LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
Dr. David M. Dror (2011-12)
Dr. Dror is a Swiss national residing in India. He has dedicated himself to developing and implementing a micro insurance model that could deliver financial safety directly to grassroots communities. Years of field-work in low-income settings confirmed that poor people had nowhere to turn for the insurance knowledge required to organize their own Micro insurance Units. He established the non-profit Micro Insurance Academy to provide structured Technical Assistance, to "help communities manage risks from the ground up". This micro insurance solution offers an answer to inevitable calamities, while simultaneously ensuring it is customized to the needs of poor, allowing their participation in insurance design/administration. It is socially responsible to people. He has been felicitated with numerous awards and grants and also has had his articles published in various journals.June Connolly (2010-11)
June Connolly was born in Dublin, Ireland and completed education in the U.K. She is a writer and a poet. She began volunteering for various causes since early childhood and grew up in post war Ireland and England facing many hardships. She has worked with social health helping run both a home for orphans as well as for alcoholics. She is an animal lover. After retirement she trained with the Woodgreen animal Shelter, U.K. and returned to India where she was supervising and monitoring care for countless animals that were sick, injured and abused from the streets. She can be seen feeding stray dogs on the streets, counseling people on how to care for their pets or solving animal related problems in the community. There are even times where she can be seen fighting for the rights of animals with overloaded bullock carts drivers at busy traffic lights. She is an inspiration for an individual who is 74 years and has dedicated her life to the welfare of the society.
Kumi Naidoo (2010-11)
Kumi Naidoo is the Greenpeace International Executive Director. He was born in South Africa and became involved in his country's liberation struggle at the age of 15. He was very active in neighbourhood organization, youth work and mass mobilizations against the apartheid regime. In 1990, Kumi returned to South Africa from England to work on the legalization of the African National Congress and directed the training of all electoral staff in the country. Kumi became the founding executive director of the South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO), an umbrella agency for the South African NGO community and organized the National Men's March Against Violence on Women and Children in 1997. Kumi was involved with the World Alliance for Citizen Participation, which is dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world. He was the founding Chair of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), served as Chair of the civil society alliance 'Global Campaign for Climate Action' (GCCA) and also served as a board member of the Association for Women's Rights in Development.
Loralee Martha-Mae Lee (2010-11)
Loralee Martha-Mae Lee and David John Lee are residents of France. Loralee has written a book on their family story named 'Three Indian Orphans Touched by Destiny' which is a very inspirational story. This book highlights how international adoption brings human beings together across national boundaries. Through this, they wanted to show that the barriers to adoption are psychological and institutional, and that "being an international adoptive family" is really just being a family. This very global Canadian/British couple adopted three Indian orphans who have today become international Indians and true citizens of the world. Adopting a child is very clearly a citizen action, impacting only a few lives but doing so profoundly. On the global scale there are so many children needing adoption and so many childless parents yearning to adopt. They feel that if they could adopt a hundred children, they would. They believe that more than leaving things to governments and high profile charities, individual citizen actions can have far more powerful impact, not just on individual lives but on the relationship between nations and cultures.
David John Lee (2010-11)
David John Lee and Loralee Martha-Mae Lee are residents of France. This very global Canadian/British couple adopted three Indian orphans who have today become international Indians and true citizens of the world. Adopting a child is very clearly a citizen action, impacting only a few lives but doing so profoundly. On the global scale there are so many children needing adoption and so many childless parents yearning to adopt. They feel that if they could adopt a hundred children, they would. They believe that more than leaving things to governments and high profile charities, individual citizen actions can have far more powerful impact, not just on individual lives but on the relationship between nations and cultures. Loralee has written a book on their family story named 'Three Indian Orphans Touched by Destiny' which is a very inspirational story. This book highlights how international adoption brings human beings together across national boundaries. Through this, they wanted to show that the barriers to adoption are psychological and institutional, and that "being an international adoptive family" is really just being a family.