Mr. Ross Perot, Jr., Chairman of the EastWest Institute;
 Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister of the U.A.E;
Dr. Zalmai Rassoul, Foreign Minister of Afghanistan;
 Ms. Shinkai Karokhail, Member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan;
 Dr. Donya Aziz, Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan;
Ms. Shezreh Mirza;
Mr. Koichiro Gemba, Foreign Minister of Japan;
 Mr. John Edwin Mroz, President and C.E.O. of the EastWest Institute

Mr. Koichiro Gemba, Foreign Minister of Japan

Mr. Ross Perot, chairman of the EastWest Institute, Jr.;
Gen. (ret.) Jim Jones, former National Security Advisor;
Ms. Shezreh Mirza;
Dr. Donya Aziz, Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan;
 Ms. Haifa Al Kaylani, Founder and Chairman
 of the Arab International Women’s Forum;
Mrs. Sarah Perot,
 Member of the EastWest Institute board of Directors.

Mr. Ross Perot, chairman of the EastWest Institute;
Ms. Shinkai Karokhail, Member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan;
Dr. Donya Aziz, of the National Assembly of Pakistan;
 Ms. Shezreh Mirza;
 Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister of the U.A.E

Mr. John Edwin Mroz, President and C.E.O. of the EastWest Institute;
 Mr. John Whitehead, Former Deputy Secretary of State;
Dr. Zalmai Rassoul, Foreign Minister of Afghanistan;
Mr. Koichiro Gemba, Foreign Minister of Japan;
Dr. Gerald Curtis,Columbia University ;
Mr. Ross Perot, Jr., Chairman of the EastWest Institute

Mr. Andrew Nagorski, Vice President and Director of Public Policy
 at the EastWest Institute

Mr. Ron O’Hanley, President, Asset Management and Corporate Services,
Fidelity Investments

Mr. John Edwin Mroz, President and C.E.O. of the EastWest Institute;
Mr. Koichiro Gemba, Foreign Minister of Japan

Mrs. Karen Mroz, President of Middle East Children’s Institute;
 Mr. Hamid Ansari, President and Co-founder, Prodea Systems

Ms. Shezreh Mirza

Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Foreign Minister of the U.A.E

Ms. Shinkai Karokhail, member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan;
Sarah Perot, member of the EastWest Institute Board of Directors

Dr. Zalmai Rassoul, Foreign Minister of Afghanistan

Mr. John Whitehead, former Deputy Secretary of State

Anousheh Ansari, Co-Founder and Chairwoman of Prodea Systems;
 Francis Finlay, EastWest Institute Chairman Emeritus

Jonathan Mroz; Karen Linehan Mroz, President of Middle East Children’s Institute and Alex Von Bidder, Managing Partner, Four Seasons

Shezreh Mirza; Jonathan Mroz; Anousheh Ansari,
 co-founder and chairwoman of Prodea Systems; Amrah Khan

Gulmina Mahmud; Christopher Cole; Anya Raza; Jennifer Rostami

Rebecca Manty, EastWest Institute; Tanya Henderson, WAND;
Joelle Rizk, EastWest Institute

Thomas Lynch, EastWest Institute; Daniel Karpantschof

Christopher Cole; Ms. Shinkai Karokhail,
 Member of the National Assembly of Afghanistan; Sonia Cole

EastWest Institute

 2012 Awards to Afghan and Pakistani
Women Parliamentarians and the People of Japan

The EastWest Institute
 presented the 2012 Leadership Award to Afghan and Pakistani women parliamentarians, and the 2012 International Peace Building Award to the people of Japan. Dr. Fehmida Mirza, first woman speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan, and Ms. Shinkai Karokhail, a renowned women's rights activist and member of the Afghan Parliament, will receive the leadership award for their inspiring record. Japan's Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba will accept the International Peace Building Award on behalf of the Japanese people, who have provided critical economic and development assistance to Afghanistan.

Dr. Mirza and Ms. Karokhail are the first recipients of the Leadership award named for a champion of women's rights, H.H. Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak. The wife of the late Sheikh Zayed of the United Arab Emirates, she founded the first UAE women's organization in 1973: the Abu Dhabi Society for the Awakening of Women. Ms. Donya Aziz will represent the National Assembly of Pakistan, and Ms. Shezreh Mirza will accept the award on behalf of Dr. Mirza.


These distinguished honorees are deeply involved in EWI's Women, Peace and Security trust-building work in Pakistan and Afghanistan. This awards dinner coincides with EWI's release of Women, Peace and Security, a report on the first visit of Pakistani women parliamentarians to Afghanistan.


The International Peace Building award recognizes individuals and groups that have made great strides in building peace across borders and cultures. Nobel Peace laureate Mohamed ElBaradei and Sergio Vieira de Mello, the late United Nations high commissioner for human rights, are among the previous recipients
 of the award.

"There are few more important ways of instigating positive change in the world than the empowerment of women for heightened participation in political decision making including foreign and defense matters."
 
said EWI President John Mroz.

"Dr. Mirza and Ms. Karokhail are groundbreaking, visionary leaders. Their leadership deserves to be recognized beyond their borders as a beacon of inspiration to others.
 It is also a great honor to present the prestigious
International Peace Building Award to the people of Japan."

Dr. Mirza was elected on March 19, 2008 as the nineteenth speaker of the National Assembly of Pakistan, making her the first National Assembly woman speaker in the Muslim World. She has been elected to the Pakistani Parliament for three consecutive terms in 1997, 2002 and 2008. She has been a member of the National Assembly's Standing Committees on Population Welfare and Women's Development, Health, Social Welfare and Special Education, and Commerce and Industries. In 1982, Dr. Mirza received her degree from Liaquat Medical College, with a specialty in gynecology and pediatrics. She is also very active in philanthropic and humanitarian work.


Ms. Karokhail is a renowned women's rights activist and member of the Afghan Parliament. She worked for more than 10 years as a volunteer and then the director of the Afghan Women's Educational Center (AWEC), which runs programming on child rights and women's education and empowerment. She is the founder and coordinator of the Afghan Civil Society and Parliamentarian Network of Women. She has been vocal on issues of justice, human rights and women's rights throughout her five-year parliamentary career. Ms. Karokhail has built a strong alliance with Afghan civil society on issues of women's rights advocacy, including the Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW) bill, the reform of proposed Shiite Personal Status Law and the
 National Action Plan for Women in Afghanistan (NAPWA).

Mr. Gemba has served as Japan's foreign minister since September 2011. Previously he held positions as the Minister for National Policy, Minister of State for the New Public Commons, Minister of State for Science and Technology Policy and Minister of State for Space Policy. As minister of national policy, he played a central role in drafting a new energy policy that gradually reduces Japan's dependence on nuclear power. A member of the Democratic Party, Gemba has been elected to the House of Representatives for six terms, initially in 1993 after serving in the assembly of Fukushima Prefecture for one term. He graduated from Sophia University and the
Matsushita Institute of Government and Management.




About the EastWest Institute:

The EastWest Institute is an international, non-partisan, not-for profit policy organization focused solely on confronting critical challenges that endanger peace.
EWI was established in 1980 as a catalyst to build trust, develop leadership,
and promote collaboration for positive change.

 The institute has offices in New York, Brussels and Moscow.

 For more information about the institute,

please visit
www.ewi.info.

 

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