The Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity is an international humanitarian award recognizing individuals for humanitarian work. It is awarded on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian genocide.
The Aurora Prize ceremonies have taken place since April 24, 2016. The laureate of the prize receives $1,000,000.
History
The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative was founded by Noubar Afeyan, Vartan Gregorian, and Ruben Vardanyan. Tom Catena is inaugural chair of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative.
The Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity is one of the projects of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative. It was officially announced at 100 LIVES launch event in New York on March 10, 2015. The creation of the Aurora Prize was inspired by many stories of the rescue of Armenians during the Armenian genocide.
The prize is named after Aurora Mardiganian, a survivor of the Armenian genocide and the author of the book Ravished Armenia.
The Aurora Humanitarian Index is an international opinion poll that measures attitudes about humanitarian issues and the impact of humanitarian intervention.
The inaugural 2016 Aurora Dialogues were held on April 23, 2016, in Matenadaran, Yerevan. Participants included Hina Jilani, Shirin Ebadi and Gareth Evans. 2017 Aurora Dialogues took place on May 27–28 in Armenia and on December 4–5 in Berlin, Germany. In 2018, Aurora Dialogues were held in New York (in March and September), Moscow, Yerevan and Berlin. 2019 Aurora Dialogues took place in Armenia on October 17–21, 2019, during the inaugural Aurora Forum. Due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Aurora Dialogues were online in 2020. Some of the Aurora Dialogues events were online in 2021.
Aurora Prize
Nominations are solicited from humanitarian organizations and the public. The members of the Expert Panel assess all eligible nominations according to the Aurora Prize selection criteria to narrow the overall list to 20-25 nominees for the Selection Committee's attention. This panel is composed of humanitarian professionals and leaders of humanitarian organizations. The selection of finalists and the Aurora Prize laureate is made by the independent Aurora Prize Selection Committee.
2016 Aurora Prize
Selection Committee
Inaugural Selection Committee of the prize included the late Nobel Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, as well as Óscar Arias, Shirin Ebadi and Leymah Gbowee, former president of Ireland Mary Robinson, human rights activist Hina Jilani, former Australian foreign minister and president emeritus of the International Crisis Group Gareth Evans, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York Vartan Gregorian and Academy Award-winning actor and humanitarian George Clooney.
Finalists
Dr. Tom Catena
Marguerite Barankitse
Syeda Ghulam Fatima
Father Bernard Kinvi
Ceremony
The Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity inaugural ceremony was held on April 24, 2016, in Yerevan at the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concerts Complex.
The ceremony was hosted by an Armenian opera diva Hasmik Papian and American journalist and novelist David Ignatius. The ceremony was opened by an animated film directed by Eric Nazarian featuring Serj Tankian's"Aurora's Dream" as the soundtrack. Each of the finalists was introduced with a documentary mini-film directed by Andrei Loshak.
The live music during the ceremony was performed by State Youth Orchestra of Armenia conducted by Sergey Smbatyan. The fanfares of the ceremony was composed by Stepan Shakaryan. The statuette, created by Manvel Matevosyan was presented with an excerpt from Two Suns, a ballet by the Ballet2021 Foundation dance troupe (choreographer Rudolf Kharatyan), accompanied by Avet Terteryan's and Arno Babajanyan's music. The State Youth Orchestra of Armenia performed an excerpt from Aram Khachaturyan's Symphony No. 2 (Bell Symphony). The co-hostess, soprano Hasmik Papian performed Barsegh Kanachyan's "Lullaby". The ceremony was concluded with the song "Pour toi, Arménie" (For you, Armenia) performed by Gevorg Hakobyan and the State Youth Orchestra of Armenia.
Laureate
The inaugural Aurora Prize was awarded to Marguerite Barankitse from Burundi.
Barankitse chose Fondation Jean-Francois Peterbroeck, Foundation du Grand-Duc et de la Grande-Duchesse, Bridderlech Deelen to receive $1 million awards as part of the prize package.
The statuette of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity was created by Manvel Matevosyan and is called Towards Eternity.