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Press Release: Winner Peace Award 2015 | PDF 26 KB

The Bremen schwelle Foundation was founded in 1979 by the Bremen stevedore company businessman Dirk Heinrichs and his wife Ruth-Christa. In 1994 Wiebke and Reinhard Jung became co-sponsors. The Foundation presently supports projects in southeastern Europe, East and Central Africa, Israel and Palestine, as well as in Bremen.


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Press Release: The Bremen Peace Award winners have been chosen

Bremen, 17.9.2015. A 20 year old refugee blogger from Somalia, a peace work initiative in Syria and an international mediator from Northern Ireland experienced in dealing with crisis are the prize winners of the seventh Bremen International Peace Award 2015. The schwelle Foundation has announced the winners this Thursday (17th September 2015).

The award, endowed with a total of 15,000 Euros, is divided into three categories of equal importance and will be presented on Friday the 27th November in the town hall in Bremen. “The misery of the refugees, the war in Syria and international crises – the concerns of our award winners have rarely reflected the current state of the news as closely as they do this year”, says Petra Titze, the foundation’s director. Patron of the award ceremony is Bremen’s mayor Karoline Linnert.

The Somali blogger Farah Abdullahi Abdi is honoured as the “Unknown Peace Worker”. Now 20 years old, he fled four years ago from his home country where he was threatened with legal persecution on account of his homosexuality. Whilst fleeing through several countries, he was taken prisoner; he was physically mistreated and grafted for months without pay on building sites until he managed to escape from Libya across the Mediterranean Sea to Malta. From this base, he persistently campaigns today for the rights of refugees, whether as a blogger using the online portal “Malta Today”, as a staff member of the relief organisation “terres des hommes” or as speaker in front of representatives of the EU and the United Nations.

The peace award in the category “Exemplary Initiative” goes to the organisation from Leipzig “adopt a revolution”, which supports civil society commitment in Syria. Caught between Isis terror and bomb raids carried out by the Assad regime, numerous Syrian initiatives work with great persistence to create a democratic and peaceful future for their country. They rebuild kindergartens which have been destroyed. They smuggle food into a city under siege. They weaken public support for the radical Islamists by making their brutality known to the public. And they campaign in centres for civil society for freedom, democracy, human rights and human dignity. The Leipzig initiative “adopt a revolution” draws public attention to this work here in Germany, collects donations and campaigns for a more differentiated way of viewing the war in Syria. 

The award for Public Engagement goes to the Irish mediator Mary Montague. For decades, the 63 year old acted as a mediator in the Northern Ireland conflict and made a significant contribution in reconciling the hostile parties. With her strong sense of courage, compassion and sense of justice, she was repeatedly able to gain the trust of all conflicting parties - not only in her native country, but also in Kosovo, Pakistan, Afghanistan and in the Sudan. In spite of her peaceful attitude, for many years she received death threats in her home country which did not stop her from persistently continuing her work. Meanwhile, she can look back on 40 years of experience as a mediator and has passed her knowledge on to many people in many different parts of the world.

Further information on the award winners can be found at www.dieschwelle.de/en/peace-award 
Printable photos of the award winners are to be found at www.dieschwelle.de/en/press

The International Bremen Peace Award has been presented every two years since 2003. The schwelle Foundation honours people and organizations whose work is a role-model for reconciliation, human rights, overcoming racism, for social justice, future-oriented and sustainable way of dealing with nature, as well as intercultural and interreligious understanding and communication.

 

 

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