YEREVAN — The 2016 Aurora Prize Laureate, Marguerite Barankitse — founder of Maison Shalom and the REMA Hospital in Burundi — was offered the chance to nominate humanitarian organizations which would receive the prize’s $1-million award. Barankitse chose her longtime partners: Fondation du Grand-Duc et de la Grande-Duchesse; Fondation Jean-François Peterbroeck; and Fondation Bridderlech Deelen.
“I chose these three organizations because I know they will follow all these dreams to change the world,” says Barankitse, the first laureate of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity.
These organizations have already managed to fund a number of projects to combat child poverty and advancing aid and rehabilitation for child refugees and orphans in Rwanda, Ethiopia, Brazil and Democratic Republic of Congo.
A film created by the Aurora Humanitarian initiative shows the continuous impact of Aurora Prize: https://auroraprize.com/en/aurora/article/multimedia/10635/maggy-for-children-continuous-impact-of-aurora
The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative is committed to building a broad, global humanitarian movement. The initiative is rooted in inspiring stories of courage and survival that emerged during the Armenian Genocide, when 1.5 million Armenians perished. Those fortunate few who survived were saved by the courageous and heroic acts of institutions and individuals who intervened, at great risk. A century later, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative seeks to express gratitude, share remarkable stories of survivors and their saviors, and celebrate the strength of the human spirit.
The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative creates and supports projects designed to raise public awareness and address some of the world’s most pressing humanitarian issues. These projects include the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, the Aurora Dialogues, the Aurora Humanitarian Index, the Gratitude Projects and the 100 LIVES Initiative.
