Turkish singer marks 10th year as UNHCR goodwill ambassador

ISTANBUL – Anadolu Agency

Muazzez Ersoy, the 58-year-old singer who has a refugee background, has marked her 10th year as Turkey’s goodwill ambassador to the U.N.’s refugee agency, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), telling Anadolu Agency that she has launched new efforts to break prejudices against refugees.

Ersoy says she was currently working on a number of projects to break prejudices against refugees. She and an associate, Ali Güçlü, were planning to produce a number of TV dramas which will feature refugees articulating their struggle to adapt in a new country. 

“We want to explain things to people, [sometimes] we cannot break their prejudice with words alone,” Ersoy said. 

The television project envisaged refugees playing out their own life stories, she explained, adding they were already in contact with senior officials in Turkey as well as academics and NGO representatives.    
    
 “I will be in the show with my U.N. goodwill ambassador identity,” Ersoy said.        

Their plan is to make the Turkish public ask “Why did those people become refugees?”  

Her remarks recalled U.S. actress Angelina Jolie, who served as a UNHCR goodwill ambassador for many years and was later appointed as the body’s special envoy in 2012. Jolie has six children, three of them adopted from Cambodia, Vietnam and Ethiopia.

Earlier last month, the UNCHR also appointed Australian actress Cate Blanchett as a goodwill ambassador. 

Ersoy was accompanied by 13 other goodwill celebrities from different countries such as Greece, France, China and South Sudan.