Our global competition to find the best new peacebuilders has just closed for entries, and the judging has begun!
The competition aims to find and showcase the very best local peacebuilding groups from around the world, and this year received 221 entries from 53 countries.
Now a judging panel of international experts will spend the summer sifting and checking applicants. Four winners will be announced on Armistice Day, 11 November 2014. Each will be invited to London then to receive their prize of $4,000.
Competition organiser Ruairi Nolan said: “We were delighted with the quality and number of entries this year. It shows the range and excellence of work being done by local peacebuilders all over the world, to stop conflicts and build a better future for their own communities.”
The judges for this second year of the competition are: Bridget Kendall MBE (distinguished broadcaster and BBC diplomatic correspondent), Lord Jack McConnell (former UK Special Representative on peacebuilding, and former First Minister of Scotland), Mariam Barandia (founder of last year’s winner, Kapamagogopa Incorporated, from the Philippines), Stephen Oola (Ugandan peacebuilder and lawyer), Gay Rosenblum-Kumar (Executive Secretary of the UN Interagency Framework Team on Preventive Action), and Michael Ryder CMG (former UK diplomat and now Chair of Peace Direct).
Tomorrow’s Peacebuilders was launched in 2013. Winners last year worked on issues including child soldiers and the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, narco-wars in Colombia, and Muslim-Christian prejudice in the Philippines.
