LONDON, January 17, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
David Miliband's International
Rescue Committee Major Beneficiary of Kapoor's
Gift
The Genesis Prize Foundation (GPF) and 2017 Genesis Prize
Laureate and world-renowned artist and human rights activist
Anish Kapoor today announced grants
to five prominent NGOs engaged in alleviating the global refugee
crisis.
(Photo:
https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/629297/Anish_Kapoor.jpg )
The recipient organizations assist refugees globally and include
the International Rescue Committee (IRC), led by its president
David Miliband, as well as the
Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees (MFA), HIAS (founded as the
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society), Help Refugees, and Hillel
International.
The grants are funded by the $1
million Genesis Prize, dubbed the "Jewish Nobel" by TIME
Magazine. Anish Kapoor has chosen to
focus on refugees as an expression both of his lifelong commitment
to supporting excluded people and as an expression of core Jewish
values.
The Genesis Prize honors extraordinary individuals who serve as
an inspiration to the next generation of Jews through their
outstanding professional achievement, and commitment to the Jewish
people and Jewish values, such as social justice, tolerance and
charity. Laureates of the Genesis Prize include Michael R. Bloomberg (2014), Michael Douglas (2015), Itzhak Perlman (2016), and Natalie Portman (2018). In November 2017, U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg was selected as
the inaugural recipient of the Genesis Lifetime Achievement
Award.
Kapoor and The Genesis Prize Foundation have teamed up with the
IRC to improve community health services for refugees in northern
Uganda and to provide life-saving
access to safe water for the Rohingya ethnic minority group in the
Rakhine state in Myanmar. Genesis
funds will also support the expansion into Italy of Refugee.Info, a digital platform,
which harnesses social media and other digital tools to ensure that
refugees have access to the critical information they need to make
informed decisions about their lives.
Additionally, Kapoor's $1 million
Genesis Prize will fund the following activities:
- Providing life-saving winterization to five refugee camps in
Greece and a refugee camp in
Calais, France, including the
funding of food and the most essential winter equipment (through
Help Refugees)
- Shipping 36 containers of aid to Syrian refugees (through
Multifaith Alliance for Syrian Refugees); the contents of the first
two containers that MFA will ship under the Genesis Prize program
will have a combined value of $20.7
million in medicines and medical equipment
- Strengthening the capacity of local leaders in communities
across America to advocate in support of immigrants and refugees to
the U.S. (through HIAS); the amount of the grant was doubled as a
result of recent policy debate in Washington aimed at curtailing the number of
immigrants and refugees from certain countries that the U.S. would
accept in the future
- Bringing thousands of Jewish students and young adult
volunteers together to assemble aid packages for 5,000 Syrian
refugees (through Hillel International, in collaboration with the
Joint Distribution Committee)
These grants come on the heels of an earlier announcement of a
major grant from GPF to Ziv hospital in northern Israel to fund hearing restoration for Syrian
children brought from the neighbouring conflict zone. The Ziv grant
was made in partnership with Israeli philanthropist Morris Kahn.
Anish Kapoor said: "Like many
Jews, I do not have to go far back in my family history to find
people who were refugees. Directing Genesis Prize funds to this
cause is a way of helping people who, like my forebears not too
long before them, are fleeing persecution.
"In recent months, awareness of the plight faced by tens of
millions of refugees and displaced persons worldwide has fallen
significantly while the refugee crisis continues unabated. I
believe in a world of compassion, and am fortunate to be able to
work with The Genesis Prize Foundation and the terrific NGOs
receiving our grants to bring more compassion into the world."
Michael Fridman, co-founder of
The Genesis Prize Foundation, said: "I believe it is a moral
obligation of every Jew to do whatever he or she can to help
refugees, displaced people, and those seeking asylum. There was a
time not too long ago when the world turned its back on Jewish
refugees, with calamitous results. We, Jews, should not allow
history to repeat itself when it comes to other persecuted peoples
and religious and ethnic minorities. Otherwise, we have learned
nothing from history." In addition to co-founding The Genesis Prize
Foundation, Fridman is a major contributor to many other Jewish and
Israel-focused philanthropic
initiatives, including the recently announced renovation of the
Israeli Lounge at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.
President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee,
David Miliband, himself a son of
Jewish refugees, said: "Grants like the one from The Genesis Prize
Foundation are vital to supporting our work as we grapple with the
largest displacement crisis since the Second World War, affecting a
staggering 65 million people.
"We are grateful to The Genesis Prize Foundation, which is
leading the way in raising awareness of the refugee issue in the
Jewish community. It is more important than ever for people to help
those who have been forced to flee their homes. With these funds,
the IRC will have the ability to provide much-needed resources and
support to displaced people in areas across Europe, Africa and Southeast
Asia."