Nominations Begin for 2021 CAHR Award

By Omolabake Fasogbon

The organisers of the Community and Human Rights (CAHR) Awards, CSR-in-Action, have announced the commencement of nomination exercise for the 2021 edition of the award.

Now in its third year, the annual CAHR Awards has been extended to cover the entire African continent.

The Award is reported to be Nigeria’s first that is dedicated to celebrating outstanding individuals and organisations that have performed excellently in engaging their communities creditably through inclusion, equity, environmental awareness, poverty alleviation, education and general promotion of human dignity.

Previous winners of the award were: Agip Oil Company Ltd, Alhaji Aliko Dangote , current WTO Director-General, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and human rights activist, Aisha Yesufu.

Speaking further, Chief Executive of CSR-in-Action and chief host of the CAHR Awards, Bekeme Masade-Olowola reiterated the motive of the initiative.

He said, “It is now ever more pertinent to promote a keen sense of community, human empathy, integrity and in our pan-African societies amidst intensifying conversations around insecurity, poverty, injustice and inequality.”

CSR-in-Action Advocacy Chairman, Prof. Wale Omole, added that “ The Awards seek to celebrate individuals and organisations, either big or small, famous or unsung, who have contributed immensely, either through their leadership or advocacy, to engendering development, justice and fairness in communities across Africa. We are calling you to nominate your community development and human rights heroes.”

The organisers explained further that the awards have seven different award categories, with at least nine awards to be won by individuals and corporates, whw each award is dedicated to a late historically prominent personality.

Available categories included: the Ken Saro-Wiwa Environmental Management Award, MKO Abiola Community Engagement Award, Hajiya Gambo Sawaba Community Impact Award, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti Human Rights Award, Mallam Aminu Kano Award for Leadership, Josephine Nkemdilim Equal Rights Award, and Apostle Hayford Alile Humanitarian Award.

Members of the public are advised to visit CAHR award website to make their nominations which will end by June 4.

Olowola explained further that the selection of winners and presentation of the CAHR Awards follow a rigorous six-step process.

According to him, “the first phase is when individuals and organisations are nominated by themselves or by the general public for suitable award categories. Then, the internal review process of sieving multiple nominations, verification of persons and their qualification for the category entered, and selection of the most impressive/suitable profiles based on available resources online.

“Next is the voting stage where the voting portal is opened to the public to allow the selection of deserving recipients of the various categories of the CAHR Awards.

After that, shortlisted award nominees will be asked of documentary proof to validate their qualification to the categories for which they have been nominated.

“In the final stage the CAHR Awards Jury will scrutinise information provided by the award nominees and will judge based on a set of criteria. The winners will be presented their awards at a colourful ceremony in October 2021.”