InterAction Forum 2010 Awards

Each year InterAction acknowledges the contribution os individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions to the world's poor and most vulnerable people.

Effective Assistance Photography Award

Wednesday, June 2, 12:00 noon-1:30pm
Benjamin Rusnak is a humanitarian photojournalist. Since 2000, he has documented poverty in the Caribbean and Latin America as staff photographer for Food For The Poor, the largest international relief and development agency in the United States, based in Coconut Creek, Florida. He brings a decade of newspaper experience to telling the stories of those in need in the developing world. His work has been recognized by Pictures of the Year International, the Best of Photojournalism, the International Photography Awards, the New York Photo Awards, Photo District News, the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, the Alexia Foundation and the China International Press Photo Contest. In 2008, Rusnak tied himself for first place to win the prestigious Gordon Parks Award. In 2009, his exhibition of Dreams & Tempests premiered as part of the citywide festival Atlanta Celebrates Photography.

Award for Excellence in International Reporting

Thursday, June 3, 12:00 noon-2:00pm
InterAction’s Award for Excellence in International Reporting recognizes exemplary achievements by media professionals to inform and educate audiences about international crises and humanitarian situations. Kojo Nnamdi is the host of The Kojo Nnamdi Show and The Politics Hour on WAMU 88.5. Since 1985, Nnamdi has been seen on WHUT-TV, as the host of Evening Exchange with Kojo. Nnamdi is a native of Guyana who immigrated to the United States in 1968 to attend college and explore the civil rights movement. From 1973 to 1985, Nnamdi worked at WHUR-FM, where he served as news editor and then news director, producing the award-winning local news program The Daily Drum. In 2003, the Library of Congress selected Nnamdi as the keynote speaker for African American history month, and in 2001, he was honored as a civil rights hero by the National Council for Community Justice. In 2005, he was named a “Washingtonian of the Year” by Washingtonian magazine and “DCist” named Nnamdi one of “DC’s Most Influential People” in 2007. Also in 2007, Washingtonian named Nnamdi one of the “150 Most Influential People in Washington.” In addition to his hosting duties, Nnamdi has chaired the board of the Public Access Corporation of Washington, D.C., since 1997. He is also active in Guyaid, an organization devoted to the welfare of children in Guyana. Kojo served on the Board of the Library of Congress American Folklife Center from 2003-2008.

Security Advisory Group’s Distinguished Achievement Award

Thursday, June 3, 7:30pm-10:00pm
Robert Painter has held the position of Senior Security Specialist for the United Nations Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) since 2006. He began his international career as a Peace Corps Volunteer, before moving to the United Nations where he served as Head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Offices in the Sudan (as the northern end of Operation Lifeline Sudan), Sierra Leone and Serbia from 1993 until 2000, all of which were situations of open conflict at that time.
In 2000, Painter was seconded by OCHA to the Office of the United Nations Security Coordinator at the request of the United Nations Secretary-General, to reinforce the UN approach to security in humanitarian crises. Painter returned to the humanitarian field, serving as the Baghdad Area Coordinator of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq in 2003, responsible for all UN activities in the conflicted Governorates of Baghdad, Al Anbar and al Diyala. After the 19 August bombing of the United Nations Headquarters in Iraq, he assumed the position of Senior Security Specialist focusing on NGO Liaison in the newly established United Nations Department of Safety and Security. Painter holds a Bachelor Degree from the Art Institute and studied architecture at the University of Chicago.

Humanitarian Award

Thursday, June 3, 7:30pm-10:00pm
Betty Makoni is a gender activist, founder and director of Girl Child Network (GCN), an organization that champions the rights of the girl child in Zimbabwe. She is the holder of two Bachelor of Arts Honors Degrees from the University of Zimbabwe. Since 1999, Betty has mobilized financial resources to build four Girls Empowerment Villages, a model that provides safe shelter, healing and a future to sexually abused girls. She has designed strategies that directly eliminate gender based violence, such as harmful cultural practices that fuel the spread of HIV/AIDS among girls. Betty is the former Chairperson of the Women`s Coalition of Zimbabwe, a network of organizations that advocate for the rights of women and girls. She has received several national and global awards recognizing her contributions to future women. She is a member of Oxfam Novib Round Table and was the Global Campaign Against Poverty Ambassador for Zimbabwe in 2006. She is a board member for Ray of Hope Network, an organization for rape and domestic violence survivors which she co-founded, and the point person for GROOTS Zimbabwe, part of an international network of grassroots organizations. Betty has also been featured in the book Women Who Light the Dark by Paola Gianturco.

Julia Vadala Taft Outstanding Leadership Award

Thursday, June 3, 7:30pm-10:00pm
Peter Bell is a senior research fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard. He also co-chairs the Joint Learning Initiative on Children and HIV/AIDS and chairs the facilitation group for the NGO Leaders Forum. Before joining the Hauser Center, he was a visiting fellow at the Carter Center in Atlanta. Previously, he served for ten years as president of CARE, one of the world’s leading private relief and development organizations. He previously had been a member of CARE’s board of directors, including five years as its chair. Mr. Bell was a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from 1984 to 1986, and president of the Inter-American Foundation, which supports grassroots development in Latin America and the Caribbean, from 1980 to 1983. He served as Deputy Under Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare during the Carter administration and oversaw the program for the resettlement of Indochinese refugees in the U.S. He was formerly chair of the ONE Campaign, co-chair of the Inter-American Dialogue, a trustee of Human Rights Watch, chair of the Refugee Policy Group and chair of the advisory council of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. Bell is a graduate of Yale College, and obtained a master’s degree in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton.

Mildred Robbins Leet Award for the Advancement of Women

Friday, June 4, 1:00pm-3:00pm
Renée Giovarelli, Director of the Rural Development Institute’s (RDI) Global Center for Women’s Land Rights, pioneered RDI’s Women and Land Program nearly a decade ago. She has trained staff at the World Bank and USAID to ensure that women’s land rights are protected and strengthened, including developing and testing land tenure assessment tools. Ms. Giovarelli has persisted in addressing this challenging topic, always seeking ways to engage women and men in community conversations about gender, land and rights. She has helped to change attitudes—from multilateral aid agencies to major foundations to remote rural villages. Her extensive field work, research and writings tackle the complex intersections of gender and land rights, gender differences in rural development, and women’s legal and customary land rights. At RDI, she is the first Director of the new Global Center for Women’s Land Rights and has also created a fellowship program to train and mentor others to work in this important and critical sector for gender rights and equality.

Disability Inclusion Award

Friday, June 4, 1:00pm-3:00pm
Mercy Corps has been selected as the recipient of the 2010 Disability Inclusion Award for their work in Mongolia, which demonstrates how major strides for disability inclusion can be implemented with focused interventions and strong public-private-civil society partnerships. Their initiatives have had nationwide impact through major policy change and fostered a culture of addressing inclusion through outreach, advocacy and capacity building for Disabled Peoples Organizations (DPOs). Their initiatives include 23 new accessible ramps built at government and private sector agencies, government approval of National Standards for Accessible Construction and Walkways and capacity building for 31 urban and rural DPOs. Mercy Corps in Mongolia also made changes to their recruitment policy to promote disability inclusion, hired two new staff with disabilities, made their offices accessible with ramps and signage and provided staff training on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Social Model of Disability. Mercy Corps serves as a model organization for its comprehensive approach to addressing inclusion of people with disabilities through program interventions—both local and national in scope—and at the organizational level.