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Gloria Laker accepts the Luxembourg Peace Prize alongside her daughter Cindy. |
I’m a proud uncle. Or colleague. Or friend. Or brother from another mother.
Whatever I am, I was bursting with pride last Friday as my closest
colleague Gloria Laker Adiiki Aciro (let’s call her Gloria) from Uganda was
awarded the Luxembourg Peace Prize for peace journalism in an awards ceremony at
the European Convention Center in Luxembourg. Gloria and I have worked side-by-side
on PJ projects in East Africa and Turkey since 2007.
I had the honor of introducing Gloria to the gathered
laureates and well-wishers, including Gloria’s daughter Cindy and sister
Maureen, who flew in from London. In my introductory comments, I listed Gloria’s
many accomplishments, including:
--Training 800 reporters in peace journalism in Uganda, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, South Sudan, Turkey,
and Zimbabwe
--Launching the Peace Journalism Foundation-Uganda in 2011
-- Founding the Uganda Refugee and Migration Media Network and the platform
Refugee Online News, which highlights stories produced for and by refugees. Refugee
Online News offers a counternarrative to the typically negative, victimizing
and demonizing reporting about refugees.
-- Receiving of Golden Jubilee Medal, presented by Ugandan President Museveni,
in 2019.
--Being nominated for the BBC Outlook Inspiration Award
As I concluded
my comments, I noted that, ”Any cold recitation of Gloria's qualifications
misses her tremendous impact on Ugandan journalism generally, and female
journalists particularly. She is a respected, even revered, role model who has
inspired hundreds of young women to pursue journalism… Gloria is truly an
inspiration, and the embodiment of what it means to be a peace journalist.”
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Gloria Laker's acceptance speech |
during the LRA (Joseph Kony) war in Uganda. She humbly thanked her family and colleagues, and talked about all of the important peacebuilding work that still needs to be done.
I can’t wait
to see what she accomplishes next.
Gloria’s was one of seven Luxembourg Peace Prizes presented at the 13th LPP ceremony. The others were for Outstanding Environmental Peace (Tony Rinuado, Australia); Outstanding Peace Activist (World Central Kitchen, U.S.); Outstanding Peace Process (Dror Rubin, Israel, and Ghardir Hani, Palestine); Outstanding Peace Support (Chiche!, Luxembourg); Outstanding Youth Peacemaker (Peace Activists Afghanistan); and for Outstanding Peace Activism (Jennifer Teege, Germany). For more information, see the event’s program at https://luxembourgpeaceprize.org/2025-program/ .
The Luxembourg Peace Prize honors outstanding contributions to peace-building, conflict resolution, and humanitarian efforts around the world. It is sponsored by the Schengen Peace Foundation.
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An icebreaker activity at the Luxembourg Peace Prize ceremony. |