Wednesday, November 22 2017 15:49

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.