Co-Founders of 100 Lives Call on Ban Ki-Moon to Join Nomination of Candidates for Aurora Prize

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon

YEREVAN (ARMENPRESS)—Co-founders of the 100 Lives initiative, Ruben Vardanyan, Nubar Afeyan and Vartan Gregoryan, have sent an open letter to United Nations Secretary-General , Ban Ki-Moon, joining the campaign of World Humanitarian Day initiated by the UN.

In their letter, the founders of 100 Lives said that they created the initiative based on a deep sense of responsibility and appreciation, as well as to remember and honor those individuals whose selfless activities saved lives 100 years ago during the Armenian Genocide.

“This initiative attempts to transfer the interesting stories of both saviors and survivors. As part of the initiative we created a new world Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, which will be awarded annually to those humane people who put themselves at risk to enable others to survive. The winner will be prized with a US$100,000 award, as well as a US$1,000,000 grant will be donated to the charitable organization that inspired their work”.

They emphasized that the Aurora Prize does the same job as the UN’s World Humanitarian Day, which sheds light on humanitarian acts throughout the world and introduces the valiant heroes of humanity.

“This Prize seeks to draw the world’s attention to some of the remarkable efforts being undertaken to help save the world’s most vulnerable from humanitarian crises happening around the globe. We invite the public to [the] www.100Lives.com/Prize online portal to take part in the nomination process of candidates. We hope that you will join us to submit nominations for candidates. We want to honor those who risk their own safety because of a heightened sense of humanity and responsibility and support life-saving causes in a tangible way.”