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HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS AWARDS 2022 WINNERS ANNOUNCED
HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS AWARDS 2022 WINNERS ANNOUNCED
2 November 2022, Nairobi, Kenya
On behalf of the Working Group on Human Rights Defenders, Defenders Coalition and the Embassy of Sweden in Kenya congratulates the winners of the 2022 Human Rights Defenders Awards after a feting ceremony held on 2 December 2022 in Nairobi.
The winners in the various categories are individuals and groups that have exemplified unbelievable courage, commitment and selflessness in the defence of human rights and promotion of justice for the weak the society.
Through the Awards, we aim to motivate and showcase what ordinary citizens should do with their own communities to speak truth to power and advance constitutionalism.
The 2022 Human Rights Defenders Awards are unique in recognition that young kids can also contribute and set the pace for adults in doing what is right.
For instance, the case of Lia Gem – the winner of the Upcoming Human Rights Defender of the Year Award – is model for every citizen in terms of what they ought to do, no matter how young or old they are.
THE WINNERS
CATEGORY A: UPCOMING HRD OF THE YEAR AWARD
WINNER 1 – LISA GEM
Lisa is a 10-year-old, grade 4 pupil from M.M Shah Primary School in Kisumu and is a human rights defender who believes she was born to change the world through her words and actions. Her starting point was with children and the environment because that is where she found a home. She desires every child to enjoy life and a loving upbringing free from abuse and lack of necessities.
Through her advocacy actions, Lisa has conducted campaigns supporting pediatric cancer survivors, ecological justice, and the rights of health workers in Vihiga and Kisumu County. She also petitioned the Kisumu County Government to invest in pediatric cancer management at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital.
Lisa also started Children’s rights clubs in 5 public schools in Kisumu. She spends her free time doing sanitation campaigns in Manyatta and Mamboleo settlements in Kisumu and teaching children photography as a communication tool.
Lisa enjoys playing scrabble, modelling, dancing, and storytelling in her free time.
WINNER 2 – BILLY HANI
Billy Hani is a queer artist and activist based in Kenya. They use writing and photography to explore African queerness, sexuality, gender identity and expression, bodies and mental health. Billy co-curates HeART Out Kenya, an art therapy initiative for feminists, LGBTIQ+ folks and activists. Billy’s feminism and activism are grounded on Queer Joy and Rest.
Billy started activism in 2018 through education on LGBTIQ+ issues on Social Media. They first volunteered as a Sexual Reproductive Health Rights advocate at Q-Initiative Eldoret, where they championed the rights of Sexual and Gender Minorities. Over the past five years, they have advocated for LGBTIQ+ rights online and physically in different local and national spaces aiming to improve understanding, acceptance and the upholding of LGBTIQ+ people’s rights in Kenya. They have written extensively on the issues that Sexual and Gender Minorities go through and continue to document similar stories through writing and photography. As an activist, Billy believes that education and accurate information are necessary to realize LGBTIQ+ human rights. Billy’s articles can be found in FemInStyle Magazine, Minority Africa, Adventures From the Bedrooms of African Women and The Continent, among others. Currently, they are working on using art to promote mental wellness, especially among activists and feminists, through HeART Out Kenya, which they co-founded in 2021.
WINNER 3 – GRACE KALEKYE
Grace Kalekye Mwangangi is an anti-human trafficking advocate and intern at Free the Slaves, a journalist and musician. In 2018 she was trafficked to India and forced into sex work, an experience that inspired her to become an anti-human trafficking advocate. Since 2019 when she returned to Kenya, Grace has been using TV, radio and online platforms to share her story and create awareness of human trafficking.
Being an anti-human trafficking advocate has opened opportunities for Grace, which have helped her grow as a leader and expounded her network to other human rights defenders. She hopes to one day have her platform where survivors will tell their stories and connect victims to their families. Grace also intends to work with government agencies, non-governmental organizations and religious leaders to advocate for strict anti-human trafficking policies and frameworks.
Human trafficking is a sensitive area due to its illegality and criminal nature. However, Grace loves her work and is willing to continue the cause to help others who may find themselves in such situations.
CATEGORY B: HRD OF THE YEAR AWARD
WINNER: JOHN ALLAN NAMU
John-Allan is a Kenyan investigative journalist and the co-founder of Africa Uncensored. He has been a journalist for 17 years and has spent considerable time focusing on numerous social justice issues. Notable among these is his journalistic work about excessive use of force, extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances perpetrated by Kenya’s security agencies. His most recent work on the subject is titled “Justice be our shield”, a documentary profiling the planning and execution of a murder plot against human rights lawyer and investigator Willie Kimani, his client Josephat Mwenda and their driver Joseph Muiruri.
Africa Uncensored, the organization he co-founded in 2015, is earning a reputation for honest, incisive, and hard-hitting journalism, both locally and on the African continent. The organization’s goal to investigate, expose and empower is founded on the belief in the power of investigative and in-depth journalism as a force for good. John-Allan hopes that his work as a journalist will inspire coming generations of journalists to hold power to account, doing so professionally and with passion for Africa.
John-Allan is the 2015 and 2017 joint journalist of the year Annual Journalism Excellence Awards, a 2019 Global Shining light award winner, a 2019 Trace International Prize on investigative journalism winner, and the 2009 CNN African Journalist of the Year. He is a 2009 CNN fellow and a 2017 Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellow. He holds a BA in Journalism from the United States International University – Africa and is pursuing an Executive master’s degree in media leadership and innovation. He is married and lives in Nairobi with his wife and four children.
CATEGORY C: LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
WINNER: MICERE MUGO
Micere Githae Mugo is a renown playwright, author, activist, instructor and poet recognized internationally for her literary works, essays and writings which she has used as a platform to advocate for social justice and human rights in Africa especially Kenya.
Mugo was a political activist who fought against human rights abuses in Kenya. Her political activism led to her being harassed by the police and arrested. Mugo and her family were forced to depart Kenya in 1982 after the attempted coup after which she became a target of government harassment and her citizenship stripped off.
Mugo went to Zimbabwe for a time, where she found a teaching post, and continued to write. Her second work of literary criticism, African Orature and Human Rights, appeared in 1991. The work is a discussion of the storytelling culture of the Ndia people in Kenya’s Kirinyaga District and that culture is in relation to politics. In such a society, Mugo’s thesis maintained, the orature artist is a defender of human rights in the community. Her work has been cited as verbal arts that expresses both the society’s negative and positive qualities, its strengths and challenges, its justice and injustices, its realities, and ideals.
Micere has continued to use her literature work to speak out and stir conversation at any time when she could not stand the myopic political elite as they oppressed the common citizen and continue to violate basic human rights.
CATEGORY D: GLOBAL SOLIDARITY AWARD
WINNER – ANGELA YVONNE DAVIS
Angela Davis is a prominent writer, feminist, political activist, and educator. She is most well known for her involvement in the civil rights and Black liberation movements, as well as for being a leading advocate for prison abolition. Ms. Davis rose to prominence in 1969 when her campaign to defend three black soldiers in Soledad Prison and her affiliation with the Communist Party led to her being fired from the University of California, Los Angeles. Following her own experience with arrest and imprisonment, in the early 1970s, she went on to found Critical Resistance, a national grassroots organization aimed to dismantle the prison-industrial complex. Along with prison reform, Ms. Davis has advocated for social issues related to gender, race and class and has authored many books and articles on these subjects.
In 1997, Davis came out as a lesbian and has since continued to tackle oppression faced by the black community, women, and the LGBTQ+ community.
Her scholarly contribution has been a great influence on grassroots human rights movements organizing and the support and solidarity to the human rights struggles have been immense contributed to the growth and rising of global south feminist movements and minority right groups.
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Advocating for the respect of Human Rights is high risk. Groups and individuals who walk this road are often the targets for reprisals by authorities and private groups who make use of various forms of repression to silence them. The “Declaration of the Rights and Responsibility of individuals, groups and organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms” was adopted in December 1998 and defines these advocates as human rights defenders.
The Defenders Coalition and the Working group on Human Rights Defenders (WGHRD) have played a pioneering role in the protection and recognition of human rights defenders.The WGHRD launched the inaugural Human Rights Defenders(HRD) awards in 2016 to:
The awards are presented in three categories and one recognition category:
The winners in each Awards category will receive:
The Working Group on Human Rights Defenders in Kenya develops a call for nominations, which is then widely circulated by the Defenders Coalition and other partners. This call outlines the criteria for eligibility for nomination. Individual HRDs can be nominated in the four categories.
A shortlisting panel composed of missions and CSO organizations involved in the planning of the HRD Awards then shortlists five individuals per category within the set-out guidelines for shortlisting candidates.
The panel conducts verification of the nominees regarding their human rights work through field visits, and interviews with the nominators, the nominees and their references.
The Independent Selection Panel, which comprises of eminent individuals in the human rights sector, makes a final decision, from the names submitted, on the recipient of the three awards and the runner up.
The celebration is held annually towards the end of the year. (November of December). The event is hosted by the Ambassador of the mission that co-chairs the Working Group on HRDs. The participants of the event are all the nominees, the family, missions, government officials and the media to commemorate their achievements.
The following will be taken into consideration:
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