Gloria Laker accepts the Luxembourg Peace Prize 
alongside her daughter Cindy.

Inspirational PJ advocate accepts Luxembourg Peace Prize
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.”

Gloria Laker's acceptance speech

In her acceptance speech, Gloria traced her roots as a displaced person, then later as a young reporter 
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 13^th 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. 

An icebreaker activity at the Luxembourg Peace Prize ceremony.