Cate Blanchett
"I am deeply proud to be a part of the UNHCR family, to support their vital work for refugees. There has never been a more crucial time to stand with refugees and show solidarity globally. We all have a desire to connect and this is what makes us all human. We have a deep vein of compassion, and it feels like as a species we’re at a fork in the road, do we go down the compassionate path or do we go down the path of intolerance? And I know, as a mother, I want my children to go down the compassionate path. There’s much more opportunity, there’s much more optimism and there is a solution down that path. There is no solution down the path of intolerance."
About Cate
Cate Blanchett was appointed a UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador in May 2016 having recently returned from Jordan meeting Syrian refugee families and hearing about their perilous journeys of escape from conflict, and the daily challenges they now face.
In 2015, Cate travelled to Lebanon to meet with Syrian refugees as well as to hear testimonies from stateless people as part of her broader support for UNHCR’s #IBelong Campaign. One stateless person she met was Rama, a young girl with huge potential and ambitions but with her potential limited by her lack of nationality and all the rights that bestows.
Cate also lent her support for World Refugee Day in 2015, sharing Ahmad’s story, and later in the year she added her voice to UNHCR’s appeal for the Europe Refugee crisis.
In November 2015, she attended the Women in the World Conference in New Delhi to represent UNHCR and moderate a high level panel discussion on the global refugee crisis.
