Culture of Peace News Network – CPNN Bulletin for November 1, 2019

This year, the Nobel Prize for Peace was awarded to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali. Readers of CPNN may be already familiar with his contribution to ending the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, a conflict that had been going on for decades despite a peace deal that was signed some 18 years ago.In
announcing the award the Norwegian Nobel Committee stated that they
hope that the Prize „will strengthen Prime Minister Abiy in his
important work for peace and reconciliation.“

October was not only the month for the Nobel Prize for Peace, but also for many other peace and culture of peace prizes.

Desmond Tutu Announced the Winners of the International Children’s Peace Prize for 2019:
Greta Thunberg from Sweden and Divina Maloum from Cameroun: “I am in
awe of you. Your powerful message is amplified by your youthful energy
and unshakable belief that children can, no must, improve their own
futures. You are true change-makers who have demonstrated most
powerfully that children can move the world.”

This year’s Seán MacBride Peace Prize,
given by the International Peace Bureau, was awarded to Bruce Kent, who
was one of the founders and main organizers of the European Nuclear
Disarmament Campaign in the 1980s and who has continued to provide
leadersip for disarmament even now in his 90th year.

The Peace Prize of the US Peace Memorial Foundation was awarded this year to Ajamu Baraka.
In addition to being the national organizer and spokesperson for Black
Alliance for Peace, Baraka is also an administrative committee member
for the United National Antiwar Coalition and an executive board member
of the U.S. Peace Council. He was the Green Party’s nominee for Vice
President of the United States in 2016.

The 2019 Goi Peace Award was presented this year to Nipun Mehta and ServiceSpace,
an incubator of projects that works at the intersection of
volunteerism, technology and gift-economy. What started as an experiment
with four friends in the Silicon Valley has now grown to a global
ecosystem of over 600,000 members from 171 countries that has delivered
millions of dollars in service for free.

The Alfred Fried Photography Awards for
world-best pictures on the theme of peace went this year, among others,
to photographers of climate protests in Europe, reconciliation in South
Africa and animal sanctuaries in Asia.

The 2019 Tomorrow’s Peacebuilders Awards went
to Youth for Homeland in Yemen, Open Art Space in Syria (women-led
peacebuilding) and the Amani Institute in DR Congo (music and the
performing arts for community reintegration).

In Australia, the Sydney Peace Prize honored leaders of the Me Too Movement, and the Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prizehonored Antony
Loewenstein, journalist, author, and film-maker, co-founder of
the Independent Australian Jewish Voices and supporter of the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions movement.

Moroccan researcher Karima El Azhary was awarded the International Sustainable Development Award for
her work developing new sustainable construction and insulation
materials, based on alimentary and agricultural waste. The aim of her
work is improving thermal insulation and energy efficiency of buildings,
mainly in underprivileged areas. Sustainable development is one of the
key action areas of the culture of peace.

In the Philippines, the Teach Peace Build Peace Movement was recognized by the 2019 TOWNS awards. Its mission is to Make Every Filipino Child and Youth a Peace Hero.

Speaking of peace heroes, peace prizes can have an
important positive effect, especially on young people. For example,
Greta Thunberg, winner of this year’s International Children’s Peace Prize, was inspired by the 2018 winners of that prize the March for Our Lives in the United States.

If you cannot see the photos click here for the internet version. Click here for the bulletin in French or here for the bulletin in Spanish.