you so much for being here tonight.
It's my pleasure to welcome you to what
we want to be the first annual citizen diplomacy award
ceremony.
And this is something that we here at the State Department
and particularly in the Bureau of Public Affairs
have been thinking about and planning for a long, long time.
Diplomacy, I think as all of you know,
is much more than officials sitting
in closed meetings or just visits
and trips with counterparts.
It's also the daily work of maintaining and strengthening
relationships, relationships between people.
And that work is done by myriad individual citizens
and organizations that are just as passionate as we are about
living in a world which requires more understanding
and context and stronger cross-cultural connections.
You know, Secretary Kerry likes to say that foreign policy
isn't and shouldn't be foreign.
We should do everything we can to try to bring it
home to the American people.
And tonight, we're going to get an opportunity
to honor a terrific organization that's doing just that.
So I'm pleased that we can be here tonight
to recognize this work, and in particular
the work of one organization that has truly
made a difference through their tireless work building bridges
between peoples.
And I can think of nobody better than my boss
to launch this award, Ambassador and Acting Undersecretary
for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Bruce Wharton.
He has spent a career in public diplomacy, decades
of experience helping build connections
and forging a more interconnected world.
He has served as ambassador to Zimbabwe as well as
at our missions in Guatemala, Argentina, Chile,
Bolivia, and South Africa.
He's also held numerous senior leadership positions
in Washington, culminating in his current role
now, directing the strategy for the U.S.
Government's outreach and public diplomacy
efforts around the world.
This is his life's work.
This is exactly what he's the most passionate about.
And I can tell you just having watched him
at work in the little bit of the time
that he's been our acting Undersecretary, he believes it.
And so I'm absolutely delighted and pleased that he's
going to be with us here for tonight's ceremony,
the first, as what I said, what I hope, we all hope,
will be a long tradition of recognizing excellence
in citizen diplomacy.
So now I would like to invite Ambassador Wharton up
to the podium to introduce the winner of our inaugural citizen
diplomacy award.
Sir.
[APPLAUSE]
BRUCE WHARTON: John, thank you very
much for that introduction.
You know, in my time in Africa I became aware
of a tradition known as the praise singer.
Chiefs would often come into courts and official events
with a praise singer.
And I think you've got a future in that if you'd like.
But thank you for your service as the Assistant Secretary
for Public Affairs and as the spokesperson
for the department.
I think as some of you may know, John
came to the State Department after 30 years
of military service.
And that may in fact be some of the best possible preparation
for dealing with the media here.
The spokesperson has to be the master
of the language of diplomacy, which
means to speak frankly and truthfully,
but without wrecking the stock market,
shattering alliances, or starting a war.
So John has been superb on all three of those accounts,
and deserves our thanks as well for helping
get this program going.
I also want to thank our nominating partners, Sister
Cities International, Global Ties U.S.A., and the Alliance
for International Exchange for helping to connect communities
across the globe, and to thank all of you for being here
as we present our very first annual citizen diplomacy award.
Now I know that the Secretary truly
wished that he could be here with us all this evening,
and he sends his warmest congratulations
to our inaugural winner.
But in his stead, I am honored to be here this evening
to help launch this initiative that recognizes
the efforts of American citizens and organizations
to promote national security and to strengthen our relationships
around the globe.
The work of diplomacy is not limited
to embassies and government meeting
rooms in foreign capitals.
As President Obama has said, the highest office in this country
is not president, its citizen.
So in that respect, I suppose you
could say that President Obama is about to be promoted.
But he's absolutely right.
Diplomacy takes place in communities large and small
around the world, as well as throughout our own country.
Diplomacy is the daily work of maintaining
positive relationships.
And it's not easy.
We don't always succeed.
But we make our voices heard on the world stage
and we answer the call when the world looks
for American leadership.
At the State Department, we believe that citizen diplomacy
begins at home.
John referenced the Secretary's dictum
that there's nothing foreign about foreign policy.
And it's critical that the American people
understand the value of diplomacy,
be informed about that work, and become
involved in it, as you have.
Every citizen can be a citizen diplomat.
And more than ever before, I believe
that the decisions that we make from the safety
of our own shores don't just ripple outward.
They also create currents right here in the United States.
And how we conduct our foreign policy
matters more than ever to American society.
And how we conduct ourselves at home,
how our actions reflect our values
matter more than ever to our foreign policy.
Through exchange programs, international business,
foreign students at our universities,
and through social media, the lives of our citizens
are more intertwined than ever before with the lives of people
in other parts of the world.
Our awardee today exemplifies the important role
that American citizens play in advancing and complementing
the mission of the State Department
to promote peace, prosperity, and the security
of our country.
Greater Fort Lauderdale Sister Cities International
stood out among a host of worthy nominees.
This group's mission mirrors the work of career diplomats.
They seek to encourage their local communities
to engage the global community.
For more than 55 years, this citizen group
has developed educational, economic, and humanitarian
programs that have helped countless lives.
In Ghana, for example, the organization
raised $10,000 to assist a farmers co-operative.
That award-winning project has since
expanded to Panama and Brazil, and serves
as a model for public private partnerships.
In Haiti, they built programs to combat the environmental crisis
and help the village of Derac feed
itself by providing support to 150 local citizens
to create a self-sustaining food collective.
Beginning in 2007, the organization
raised funds to create a student exchange
program between Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and Fort
Lauderdale, resulting in nearly a decade of bridge
building, creativity, and mutual learning,
which otherwise would not have existed.
The list goes on and on, but the theme is clear.
Today's awardee is an ambassador for American values
on the world stage.
We are lucky to have them join us here today.
And I am thrilled that Marianne Winfield is here
to accept the award on behalf of the Greater Fort Lauderdale
Sister Cities International.
Marianne is the organization's executive director,
and began her volunteer work in Fort Lauderdale
in the late 1970s.
She has been part of nearly every project her organization
has undertaken.
And it is in part due to her vision, her empathy,
and her tireless efforts that so many communities
have been helped.
She is truly a citizen diplomat.
Marianne, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you very much.
Please allow me to present this award.
[INAUDIBLE]
[APPLAUSE]
[INAUDIBLE]
[LAUGHTER]
MARIANNE WINFIELD: I'd like to start off by saying thank you,
especially to the wonderful people that we've met here
today.
We've spent three hours in the State Department
and we see now how much work we have ahead of us.
So we only just began today.
I want to thank Ambassador Wharton for presenting
the award, John Kirby for allowing
us to join him in the press room to take a photo with him.
So we actually saw what he has to do every day to keep us calm
and make us go forth.
And Karen, I understand, began this award
and I want to say thank you to her because she had the vision
to decide that something like this
was necessary, for American people
to be acknowledged for the work that they do as volunteers.
So I'd also like to thank Mary Kane, Sister Cities
International, and Adam Kaplan, who
called and asked if we would be interested in participating
in this award.
And I thought, well, what will we say?
What will I tell them?
And we dug a little deep and we looked into some of the work
that we've done, and we've come up
with some-- we came up with some good ideas of what we actually
did accomplish in our Sister Cities Organization.
I also want to thank our volunteer
board of directors, who many of them are here with us today.
Without the whole team of people,
our work could not be done.
So our board is here, our vice president, president,
Marcus and Russ, who've traveled with me today
as we've gone through the State Department,
and other representatives, Gabriel Zahora,
representing fire department, Juan Romero.
And we have our city manager, Lee Feldman,
from the city of Fort Lauderdale with us also.
So we're very grateful, and other guests that are here.
Since the inception in 1961, Greater Fort Lauderdale Sister
Cities International is a network
of volunteers specializing in communities working
on such issues as the environment, business
and trade, and humanitary assistance.
Sustaining these relationships with our 18 sister
cities around the world through successive governments
is a testimony to the commitment and love that volunteers have
for their Sister City network.
Initiatives evolve depending on the interests of volunteers,
sponsors, and partners.
When Cap-Haitien, Haiti, was hit with earthquakes,
the Fort Lauderdale Sister City volunteers
brought financial and other resources to them.
We had contacts on the ground to make sure the programs would
be implemented.
And in Medellin, Colombia, we are
working on education exchange programs that
are bringing faculty and students' research projects
together to move ideas forward.
It's the breath of the Sister Cities' contacts
that have been so moving for me to be involved with personally
over 12 years.
It's a dynamic network of local citizens active in business,
community, and organizations, NGOs,
beyond to an almost exclusively-- exclusively
on volunteer basis seek to further Fort Lauderdale's
economic, cultural, education, civic connections
with cities around the world.
As such, it serves as an effective ambassador
for American values.
As to bridge American innovation, investment support
and resources for our Sister Cities,
we believe that projects in places such as Ghana and Haiti
and long-lasting relationships with Medillin, Kaohsiung,
demonstrate the best of American diplomacy.
I truly believe that you give-- the more you give,
the more you receive.
It's in giving that you are the happiest,
and this is its own reward.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
KAREN RICHARDSON: Good evening, everyone.
It is so good to see so many friends and colleagues here
at this award ceremony.
I'm Karen Richardson, Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Public Outreach in the Bureau of Public Affairs
at the State Department.
And I know that I speak for all of us here today
when I say that it has been our distinct honor today
to recognize Marianne as a shining
example of the excellent work being done
to make our world a safer, prosperous, and more harmonious
place.
And thanks to you and all of your partners at Sister Cities
International and Mary Kane.
We've been working together for a while
now, so thank you for your leadership and all that you do.
And also to recognize the organization
for being the first recipient of the Citizen Diplomacy
Award ever.
So let's give a round of applause to the organization.
[APPLAUSE]
And as with many of these things,
they truly represent a collaborative effort
and one that could not have been done without equally
enthusiastic support from the international exchange
community and our colleagues across the State Department.
So with that, just wanted to thank our nominating partners
again, as well as our colleagues across the State Department
for helping to launch this award and make the launch of it
actually possible.
And as a final bit of gratitude, we
are offering light refreshments in the area outside here,
so please join us for a reception.
Thank you again for your time and thanks for coming.
Thanks.
[INAUDIBLE]
Indeed.
That's, that-- Thank you very much.
Yes.
And I was going to announce that we're
going to stay behind for a couple of minutes
just to take a couple of pictures
with the Greater Fort Lauderdale Sister Cities International.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]