The Clooney Foundation for Justice, founded by Amal and George Clooney, has announced its inaugural awards ceremony in line with the Foundation’s vision to highlight brave justice activism in a number of sectors across the globe.
The Albie Awards named in honour of Justice Albie Sachs who is revered for his heroic commitment to ending apartheid will take place in New York later this year.
Not only have CFJ named the awards after South Africa’s Justice Albie Sachs but they will also award him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in Pursuit of Justice on the evening .
Other recipients at the ‘Albie’ will be the Nobel prize-winning Filipino journalist Maria Ressa who will receive the Justice for Journalists Award; iACT a ground breaking international organization that works alongside survivors of genocide and other mass atrocities will receive the Justice for Survivors Award; Viasna, a human rights group that has been a voice of resistance in Belarus for nearly 30 years as it has led a brave campaign for freedom and democracy against President Lukashenko's regime, will receive The Justice for Democracy Defenders award; and Dr. Josephine Kulea, the Kenyan women's rights campaigner and founder of the Samburu Girls Foundation that helps to rescue girls from child marriage, female genital mutilation, and other harmful practices received the Justice for Women Award.
Albert ‘Albie’ Louis Sachs is a South African activist, lawyer, writer, and a former judge appointed by Nelson Mandela to serve on the first Constitutional Court of South Africa. After twice being detained in South Africa for his anti-apartheid activities, in 1966 he went into exile and was later the victim of a car bombing executed by the South African security services. He lost his right arm and vision in one eye. In 1990 Sachs returned to South Africa to help write the Constitution of South Africa and later served for fifteen years on the country’s Constitutional Court.
"I take huge pleasure in working with Amal and George Clooney, and getting to understand and appreciate their deep feeling for justice. I delight in their imaginative, creative ways of doing things and connecting with people,“ says Justice Albie Sachs. “I am a living survivor of a generation of South African lawyers like Griffiths Mxenge and Bram Fischer, who gave their lives for freedom and justice. I will be thinking of them when I receive this wonderful award alongside the other remarkable people and organisations.”
The Awards hosted by George and Amal Clooney and Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, will take place on 29 September at the New York Public Library, with so
me of the biggest names in international human rights, philanthropy, law, business, and entertainment in attendance and will include powerful stories of the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s work fighting for survivors of human rights abuses.
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