On April 24, at the Global Humanitarian Prize Award ceremony, the “Aurora” prize was awarded to Marguerite Barankitse from Burundi. During the civil war, she established a “Maison Shalom” orphanage to save the children from ethnic cleansing. “I am grateful to the “Aurora” award which hopefully will put an end to the chain of violence,” said the winner, stressing that all people are citizens of the world.
The winner’s dream is to send the children of the orphanage to the world with a campaign “never again”. The “Aurora” winner cited Charles Aznavour’s famous “For you Armenia” song in her speech, especially the last lines and then sang the national anthem of her country specifically emphasizing, love will always win. Charles Aznavour started his speech in Armenian, “Wait, I will make the speech in Armenian but my Armenian is not perfect, I speak but I practice it only in my family. My father used to speak Eastern Armenia and my mother used to speak Turkish-Armenian. I do not speak Armenian on the stage, nor French or English. When I open my mouth, I do it for singing.”
Gohar HAKOBYAN
