AMBASSADORS HOLBROOKE AND CHOWDHURY TO HELP LAUNCH NEW BOOK ON CHANGING ROLES OF FAMILIES

AMBASSADORS HOLBROOKE AND CHOWDHURY TO HELP LAUNCH NEW BOOK

ON CHANGING ROLES OF FAMILIES

“Families As We Are:  Conversations from Around the World”by Perdita Huston, with a foreword by Richard C. Holbrooke, is a collection of candid stories on today’s family unit, that include nuclear and single-parent families, polygamous, patriarchal and matriarchal, and same-sex couples who are all raising children in vastly different settings.

Looking beyond the rhetoric of “family values”, Ms. Huston offers a voice to families to tell their stories on the evolving role of family structure and relationships.  Families of Japanese fruit growers and farmers in the mid-western United States discuss the way things were and how they are changing.  Challenges faced by women who are required to have a passive versus independent role, and what this means for families and society, is traced through stories from Bangladesh and Brazil, among others.

“Political and economic structures were transformed and world population quadrupled”, creating a “diversity of family forms”.  Ms. Huston asks her readers, “if we are serious about maintaining caring families, how should public policies be revised to meet the needs of future generations that speak here”?  “Families As We Are” offers an informed response to this and to other compelling questions in an informal and personal manner.

In support of the book, Henryk J. Sokalski, former United Nations Coordinator for the International Year of the Family, states:  “If we are to understand the multiple forces that shape and influence family life in the coming decades, “Families As We Are” is an essential text.  Ms. Huston has captured the transformations that shape the social environment in the era of globalization, mobility, and democratization.”

To celebrate the publication of “Families as We Are:  Conversations from Around the World”, a reception will be held at the Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium, after which at 6 p.m. the official programme of events will commence. Press are invited to attend the programme.

Participating in Perdita Huston’s book launch will be:

-- Ambassador Anwarul K. Chowdhuryof Bangladesh, President of the Security Council for June’

-- United States AmbassadorRichard C. Holbrooke;

-- Eimi Watanabe, United Nations Assistant Secretary-General, Director, Bureau for Development Policy,

-- Noeleen Heyzer, Director of United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM); and

-- Jean Casella, Publisher and Director, The Feminist Press at the City of New York.

“Families As We Are:  Conversations from Around the World”,by Perdita Huston, is the result of four years of research and hundreds of interviews on four continents.  This broad-ranging, in-depth look at the family worldwide goes beyond the rhetoric of “family values”, allowing real people to express their concerns about the most basic, indispensable, and adaptive of human institutions.  The book is supported by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), UNIFEM, and the United Nations Secretariat for the International Year of the Family.

To arrange an interview with Ms. Huston, please contact Franklin Dennis, telephone:  212-697-9676.  For more information, please contact Yasmin Padamsee, United Nations Department of Public Information, telephone:  212-963-7704;

email:  padamsee@un.org.

Media Accreditation:  Media who wish to attend the event or the press conference will need United Nations credentials.  These can be obtained by contacting the Media Accreditation Unit at telephone: 212-963-6934 or 963-7164.

A letter of assignment should be faxed to 212-963-4642.

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