HE’S WELL KNOWN for his acting, but Sean Penn is also an activist who has an aid group, the J/P Haitian Relief Organisation.

Next week will see him focus on the latter side to his work when he presents the Front Line Defenders award at a ceremony in Dublin City Hall.

Penn will be taking a trip to the Irish capital to present the 2014 Front Line Defenders award for human rights at risk at 8.30am next Friday, 7 March.

The ceremony is the result of a partnership between Front Line Defenders and Al Jazeera Media Network and this year’s winner was selected from 110 nominations from 51 countries.

A jury of members of the Irish and European Parliaments, a representative of Front Line Defenders and a representative of Al Jazeera Media Network picked the overall winner, who will be named on the day.

Front Line Defenders was founded in Dublin in 2001, with the aim of “protecting human rights defenders at risk, people who work non-violently, for any or all of the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)”.

As well as Penn, also attending the ceremony will be Dr Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, who is director of Sudanese human rights organisation SUDO.

He received the inaugural Front Line Defenders Award in 2005.