ArmInfo.On December 4, the Selection Committee of the Aurora Prize will hold a meeting in Berlin to consider the nominations for the Aurora Prize - 2018.
The Selection Commission includes humanitarian figures, human rights activists and former heads of states, and is headed by its Academy Award-winning actor, director and philanthropist George Clooney.
Among the members of the Selection Committee of the Aurora Prize are the Nobel Peace Prize winners Oscar Arias, Shirin Ebadi and Leymah Gbowee, the former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, the former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, human rights activist Hina Jilani, the director of the Institute for Global Innovation in Public Health at Imperial College London Lord Ara Darzi, former Australian foreign minister and honorary president of the International Crisis Group Gareth Evans, one of the founders of "Doctors Without Borders" Bernard Kouchner, and president of the Carnegie Corporation in New York Vartan Gregorian.
For the third annual prize "Aurora", 750 applications were sent and 509 candidates were nominated. Applications were sent in 12 languages from 115 countries, including the USA, Russia, Egypt, Armenia, India, Germany, Great Britain, Pakistan, Ukraine and Kenya.
The Independent Expert Council has already evaluated all eligible applications in accordance with the criteria for the Aurora Prize and compiled a list of the most promising candidates for the Selection Panel.
The Expert Council is part of the Secretariat of the Aurora Prize and consists of specialists in solving humanitarian problems, as well as heads of humanitarian and human rights organizations. Among the members of the Expert Council are Maria Elena Aguero, Secretary General of the Madrid Club, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, activist, writer, founder of the AHA Foundation, Monique Villa, Thomson Reuters Foundation director, Dr. Tom Catena, laureate of the Aurora 2017, Nicolas Kouyoumdjian, the Counselor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Dr. Jemilah Mahmood, the Deputy Secretary General for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Pedro Muratian, the Expert Consultant of the Office of the High Commission Aryeh Neier, honorary president of the Open Society Foundation, Leslie-Ann Knight, former director general of the Elders, John Prendergast, director of the project "Enough!", Nancy Soderberg, former deputy adviser to the US president on national US Representative to the United Nations, Dr. Mego Terzian, Head of the French branch of Medecins Sans Frontieres, Sarah Whitson, Director of Human Rights Watch for the Middle East and North Africa, Jonathan Fanton, Chairman of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Konstantin Khabensky, founder of the Konstantin Khabensky Charitable Foundation, Chulpan Khamatova, co-founder of the Give Life Foundation, Sasha Chanoff, co-founder and CEO of RefugePoint, Dr. Comfort Ero, director of the African programs of the International Crisis Group.
The names of the finalists of the "Aurora Prize" - 2018 will be announced in Armenia on April 24, 2018, when the whole world will remember the Armenian Genocide of 1915. The results of the third annual prize "Aurora", created on behalf of all survivors of the Armenian Genocide and as a sign of gratitude to their saviors, will be summed up in Armenia on June 10, 2018 at a special ceremony, during which the laureate will receive $ 100,000 and the opportunity to share between those who inspired him organizations $ 1 million.
Laureate of the prize "Aurora" in 2017 was an American doctor Tom Catena, a missionary Catholic from the city of Amsterdam in New York State. As the only doctor permanently residing on the devastated Nubian Mountains of Sudan, where almost no humanitarian assistance is available, Catena saved thousands of lives. In 2016, the first Aurora Prize was awarded to Marguerite Barankits, founder of the Shalom Home and the REMA Hospital in Burundi, which saved thousands of lives and cared for orphans and refugees during the civil war.