Organization Details:

FAF develops cultural exchange opportunities that promote mutual understanding, global cooperation, and youth development. The foundation believes that bringing cultural communities together, without concern for business, religion, or politics, will engender a more peaceful, cooperative world overall.

Description and/or History:
Friendship Ambassadors Foundation, Inc. is a nonprofit, tax exempt, 501c3 NGO, affiliated with UNESCO, United Nations Department of Public Information, American Choral Directors Association, IATA, and others. FAF facilitates meaningful cultural exchange opportunities for discerning, group-based travelers of all ages throughout the world.
MISSION: FAF organizes arts and, more broadly, cultural exchange projects in order to promote mutual understanding and global cooperation. Cultural exchange participants of all ages, in academic and diplomatic delegations, and as part of other dance, music, choral (choir), and other cultural groups partake in real interaction during their travels. Hallmarks of successful FAF programs include cultural/performance tours, conference organization, homestays abroad, reconciliation and relief programs, and special projects like our annual Youth Assembly at the United Nations, and other special group travel opportunities.
SERVICES: From diplomatic delegations to concert performance tours, FAF organizes all aspects of travel, meeting, administration, and development for specialized, group-based travel experiences. Consultation, development, and fiscal agent services (assisting emerging nonprofit peace organizations that share FAF’s goals) augment the foundation’s main efforts to facilitate nonprofit, customized group travel, concert tours, and cultural exchange worldwide. Note: Music, dance, and choral (choir) appreciation tours are also offered as fund development tools for groups we serve – FAF does not charge a fee for such services. And - a portion of each program is fully tax deductible as allowed by law to each participant or their family.
VISION: Friendship Ambassadors Foundation believes that cultural exchanges and concert performance tours abroad are special and meaningful ways for Americans to learn more about the rest of the world. Cultural gatherings of all kinds, especially dance, choral and instrumental music programs, transcend language barriers and enable a more basic, pure interaction to take place among those involved. Mutual understanding and global cooperation are encouraged by cultural exchange and essential for the education of youth – the leaders of the future – as well as to reconnect the leaders of today in ways beyond business, religion, and politics would permit. Furthermore, these programs can become valuable fund development and sustainable resource tools for the groups we serve on both ends of many exchanges, concert tours, youth assemblies, and other interactive programming worldwide.

Founded by Fulbright Scholar Harry Morgan and well respected travel professional Cappy Devlin, Friendship Ambassadors Foundation, Inc. has facilitated international travel and exchange programs as an independent foundation since 1973 - and for more than 15 years prior to that as an informal program supported in large part by Lila and DeWitt Wallace (founders, Readers Digest). Since its inception, FAF has cultivated international affiliations and representation in order to fulfill its mission: Promote Peace Through Cultural Exchange.

Begun as a project of Reader's Digest and later an independent, publicly supported tax-exempt organization, FAF is built upon many support communities worldwide. These remain loyal to FAF's mission and encourage American groups to visit, exchange and experience a vast, new cultural landscape. This positive and interactive concept was introduced and developed by FAF staff and founders Harry Morgan and Cappy Devlin. The concept later became a cottage industry of ‘tour operators’ but the original goal remains an important and unique concept in international communication today.

FAF pioneered cultural exchange with American arts ensembles: in 1984, we prepared the first American performance exchange with China, and during the Cold War we worked to open channels of communication between the United States and the so-called Communist Block. In the 1990’s, the foundation was in the forefront of youth reconciliation efforts during the Balkan Wars in what Team Leader and artist Joanna Sherman (Bond Street Theatre) called a Cultural Peace Corps. The Balkan Youth Reconciliation Seminar Series eventually became a Flagship Partner of UNESCO’s International Year for the Culture of Peace.

Our most recent history includes significant collaborations to help heal families of victims of terror, with a strong focus on 9/11 families in particular. The project was titled Finding New Hope in 2002 and has received substantial funding from Rotary International, Hitachi, Kids for Kids 2001, the Wall, Ceiling and Carpenters Union, and signature funding of over $1M from the Lions Clubs International Foundation.

The foundation hopes to continue these relationships as it addresses arts based relief programming in other communities adversely affected by natural or man-made disasters.

FAF programs have included many well-known participants throughout the past four decades, including former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan (see picture above), author Alex Haley, Mother Teresa, Senator Jay Rockefeller, President Vaclav Havel, three American astronauts, the director of the New York Metropolitan Opera - the list goes on and on. However the foundation is most proud of the tens of thousands of private citizens and the millions of lives that have been touched and changed by the exchange our programs engender.

Contact people:

Patrick Sciarratta, Executive Director, (203) 542-0652, (email) Yin-Chu Jou, General Manager, (203) 542-0652

Address:

299 Greenwich Ave Greenwich, NY 06830 (See a map)

Directions:

I-95 north from New York City to exit 3 in CT: Greenwich, Arch Street. Left on Arch and stay on it until you come to Greenwich Avenue. Center of town; old Federalist building with large flagpole. Old. . . (more)