Manila, Philippines —- Gawad Pilipino Awards named Afro-Asian musician Xander Pratt as the new Ambassador of Tourism, Culture and Peace recently, which was formalized at a press event recently at Tikme Restaurant in Quezon City.

Following his award by Malaysia International Youth Center as Artist of the Year, Xander was also honored by the Philippine’s Manubu Royalty as an Asian Dato at the same event organized by EuroTV Philippines and AsiaTV.

Artist and musician Xander Pratt, with AsiaTV producer Regine Guevara and UNESCO artist Cecile Alvarez
Artist and musician Xander Pratt with Agta Manobo Datu Patsolo

The Gawad Pilipino Awards is an annual event that aims to recognize the excellence of Filipinos and their peers through their passion and work ethics that influence Philippine culture, tradition, arts and society.

As Gawad Pilipino’s Ambassador of  Tourism, Culture and Peace, Xander Pratt is expected to mobilize tourism and cultural industries as a powerful vehicle for people-to-people empowerment, as non-violent weapons to win the global war against climate change, social ills and the financial collapse during the lockdown. 

Having traveled the world as a multimedia performer who delivers a message of art as a vessel of personal and collective freedom, Xander is not only an artist but a social movement leader for young people and the young at heart. 

His foundation, Who Are You (WAY), has been doing international talks that advocate art as self-expression and women empowerment. The WAY tour was curated with his mother: feminist writer Nicolene Pratt, who authored an autobiography how she raised her kids as a single mother. From conversing with his fans and art patrons, to establishing meaningful friendships from all walks of life, the WAY tour has lead talks and publications about inner peace, leadership, feminism and everything about identity including the WAY Mantra Cards, Follow the Magic Book of Quotes and Shifting Sands Autobiography, among many others. 

The entire project leads up the artist’s main advocacy: the Global South Initiative with UNESCO Artist for Peace and Friends for Arts and Science, through which he chairs the triad media project AsiaTV-AfricaTV-LatinTV earlier launched in the Philippines, Morocco and soon Brazil with AsiaTV producer Regine Guevara.  

Pratt also recently joined the UNESCO International Theatre Institute, Social Change Network, where his first project “The African Dream” will be shown in Rio, Brazil, courtesy of his management AsiaTV studios and UNESCO artist Cecile Alvarez. Next year, he is set to film the first all-black-produced superhero Hollywood movie.