George Clooney presents Aurora Prize to Burundi humanitarian worker

By Reuters   April 24, 2016 | 08:09 pm PT
George Clooney presents Aurora Prize to Marguerite Barankitse, a humanitarian worker from Burundi, at a ceremony in Armenia.
A humanitarian worker who survived the Rwandan genocide was awarded the inaugural Aurora Prize at a ceremony presided over by actor George Clooney on Sunday in the Armenian capital Yerevan.
Marguerite Barankitse, a Tutsi who saved thousands of lives, many of them children, and cared for orphans and refugees during the Burundi civil war, was awarded a $100,000 grant and will nominate organisations to receive a $1 million award.
Clooney is a co-chair of the selection committee of the Aurora Prize For Awakening Humanity, founded on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian massacre and in gratitude to their saviours.
The prize will be granted annually to an individual whose actions have had an exceptional impact on preserving human life and advancing humanitarian causes.
The inaugural ceremony coincided with the day Armenia commemorated the 101st anniversary of the mass killings of 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces.
 
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