Deborah Ahenkorah

Deborah Ahenkorah

Deborah Ahenkorah, the executive director of the Golden Baobab Awards’ was announced the winner of the Global Pluralism Award 2019 on October 15, 2019.

The Global Pluralism Award celebrates the extraordinary achievements of organizations, individuals and governments who are tackling the challenge of living peacefully and productively with diversity. The Award is a program of the Global Centre for Pluralism, a non-profit organization founded by His Highness the Aga Khan in partnership with the Government of Canada.

The award this year was being judged by Joe Clark the former Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister of Canada, Canada who is the chair alongside Paula Gaviria Betancur the Presidential Advisor on Human Rights, Colombia; Siva Kumari, Director General of the International Baccalaureate, USA; Tarek Mitri, Director of the Fares Institute on Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon; Naheed Nenshi, Mayor of Calgary, Canada; and Pascale Thumerelle, Founder of Respethica and former Head of Sustainability at Vivendi, France.

This team recognised Deborah Ahenkorah (Ghana), the Center for Social Integrity (Myanmar) and ‘Learning History That Is Not Yet History’ (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia) as outstanding leaders promoting inclusion worldwide.

Joe Clark, former Prime Minister of Canada and Chair of the Award Jury, said, “The jury was inspired by the vital work of the award winners and the hundreds of impressive submissions received. They are all deeply committed to equipping the next generation of leaders with the knowledge and empathy to respond to the biggest challenges to pluralism today and in the future.”

Our focus here at JamesMurua.com is Deborah Ahenkorah, the children’s book publisher who co-founded Golden Baobab to empower African writers and illustrators to tell African children’s stories. She advocates for more representative children’s literature, helping readers access accurate portrayals of Africa produced by Africans. Golden Baobab offers the world’s only prize celebrating African writers and illustrators. Ahenkorah also created African Bureau Stories, a children’s publishing house.

 

Award winner, Deborah Ahenkorah said, “I feel incredibly blessed to receive this award and after a decade of work championing the importance of African literature for children, this honour highlights how much closer we are to the goal of placing African children’s literature on a deserving global pedestal. I continue to look forward to that day when you can walk into a bookstore anywhere in the world and find incredible African stories available for all.”