Barbara Hendricks is a Swedish citizen who was born in the United States; in 1987, she became a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and became an Honorary Lifetime Goodwill Ambassador in 2007.
In 1998, she founded the Barbara Hendricks Foundation for Peace and Reconciliation, demonstrating her personal commitment to preventing conflicts in the world, to facilitating reconciliation and to encouraging peace.