After attending events at the ICD for years, Mrs Sabbag finally took the floor at the occasion of the the Annual Artistic Forum to present her work and discuss the role of art in Cultural Diplomacy. The Artistic Cultural Diplomacy Forum is an event organized every year in Berlin by the Institute for Cultural Diplomacy promoting the arts as vehicles to inspire and enable people to build cultural bridges and come together towards peaceful relations The aim of the forum is to bring together an interdisciplinary mixture of artists, figures from international politics, academics and practitioners of Cultural Diplomacy to explore the potential for art as providing a neutral platform for cultural exchange.

After years of experience in conflict management while serving for the EU, Veronica Sabbag understood the limit of traditional diplomacy and she decided to found the NGO "United Voices 4 Peace" fostering a Universal Culture of Peace through Music and the Arts. Her aim is to use the Arts as a common language to bring together different groups and communities. Her NGO aims at facilitating  artistic initiatives and citizen-led projects in order to spread the culture of peace and enable the exercise of cultural diplomacy.

Indeed, by promoting inter-cultural exchanges through citizen-led cultural initiatives, Veronica and UV4Peace have facilitated the realization of artistic projects advocating for acceptance, inclusion and dialogue. For instance, their next project will take place in the 26th of February during the 7th World Congress Against Death Penalty organized by the Associatio: ‘’Together Against Death Penalty’’. This year’s congress specially focuses on Africa, and at this occasion, UV4Peace will have an exhibition stand featuring the artist Georges Miankiri Bens Gamthety, born in N’Djamena, Chad.

• http://www.acdf.de/index.php?en_acdf-2019_overview http://www.acdf.de/index.php?en_acdf-2019_overview