PEACE & JUSTICE IN DARFUR: A PROJECT OF GILLI AND THE RFK CENTER
For Immediate Release:
Contact: Jeffrey Buchanan, 202-463-7575 ext 241
GILLI and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights
together for the project
PEACE & JUSTICE IN DARFUR 
Italian luxury fashion brand, GILLI, has partnered with the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights to create a limited-edition bag named PEACE & JUSTICE to both help spread a hopeful message for peace in Darfur and to use the profits to raise funds for RFK Center's efforts to promote justice in the war-torn region.
Made by skilled Italian craftsmen in canvas and leather in warm colors representative of Africa (size: 38 cm length, 30 cm height), the front of the PEACE & JUSTICE BAG displays multiethnic workers busily building an ideal: the word PEACE. The bag is enriched with a pendant in leather the shape of the African continent.
The PEACE & JUSTICE in Darfur project was created thanks to the work of two committed and compassionate women from Italy and the United States - Kerry Kennedy and Giulia Ligresti.
Kerry Kennedy, daughter of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, is an acclaimed author, human rights advocate and board member of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights, a non-profit organization dedicated to RFK's ideals and vision for social justice. In December 2005, RFK Center, established a European division in Italy, the first international branch of the original organization based in Washington D.C.
Giulia Ligresti, Chairman of GILLI, and Chairman and C.E.O. of Premafin Holding of the insurance group Fondiaria SAI, is involved in social justice activities as Chairman of the Fondiaria SAI Foundation, carrying out projects dedicated to children in Ethiopia, Burkina Faso and India.
The PEACE & JUSTICE BAG was officially introduced by Kerry Kennedy and Giulia Ligresti on November 19th, 2008, in New York City at a gala celebration to raise funds for RFK Center's human rights work and to honor the renaming of the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge (formerly the Triborough Bridge). The event was attended by more than 1000 guests including members of the Kennedy family, current US Secretary of State and then Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Andrea Bocelli, Christiane Amanpour, Alec Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Sam Waterston, and Sarah Jessica Parker. At the event celebrities like Debra Winger, Glenn Close, and Gloria Reuben carried the bag on the red carpet.
In 2007, the RFK Center began working for the defense of human rights in Darfur. Through partnerships with its Human Rights Award Laureates, the RFK Center is developing projects and advocacy tools that call for the protection of human rights, combat impunity for human rights and humanitarian law violations, and promote peace and reconciliation in Darfur and Sudan as a whole. The Sudanese government is accused of committing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur that are subject to proceedings before the International Criminal Court based in the Hague.
The RFK Center and GILLI hope to raise funds to raise awareness of the issue and to support the work of RFK Center, in an effort to help end the suffering in Darfur.
GILLI, a luxury fashion brand founded by Giulia Ligresti in 2001, has a history of supporting social justice campaigns. In 2001, GILLI introduced I Love NY bags, with the profits donated to the fund for the families of the victims of September 11th, and, in 2007, GILLI's Free Burma Bag supported the work of Amnesty International in defending human rights in Burma.
On November 27th, the PEACE & JUSTICE BAG was presented in Milan, at a fundraising dinner for R.F.K. Europe and from December 11th to December 13th in Paris on the occasion of the World Summit of the Nobel Peace Prize, where Kerry Kennedy met with defenders and supporters of human rights such as Ingrid Betancourt, Shirin Ebadi, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mohammed Yunus and others.
GILLI will dedicate a whole window of her boutiques in Via della Spiga 5 in Milan and Piazza di Spagna, 1 in Rome to this initiative.
The PEACE & JUSTICE BAG is available for purchase for US$533 by visiting http://www.gilli.com/
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