Priyanka Chopra receives UNICEF's Danny Kaye Humanitarian Award

Priyanka Chopra has been honoured with UNICEF's Danny Kaye Humanitarian Award.

The India star was named the 2019 recipient of the Humanitarian Award by the United Nations Children's Fund in June this year and received the award at the Snowflake Ball in New York on Tuesday night.

"Giving back is no longer a choice. Giving back has to be a way of life," Priyanka said after accepting the award named after Danny Kaye, an American actor and philanthropist who was UNICEF's first Goodwill Ambassador.

Veteran fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg handed over the award to the 37-year-old actor.

Priyanka, who has been a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for more than a decade, also opened up about her journey with the organisation.

"I had just become an actor and I was figuring out that I had this platform. I had started associating with causes that I believed were important. I was working with thalassemic children, children's wards and suddenly I realised that there was a theme that I was working with a lot of kids. My then manager Natasha Pal told me that there is this organisation called UNICEF and maybe I should volunteer."

"I started reading up a lot more and I started volunteering my time. A couple of years later, I became a national ambassador in India and then two years ago, I became a global ambassador for the UNICEF. The journey has been now 13 years," she told UNICEF USA.

Actor and comedian Danny Kaye was the UNICEF's first celebrity goodwill ambassador, who the organisation says helped make them a household name and "pioneered the concept of global citizenry".