Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity
| The Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity | |
|---|---|
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| Awarded for | Courage, commitment to a humanitarian cause and impact on the world |
| Country | Armenia |
| Presented by | Aurora Humanitarian Initiative |
| First awarded |
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| No. of laureates | 2 Laureates and 6 Organizations as of 2017[update] |
| Website | auroraprize |
Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity is an annual international humanitarian award, which is initiated to recognize and express gratitude to those courageous individuals or organizations that impact on preserving human life and advancing humanitarian causes. It is awarded on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors.
The Aurora Prize ceremonies take place annually in Yerevan, Armenia starting from 24 April 2016. The laureate of the prize receives $100,000 grant as well as the opportunity to nominate organizations that inspired his or her work for a US $1,000,000 award.
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 Aurora Prize is inspired by many stories of the rescue of Armenians during the Armenian Genocide.
The prize is named after Arshaluys Mardikyan, who after surviving the Armenian Genocide, escaping from slavery and roaming around the world appeared in the U.S. and took the name Aurora Mardiganian. She wrote a book called “Ravished Armenia”, which presents those dreadful events. This book had then become a script for the movie in which Aurora starred. For many years this movie was a crowd-puller in the U.S., and it played an enormous role in raising awareness about the Armenian Genocide.
100 LIVES is a global initiative rooted in the events of the Armenian Genocide and co-founded by famous businessmen and philanthropists Ruben Vardanyan and Noubar Afeyan and President of Carnegie Corporation of New York Vartan Gregorian. The project discovers and publishes stories about survivors of the Armenian Genocide and their saviors. These stories are collected through academic research, personal accounts, and story submissions by the public to the 100 LIVES website.
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